In Disney Villainous, each player controls a different Disney villain trying to pull off their own wicked scheme, some deadlier than others, so watch it if you are playing with kids.
On your turn you move across your personal board, gather Power, and play cards to bring in Allies, Items, and nasty Effects. See? Easy to get overwhelmed, but, stay focused, it’s worth it.
The catch is that every villain wins a completely different way, so you and the player across the table are essentially playing two separate games that happen to share a table and a way to sabotage each other.
What makes Villainous special is that asymmetry. Six players can mean six entirely different puzzles running at once, each with its own engine and its own path to victory. The only thread connecting you is the Fate deck, the mechanism that lets you reach over and dump Heroes onto a rival’s board to stall them.
That tension, between burying your head in your own plan and spending a turn to slow down whoever’s pulling ahead, is the whole game — and it’s why Villainous works surprisingly well as a two player game even though it scales up to six.
Released in 2018 by Ravensburger and designed by the studio Prospero Hall, Disney Villainous became a runaway hit and grew into a sprawling franchise, with standalone expansions and spin-offs like Marvel Villainous and Star Wars Villainous.
It is interesting to fans for its theme and the novelty of every villain feeling distinct, but the learning curve is high when you first start playing, because you basically have to learn your own villain from scratch each time you swap.
This can get tricky but it is one of the best asymmetric games on the shelf if you are a true Disney fan.