Designer: Michael Schacht

Artist: Marco Echevarria

Publisher: Kanga Games

Quietville is better known as Bull in China Shop, a card game designed by Michael Schacht and published by Playroom Entertainment. As far as I understand, Quietville is a straight reprint with a few special cards added into the mix as a variant. Even the reprint is 10 years old and I managed to land a copy of the game since the original is tough to find. To come clean, apart from Coloretto which is his evergreen masterpiece, I have only recently become more curious about Schacht-designed card games starting with the excellent Crazy Chicken. I have already owned Gold! and this will be my fourth or fifth card game of his I have tried and it is a good one!

Players construct buildings only to tear them down

The premise of the game is simple. Players want to construct buildings of different types and of different values. But to do that, they need to have money. To earn money, players must choose a disaster card which earns them one money card. But in the process of choosing a disaster card, some of the disasters will destroy the very buildings that the players are constructing. The key here is to select the type of disaster card that doesn’t leave any impact on your collection of buildings, or at the very least, a minimal impact. This is possible because each disaster will have specific targets for the type or value of the buildings being torn down. So, for example, if you only have green and yellow buildings, then choosing a disaster that destroys only red buildings is optimal. Or if you only own even numbered buildings, then a disaster that strikes odd numbered building will have no impact on your estate. Each player also gets to use a one-time “It’s a beautiful day!” card where they get to skip their turn. Believe me, a timely use of the card can be the difference between victory and defeat.

Besides the row of disaster cards on the common tableau, players can also purchase buildings. In general, high value buildings are better than low value buildings, with each building costing one money card. Since players cannot hold more than two money cards at once, the buying and destroying of buildings become a constant cycle throughout the game.

It is all about how you score the buildings

The brilliance of the card game is really in the scoring. There are four scoring cards in the deck of buildings. Each time a scoring card is revealed from the deck as it is slowly depleted, players will pause and collectively score their buildings using 4 different criteria: the lowest value of each of the three types of buildings; the highest value for each of the three types of buildings; all of their buildings; all of one type of the building. The kicker here is they can choose the criteria scoring for that instance, but must eventually score all four categories exactly once throughout the four scoring phases. In other words, you can plan what you want to score during the scoring rounds. This scoring matrix then allows players to plan ahead and to accumulate the proper type of building for scoring.

Without a doubt, the game can be very luck driven. Depending on the disaster cards drawn, one can get pretty luck and avoid major damage, or face total annihilation. Luckily, there are always enough cards in the common tableau to choose from that a complete destruction is rare. Still, the luck of the draw is pretty prominent in the game. You can also certainly look around the table to set someone up with a lousy selection simply because one must pick a disaster card if out of cash. Schadenfreude must be embraced by all players for a good time as the hooting, hollering and taunting adds much to the atmosphere.

In summary

I actually like Kanga’s Game’s theme of Quietville where monsters and calamities devastate the buildings in a city. However, I wish additional effort was made to logically fit some of the mechanisms within a reasonable narrative. For example, the scoring rounds are called “voting”. What? Why would the citizens vote after a calamity? Can’t you just have an audit of the buildings by an architect after all the destruction to tally points? I mean you don’t even have to stretch your imagination to figure out something logical to call the scoring rounds. Also, why would players earn money have a disaster? Can’t you at least call it something else perhaps? How about earning new construction cards to help rebuild the city. I must say though, the “It’s a beautiful day card” is both cute and appropriate.

Theme aside, the card game is both solid and fun, mainly due to the agency in scoring. I didn’t really expect much from the game at the onset but somehow, the act of destroying and rebuilding your city can be quite fun. Truth is, much of the fun also comes from seeing your opponents getting a bad draw at the right time. It is just hilarious. Even our 8 year old can stomach the abuse because there really isn’t any “take-that” aspect of the card game. While my write may seem to suggest the game is too chaotic or random, it really isn’t. You do get some control as to what and when your buildings get destroyed, even though the leash is pretty short.

Thus far, I have been pretty pleased with all the card games from Schacht that we have tried. They are simple but with just enough depth that the games can cut across different age groups. This one is a keeper in my book.

Initial impression: Good