Enacting this chaos is a large part of the game’s appeal and its success. As Brexit looms, the seas rise, and private wealth balloons, what a pleasure it is to upend the sleepy lives of a small band of villagers: to soak the gardener by luring him into the path of his own sprinkler; to move the young boy’s toy airplane so that he has to buy it back from the shopkeeper; to trick the pub worker into putting away some tomatoes in order to push a bucket onto his head. It’s the same catharsis that violent or antisocial games such as Hitman or Grand Theft Auto offer up, but rewritten in the dialect of English pastoral politesse, appropriate for all ages.