Dream Home: 156 Sunny Street Expansion

Dream Home: 156 Sunny Street is the first expansion for the family friendly title Dream Home, designed by Rebel and published by Asmodee. We praised the original game as an experience that can be shared by all (from 7 up), and more importantly, be enjoyed by all. This is a rare opportunity when it comes to board games, so when we find one this great, we love talking about. It an expansion makes it so much better.

If you want to read our full review of Dream Home – including how to play – please take a look at our review!

Outside of expanding the game for 5 to 6 players, 156 Sunny Side adds two new scoring opportunities to the game: Friends and Blueprints.

Friends

At the beginning of the game, a designated number of friend cards will be played out on the table for players to choose from. When completing rooms in your home that match the same rooms on a friends card, you can take that card and add it to the side of your home. Players can choose a maximum of 2 friends cards during the game, and they can be selected in the same turn, if your home satisfies the requirements to take them.

Friend cards will award you a specific number of points at the end of the game. While they are never going to win you the game on their own, not collecting any friend cards during the game definitely could lose you the game. In one situation, the 2 other people at the table had accepted two friends into their homes, while I accepted none. Unfortunately, I did lose because of this.

Being aware of who can visit your home is something to take into consideration. While you shouldn’t specifically try to get one friend card – as someone else might also be gunning for that card – being aware as part of your overall planning is still incredibly important, and adds another level of strategy to the game.

Blueprints

At the beginning of each game, players will be dealt two blueprint cards, one worth 3 points and one worth 5. The blueprint cards will give you specific goals for building your home, such as having a 1 or 2 room living room on both floors, or perhaps not having any garage cards.

Both blueprint cards cannot be claimed at the end of the game, so should you finish the 5 point card prior to the 3 point card, there would be no point in finishing the requirements for the other cards.

On top of the two new scoring options, Sunny Street also introduces more decor tokens which function in the exact same way. New helper cards, tools, and room cards are also shuffled into the deck to allow for a 5 to 6 player game – noted by the 5+ text in the upper corner of the card. If you enjoy some of the newer cards better than the older cards, you can create a custom deck of cards should you wish to play a game with 4 or fewer players. There are helpful guidelines for doing that, to make sure your game is still fair and complete!

There is also a single player variant introduced with this expansion, although I never ended up giving that a try. Should I do that in the near future, I will post my impressions here.

Should you Buy It?

If you’ve enjoyed the base version of Dream Home as much as I have, then adding to that experience is a definite must. Although I’ll rarely play this with 5 or 6 players, the two additional scoring options, as well as the new cards included, make 156 Sunny Street a great addition to an already fantastic game.

At only 29.99 USD, 156 Sunny Street does a great job of offering up new ways to play, and new strategies to develop. Even with brand new players, introducing 156 Sunny Street is incredibly easy, and should you purchase the expansion, it should be included in all future play throughs, regardless of the level of understanding of the original. I hope Asmodee creates a single box version of this game with expansion, because ultimately it feels better as one product.

As this expansion was probably an afterthought to the original, it’s understandable that it currently comes in its own standalone box. For the future though, let’s just make it one game!