I've often wondered why manual dexterity games are not more common.  They are simple to explain, require little knowledge of a particular subject, and generally result in a good laugh and a fun time.  Aside from Jenga, few of these games ever reach high status in most circles.  That, however, is about to change, because a recent reprint towers over the competition and promises to topple the competition.

Villa Paletti, like all good games, has a story.  The master builder, Paletti, has recruited you to help him fix a problem as he builds his latest villa.  It seems that he has run out of money and needs to recycle some of the building supports he used on the first level for the upper levels of his villa.  Your job is to remove the supports without causing the entire thing to collapse. 

Villa Paletti is a basic stacking game for two to four players.  Each player chooses a color at the beginning of the game.  On their turn, they attempt to remove a support beam of their color from the current level and place it on the next one up.  If they do that successfully, they score points based on the support beam they moved and play proceeds clockwise.  The player with the most points is the master builder and will win the game should another player cause the entire structure to come crashing down all around them.  If the villa survives to completion, the player who has the most points wins.

As you might imagine, the rules for Villa Paletti remain simple and easy to explain.  Likewise, the game produces a certain amount of hooting and hollering while the players attempt to move their pillars to rattle them.  While the scoring rules can confuse some people initially, once understood, they do add a level of strategy to the game that makes it enjoyable even for the hardest strategy gamer.  In fact, I first played this game in a room of war gamers at a game convention and we consistently had a group of people wanting to know what we were playing and if they could play in the next game.

Created in Germany, Villa Paletti won the coveted Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award for 2002 and GAMES Magazine's "Best Manual Dexterity Game" for 2003.  It first appeared late in 2004 in Games by James stores and shot to the top of the sales charts during the last week before Christmas.  All this confirms that Villa Paletti is building a solid foundation of fans for the future.

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