MIXED BAG. TABLETOP TALES! SMALL WORLD REVIEW!

TABLETOP TALES PRESENTS

SMALL WORLD REVIEW!

Designer: Philippe Keyaerts
Artist: Miguel Coimbra
Publishers: Days of Wonder,
Type: Board Game
Themes: Fantasy, Humor, & Strategy
# of Players: 2-5
Ages: 8 & Up
Time to Play: 60-120 min.
Approx. Price: $40-50

LINK TO A BREAK-DOWN OF MY ?/5 RATING SYSTEMS

 "It's a world of laughter, a world or tears
   It's a world of hopes, its a world of fear
   There's so much that we share
   That its time we're aware
   It's a small world after all." - It's a Small World (After All), Walt Disney Co.

Anyone who remembers the days before Disney began re-engineering their park to have reasonable wait times will remember a very different park experience-- perhaps, no less magical, but certainly a little more exhausting. My worst memory of waiting in line to get on a ride (and yes I realize I am complaining about a line at Disney World when many people haven't had the pleasure of going to the "Happiest Place On Earth", but remember that I'm more pointing out something that would affect a far more immature version of me who was about 8) wait...where was I?

Oh, right! I was talking about how waiting in line for an hour, in the middle of the Summer, with the sun beating down (this is before there was a canopy for the line to the ride), to just get on the very short It's a Small World ride was pretty awful. But if I can argue about anything for this game sharing that namesake (which I'm sure they like to distance themselves from, but hold on) is that this game is a perfect physical formation of the song quote above.

My friends laughed, they cried out in fury, they got their hopes up, they feared being smashed and all over the machinations we all held to control a piece of this Smallworld.

PREMISE

Small World is a strategy game, much like Risk or Axis & Allies, that takes place in a fantastic and funny world of similarly fantastic and funny races. Depending on the number of players, each player will get 8-10 turns to play out their sinister Machiavellian side in order to take over strategic territories on the map (which the game comes with four for each number of players) and acquire coins. At the end of the 8-10 turns, who ever has the most coins wins!

But what sets Small World apart from the other strategy games, besides it's awesome cartoony characterization, are the races and abilities:

Rather than play as a generic number of troops or a specific army with strengths and weaknesses, Small World creates random combinations of Races & Abilities to create lots of variety. In the first turn of play, as well as every turn after going into decline (which I'll explain what that entails), you pick a race/ability combo up from those drawn. Pictured above are three examples, but we'll just look at the first one; the Dragon Master-Ratmen. First, you combines the two numbers surrounded in orange to get your units (in this case 13) and then apply their special abilities. Ratmen have no special abilities, they just have numbers. The Dragon Master ability grants the player a dragon master token that allows them to conquer any region, no matter how many defenders & barriers stacked against them, with just one unit and the dragon master. The best part of the game is figuring out which race to choose and when to go into decline.

At the beginning of your turn, if you have an active race, you decide whether or not to continue conquering or end your turn, collect your coins, and put your race into decline. Putting your race into decline means that race basically becomes inactive except for controlling their territories and you pick up a new race on the next turn to go conquering again. You can, usually, only have one race in decline and usually when you put a race into decline, if you have one in decline, that other race goes away. The into decline stage of the game adds a whole other angle of strategy involving when to go into decline and how to go into decline.

If I muddled up the game's basic flow of play, trust me that the premise is fairly simple, but the strategies can get pretty serious in a game where victory can be up to a single point of difference (I played a 2-Player game where I won by 3 coins). You can check out a full game of it above on the first episode of the wonderful TableTop series, hosted by Will Wheaton and featuring various individuals associated with gaming and other elements of entertainment.

PRESENTATION

I think Small World blows away the competition with its light-hearted and fun design that mix the colorful work of a storybook with cartoon proportions for a game that just looks fascinating, if not a little intimidating. The box is a beautiful piece to have on your shelf and the insides are, just about, perfectly made to hold all the pieces.

The board is gorgeous, clearly marked & cleverly designed and, considering the game comes with two two-sided boards, I'm pretty pleased with the amount of work that went into each inch of the board. If there is anything to complain about  is that, with the territories so clearly defined, that they felt it necessary to package it with this mountain tokens that go on every mountain territory and block them from public view. I'm actually considering, since they're just there as an added visual reminder, playing a game without them on the board.

Pictured above is the 3-player board. As you can see around it, though rather small, are the other pieces and generally represent something similar to what the board looks like before the first turn. The pieces are all well-crafted, colorful, and made of a really good, thick card-stock. Even the coin tokens, race tokens, that are small, are given a careful amount attention to detail.

Clearly, I have few problems with Smallworld's design, but how does it play?

PLAYABILITY & RE-PLAYABILITY

Well, out of about a half-dozen board games I got between Christmas & my birthday, Smallworld has probably seen the most play. There were a couple of other games, including Conan Munchkin, that seemed like they might win the melee over the adoration of my friends and myself, but their can be only one victor. Smallworld combines the mind-chess shenanigans of Risk with the fun, pick-up & play elements of games like Munchkin to make a game that is a blast to play-- can it be frustrating? Yes. But that's okay. Its no where near as drawn out as games like Risk so, if you're having a tough time, just play it out and get your opponent in a rematch.

I can see myself playing Smallworld for years and, thanks to the game including a couple pieces you can customize and offering all sorts of expansions, I can see myself finding way to keep a game, that already manages to keep it fresh, crisp and fun every time.

A quick recommendation that may seem unnecessary, but I've found adds to the fun, is to stick to a rule in the game I can imagine many players ignoring-- keep your coins face down and be your own banker (this requires some bit of playing by the honor system, but if you can't trust the other players they're cheating pigs). The fun moment when everyone flips over their coins can be awesome. You gotta believe me that every time, someone is surprised!

PROS VS. CONS

+ Combinging the elements of Risk with fantasy, whimsy, and a good dose of compact gameplay mixed with more strategy makes for a blast of a board game.
+ The cartoony and beautiful artwork of Miguel Coimbra makes this a blast to have sitting on your shelf or on your game table.
+ This game plays different every time thanks to the balancing, the random nature of the race/ability combos, and for the seeming endless amount of moves (rewarding/punishing risk), Smallworld will keep you playing for ages. Check out the expansions for more fun.

CONCLUSION?

MUST-BUY: TOP TIER TABLE-TOP!

When I was talking about the fun of fighting over this little strip of land in a perpetual war where empires rise and go into decline, I couldn't help thinking of a Carl Sagan quote about another small world:

“Consider again that dot [Earth]. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." 

Smallworld succeeds as a game because it somehow manages to take the classic fun of those old war strategy games like Risk, strain them through a lens of fantasy and whimsy, and simplify the game so that it can be played in a more manageable amount of time. Also, perhaps as a metaphor for human civilization, its players can learn something about the piddling business of empire-- ever empire sets, even on a Smallworld.

This game is easily amongst my new favorite board games and I haven't had a bad experience yet. If you can get a few people together a few times a year to play Smallworld, its worth it. If you can only get one other person, its still worth it. The best part is that there are plenty of expansions to pick up if you wanna add some variety and sequels to this franchise.

Also, if you haven't, check out TableTop's episode of Smallworld.