I thought I would sort of preemptively post about making friends and gaining hearts, because it's a mechanic I've been asked about a lot. I think it's because it differs slightly from how the video game works.
In the board game, you need hearts to reveal the Community Center bundles (which are one of the objectives to win the game). The main way to get hearts is by making friends of the villagers. To do this, you visit the Town space and use an action to reveal the top card of the villager deck. Let's say for example I reveal Lewis:
Now if I have a resource I can gift him, I first decide if I want to. The symbols along the right and left side of the card show the resource types Lewis feels strongly about. In this case, he loves crops (the Parsnip icon) so if I discard a crop to make him my friend, he'll reward me with 2 hearts! However, he hates ore, geodes and animal products (those are the icons on the right column). He will not take those so I cannot use resources of those types to make him my friend. Any other resource type (for example fish) can be given to Lewis, but he doesn't feel strongly about those so he'll only give me 1 heart. This is important: any resource can be gifted as long as its not hated (or shows the 'No Gift' symbol). AND if it happens to be Spring, his birthday month, he'll give me an extra heart on top of whatever he gives me in exchange for a valid resource.
So essentially I either cannot or do not friend him, in which case he is discarded, OR I gain between 1 to 3 hearts depending on what I gift. If I friend him, I discard the gifted resource, take his card and gain the heart tokens.
Here's where people get confused, because it differs from the video game: now that he is my friend I cannot gift him anymore resources or gain any more hearts from him. There are a few cards and events which may cause existing friends to give me hearts, but normally I can only gain hearts from a villager once, when they are initially friended. Villagers do however give me things when activated to do so by Season Cards, but that is not related to the hearts and friending process. In Lewis's case, when triggered by a Season Card, his ability is to reveal a bundle card in the Community Center.
Hope this is clear!
In the board game, you need hearts to reveal the Community Center bundles (which are one of the objectives to win the game). The main way to get hearts is by making friends of the villagers. To do this, you visit the Town space and use an action to reveal the top card of the villager deck. Let's say for example I reveal Lewis:
Now if I have a resource I can gift him, I first decide if I want to. The symbols along the right and left side of the card show the resource types Lewis feels strongly about. In this case, he loves crops (the Parsnip icon) so if I discard a crop to make him my friend, he'll reward me with 2 hearts! However, he hates ore, geodes and animal products (those are the icons on the right column). He will not take those so I cannot use resources of those types to make him my friend. Any other resource type (for example fish) can be given to Lewis, but he doesn't feel strongly about those so he'll only give me 1 heart. This is important: any resource can be gifted as long as its not hated (or shows the 'No Gift' symbol). AND if it happens to be Spring, his birthday month, he'll give me an extra heart on top of whatever he gives me in exchange for a valid resource.
So essentially I either cannot or do not friend him, in which case he is discarded, OR I gain between 1 to 3 hearts depending on what I gift. If I friend him, I discard the gifted resource, take his card and gain the heart tokens.
Here's where people get confused, because it differs from the video game: now that he is my friend I cannot gift him anymore resources or gain any more hearts from him. There are a few cards and events which may cause existing friends to give me hearts, but normally I can only gain hearts from a villager once, when they are initially friended. Villagers do however give me things when activated to do so by Season Cards, but that is not related to the hearts and friending process. In Lewis's case, when triggered by a Season Card, his ability is to reveal a bundle card in the Community Center.
Hope this is clear!
