Review- Small World

The song is stuck in your head already isn’t it? Or maybe you’re lucky and you’ve never heard it.  There you go. Now it’s stuck in your head.

Fortunately, the game we’re going to talk about has nothing to do with the Disney ride. Rather, this is a game of conquest and crushing all who stand in your way. So, I guess not much different from Disney afterall.

Production- A

The game’s components are top notch. It features two dual-sided boards. Each side is balanced for a certain number of players. This maintains the notion of the game’s namesake. It’s a small world no matter how many players there are.

While all of the components are cardboard they are very sturdy and almost feel like something else. There’s no feeling of anything breaking or bending just from regular use. The best part, though, is the box itself. Everything has a place. And I don’t mean just a bunch of storage bags. There are slots for every component in the box. Storage and clean up is simple.

Theme- A

The idea behind the game is one of the rise and fall of civilizations. The Small World is a fantasy realm that sees invasion and the rise of new people to dominate the land. Then time passes and their power fades to be replaced by another. But the old powers don’t just vanish.

You control one of these people at a time and attempt to guide them to dominate the land. Each race has a special power that is fixed and one special ability that is random. In the example here, you have Flying Trolls. They build strong fortifications and can move around the board to any space. This randomization makes each game unique and it also inspires epic stories. You’ve all seen Trolls in fantasy stories before. But have you ever been invaded by ones that fly? 

Gameplay- B+

The game is played out over a fixed number of rounds, denoted by the turn timer on the side of the board. This becomes a crucial element to the game because of how scoring works.

Each round, you earn score, gold coins, based on how many board tiles you control. Some races give bonuses for controlling certain terrain. But the game is designed to have your power fade round to round. You only have a fixed population which limits maximum expansion. After only a few rounds controlling any race, you’ll reach a point where expansion becomes impossible and it will be a downward spiral as your territory is taken over by other races and you can’t muster the strength to take it back. Once that happens its time for a new people to rise to power.

Throughout the game you’ll control several races. Each one will have a certain number of tiles representing their population. The Flying Trolls in the example above had 10, five from the Troll banner and 5 from the Flying power. To conquer a territory you need a minimum of two Trolls. If the tile is defended or has other special features like mountains or fortresses (like the Trolls give) you’ll need even more population to conquer it. Once you control a territory, you must leave one of your population tiles there to hold it. So a 10 strength Flying Trolls will never hold more than ten tiles on the map.

Once you’ve reached what you judge to be your maximum expansion, you can send them into Decline. At this point, the tiles are flipped over and you can no longer use them to conquer new territory. But you do still get score each round for the tiles they control. That’s where you have to balance when to go into Decline. You want to gain as much territory as possible but also have it somewhat defensible for further rounds. Going into Decline also costs you an entire turn so you don’t want to do it too often.

Expansions- TBD

There are several expansions available for Small World. The two Power Packs add additional races (8 and 8) and special powers (8 and 10). I have not yet tried either of these.

There is also a computer/phone app version of the game that is quite decent. The AI opponents are never as good as real players but they are an actual challenge. The game flows well though sometimes it can be hard to tell what is going on given the variety of different powers. But it’s not nearly as bad as others (I’m looking at you, Sentinels app).

I do feel some of the story and fantasy element is lost playing the computer version though. It’s much easier to just maximize rather than pretend you’re really leading a band of flying trolls across the world when you’re not playing against other players.

Conclusion- A-

The game makes for some crazy combinations of fantasy creatures which provide unique strategic challenges each game as well as made the story you’re telling in your head different each time. You can optimize the fun out of it pretty easily though if you ignore the theme and focus solely on the mechanics. Fortunately, the game does a good job of making the mechanics match the theme of each race and ability.

The game goes fairly quickly so that unlike many strategy games it doesn’t take a lifetime to play. The artwork is friendly, despite the theme of world domination, so its still a good family game.