Episode 278: Windmill Valley

Windmill Valley: A Blooming Good Time?

In Windmill Valley, designed by Dani Garcia and published by Board and Dice, players compete to become the best tulip farmers the Netherlands has ever seen.

On your turn, you rotate (yes, the spinny wheel!) two interconnected gears segmented into action spaces. Whichever action space the gears land on determines the action or actions available to you that round. You can adjust the number of action spaces you rotate by paying to increase movement for everyone or using “tools,” a resource collected during play.

The actions you can take can be upgraded by purchasing new tiles to place in those spaces. Generally, your actions include:

• Placing Windmills: Place a windmill to gain benefits from adjacent fields.
• Visiting Markets: Acquire tulips or plant them on your personal farm board.
• Getting Helpers: Obtain a helper card, which provides either a passive in-game benefit or end-game scoring.
• Taking the Shipping Action: Gain tulips, money, points, or other goodies.
• Planting Tulips: Add tulips to your garden, which can score points at the end of the game.
• Lower Water Level: If players have manipulated the rotation track, you can take an action to collect coins or even points by reducing the track.

The game ends after any player completes four full rotations of the wheel. One final round is played, and then end-game points are tallied. Points are scored based on helper cards and tulips in your garden, which are evaluated under three different scoring parameters.

Now let’s head back to the studio to see if the pegs think this game is unBULBlievable or not.