From what I can tell, A Simple Life is a board game simulator of a farming video game. (One reviewer compared it to Stardew Valley, a game I know nothing about) For me, it was like a Roll and Write version of Agricola.
Other than not having to feed anyone and going down into mines to fight monsters. What actually happens in Stardew Valley? Plant seeds, go to
market and fight monsters in the dungeon?
All that said, A Simple Life manages to condense quite a few farm-themed resource management tropes onto one page. It both gives you actual choices to make while having the actual mechanics be fairly simple.
You have ten days to both achieve a randomly determined goal. Each day, you will roll five dice and assign them to four different areas on the play sheet.
I’m not going to go into exhaustive detail. You have the farm, where you grow carrots and flowers. You have the pond where you fish. You have the village which is potpourri of market place, social network and blacksmith. And you have the mine, which is actually a rich source of resources and monsters.
There are two mechanics for manipulating dice. You can spend carrots for rerolls and you can upgrade tools which then will let you modify dice rolls. And, honestly, I think prioritizing upgrading the tools you need for your specific goal is key. (Of course, risking going into the mines the fastest way to get the resources you need to do that)
A Simple Life delivers on three goals that’s on the mission statement for a lot of Roll and Writes. It does feel like a game that is bigger than one sheet of paper. It has a short playing time, making it a good travel/squeezed-for-time game. And it’s pretty darn fun.
Look, it’s really obvious what A Simple Life is trying to do but it does it and I had fun with it. So I’m happy with it.
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