The Ville casts players in the role of their own custom avatar and tasks them with building a nice house and establishing relationships with neighbours. Players must earn coins and happiness in order to succeed and gradually expand their house over time as they rise through the experience levels.

The Ville isn't going to make any new friends outside of the usual social gaming audience, and doesn't even have the The Sims name to draw in curious players from the core gamer audience. Zynga has a considerable degree of skill at user acquisition, however, so it's doubtful that the lack of an established attached franchise will be a huge blow to this game's almost-inevitable popularity.

Players may also add friends in The Ville without them being Facebook friends, which is a blessing to those who want to play the game but don't wish to pollute their News Feed with endless achievement and "We Just Danced/Had a Pose-Off/Farted/Had Sex!" notifications from their neighbors — though the in-game text doesn't actually make it very clear if this feature is already implemented or is coming soon. Alongside all this, The Ville incorporates a number of options that are becoming increasingly de rigeur in this type of game, such as the ability to snap a picture of the player's house and post it to their Timeline.