Village – Letter to Parents

Dear parent,

Kids love world building (see: Minecraft), which I think stems from their innate talent for storytelling. We started to explore this with our app Town, turning kids into mini city planners as they plotted out roads, buildings and landmarks with the interactive story tiles.

Village brings the world-building of Town to a closer, more personal level. Instead of building up an entire region like in Town, kids get to narrow their focus on the houses, businesses and buildings that make up a town – a sleepy, medieval village populated with adorable gnomes, to be exact. We knew we wanted to set Village in a fantastical setting like this as it gave us real freedom to create quirky, creative building blocks, and seemed like a natural home base for our traveling gnomes Astrid and Tom.

Playing with blocks is a natural play pattern, and we wanted to mimic this as much as possible in Village. Set a kid down in front of a stack of physical blocks, and they’ll start building and imagining houses, bakeries, theatres, town halls – you name it. We wanted to create that same physicality and open-endedness with Village. Think of it as your classic building block set – with a bit more digital magic thrown in.

Happy building,

Nik Aggarwal Developer

Play Village now in World

How to Play

Drag blocks onto the screen to start creating your first building. Try a tall castle with of stone blocks and turrets, a cozy cabin with wood blocks, round windows and a slanted roof or a quaint pizzeria – don’t forget the sign! Drag the drawer at the bottom from left to right to see all your block options. Want something new? Just drag a block offscreen and it’ll be replaced with a new one! Each time you use a window or door, you’ll meet a new gnome friend. These gnomes can also be moved around the village for playdates. Don’t forget to make good use of the creative props, too!

To Talk About

Ask your kids what daily life is like in their village. What do the gnomes do all day? Do they like visiting friends? Where do they do their grocery shopping? Creating building prompts can be loads of fun too – ask your little one to create a castle fit for a visiting gnome king, or a grand theatre where the local gnome thespians can put on a play.

The Team

Nik Aggarwal - Lead Developer Katherine Diemert - Illustrator Katherine Elliott - Production Artist Yuliya Boublikova - Animator Danny Simmons - Sound Design Danielle Rainey - Release Coordinator