Bag of Games

Days of Wonder‘s Small World (designed by Philippe Keyaerts) is a two to five players game based on the older game Vinci. In both games players take control of a civilization and spread across the landscape which varies from lakes to mountains. Small World is a fantasy themed game unlike its predecessor. Players take the roles of Giants, Trolls, Humans, Orcs to conquer regions and to survive until it is time when their civilization eventually passes. This means you’ll be most likely using more than one race before the game ends. In short, like the game title says it, you’ll fight for the control of a fantasy based terrain that is just too small for everyone.

The visuals of the game are fantastic and looks great. Days of Wonder has really hit the spot with the quality of the included material. Although not all will enjoy the somewhat humorous fantasy theme, I just cannot hate a game where elves are just so… gay. All in all, when I look at the board, the images, the useful detachable boxes etc. it makes me smile and I know that Days of Wonder has at least done something right.

The game usually takes 50 to 90 minutes and during that time, players will go through about 2-5 races, depending on the choices and strategies you use. You enter the board through the border regions, conquer territories and gain victory points for each territory you occupy. Sooner or later you have stretched or taken casualties with your race that you’ll put it in decline and get prepared for a new race. Knowing when the golden age of your race has gone, is one of the ticks of the game.

You’ll start the game with 5 victory coins and you have six race/power combos available to choose from. The races are in a column and the first race is always cheaper than the ones further in the column. Every time you choose a race, you pay one victory coin until you reach your chosen race. This way, the other races also become more interesting to others to take. When a race is chosen, one additional race enters the scene thus there are always six available. Once you have chosen your race, you’ll get race tokens according to the numbers according the race/power combo you have chosen. After that, you’ll enter the world.

You have four different maps in the box. The map size varies according the number of players you have. This way, the world stays small and the game still has appeal even with two players. The map is set up with some lost tribes tokens which are neutral race tokens in several predetermined regions. Normally when you conquer empty regions, it’ll cost you two race tokens, but if you conquer what that is already occupied i.e. with lost tribe token, it costs additional race token. Thus the difficulty of conquering the regions increases according to tokens already on the board.

Once you have conquered your regions, you can rearrange your tokens to prepare your defenses against another players. When you have done that, you’ll end your turn and gain victory points according to regions you occupy. When your turn comes again, you’ll take as much tokens you want into your hand and keep conquering. This goes on, until your race has grown thin, or you think you would benefit more from another race and thus want to start with a new race. When you have decided, you’ll put your race to decline; leave one race token to the regions that are yours and when the next turn comes, you can choose a new race just like in the beginning. The races put to decline are no longer playable.

There are fixed amount of turns according to the number of players and during the games you gather victory points as much as you can, and the player with most points wins.

One could think that the game is the same every time you play it, but there is little more to that. Every race has a special ability which affects the game in some manner. i.e there might be a lot bigger number race token one race has than another or with certain race it is easier to conquer certain regions. If the race tokens aren’t enough, there are also the power tokens which together form the race combo, which you’re using while playing.

All in all Small World is a nice way to spend a hour or two. The theme is funny (though it will not appeal all) the design is very good and the game is kept rather simple. Since there are lot of race/power combinations, it seems a bit confusing at first, but like with many games, the second time is already way better. The game scales well and every game is a new experience. If you like good games, try Small World. 4/5

PRO’s

• New experience every time
• Strategic thinking
• Visuals and quality

CON’s

• I have too big fingers for small tokens