Small World Reviews

Review by Zedd Zorander for Small World
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I am an avid gamer, mostly strategy and RPG, and this game was a great purchase. I was able to get some friends to play, that normally would not play this type of board game. It is light hearted and easy to get into. There is enough strategy, that a real gamer will appreciate, but also it is not too in depth that it will frustrate a non gamer. Overall, I would recommend this with 5 stars and will be purchasing multiple copies for friends and family members. Great job Days Of Wonder!!!

Review by Tina Denali for Small World
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My husband and I bought this on a whim – we’d gone to our local game store to pick up Settler’s Of Catan because we’d played that recently with friends and liked it. However, this caught our eye, and we bought it instead! I was drawn the cover art, I’ll admit!

We brought it to a friend’s place to play after dinner. It took a while to get a hang of the way the game is supposed to work and the dynamics of each round, but after a few turns, we were able to get it all figured out.

I really liked all aspects of this game – the ‘Risk’ aspect of trying to take over the map, the fantasy aspect of the characters, and the unique way the game’s races are developed. Every game you play will be different due to how things are set up!

My only complaint is with the tray the Race Tokens are stored in… it was pretty hard for me (who has small fingers, even) to get the tokens in and out of the little squares they are supposed to go in. Especially when some were in use and the remaining ones would fall forward.

Overall, I’m really happy that we got this game, I’m looking forward to sharing it with other people!

Review by Joel Smith for Small World
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My game group played this recently and although I enjoyed my experience with Small World, I’m not aching to replay it like I do with other board games. Overall, Small World is a fun game. A little action, a little randomness, some important decision making, excellent flavor, but also a little bit on the slow side.

The game itself isn’t that long of a game. Our first game, even with all of the rules lookups took only about 2 hours (which is a little big long) but I think on future plays, an average game would take about 45-70 minutes.

The gameplay is fairly simple here, but be prepared to look up a lot of rules throughout the game on your first play. A series of races with special powers are placed on the table. Players choose a race and power, and then proceed to conquer various areas on the board. At the end of their turn, each area currently occupied by that player scores a point. That player may earn additional points based on his special ability. Then the next player goes and so on. At some point, a player decides that he can progress no further with his race (generaly either because it’d be hard/impossible to expand, or because it’d be hard to defend his position), and sets them in decline. The player now chooses a new race and special ability, and as a bonus, collects points on any territories that his race still controls at the end of his next turn.

After a set number of turns, the game ends and whoever has the highest point total wins. Simple enough.

The problem with this game comes in the fact that a turn is fairly long–about 1 to 2 minutes for each player, and when it’s another player’s turn, there’s precisely nothing for you to do, but watch. You can’t work on your strategy too much, because the board changes a lot in any given round, and players actions may affect your standing on the board, but you can’t react to it at all. All of this makes small world feel a little longer than it needs to be. Still a fun game, but a bit on the boring side.

Average Game Length: 45-70 minutes

Turn length: about 1-2 minute per player, about 40-50 turns per game.

Minimum age: probably about 8. Some minor rules may require some assistance.

Review by Christopher K. Halbower for Small World
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Small World is a fantasy combat/civilization game from Days of Wonder. Small World was designed by Philippe Keyaerts whom many of you may remember was the designer of Vinci.

Players take control of one of the many available fantasy races. All the fantasy races of common lore are available (orcs, dwarves, elves, etc). Players gain victory points primarily by controlling spots on the board. The player with the most points is the winner.

Each race has a starting force allotment, usually around 4 to 6. Players take this allotment and strive to take as much land as possible with it. The force allotments are printed on durable cardboard tiles. To claim a territory, a player must place more 1 more force there than that which defends it. The losing player retains all his lost forces save one. Thus, there is a slow but fairly steady attrition in the game.

When a player believes his chosen race can serve him no more, he may elect to go into decline. His race on the board is flipped over. The player still scores points for this race but he may not expand with them. Play continues until the final round is played. The amount of rounds is dictated by the amount of players. The player with the most points is winner.

Small World has a lot going for it. There are two boards and each is double sided. The different boards are used for different amounts of players. The game is nicely tweaked for various amounts of players from 2 to 5. This is such an elegant feature, that this alone deserves 1*!

Small World is also quick to learn. Pretty much what I stated above is how to play. Sure, there are few more minor rules but they are intuitive if you grasped what I wrote above.

Small World also has a great deal of diversity. In addition to the various races, there are various traits. Each race starts with a random trait. The traits are characteristics like, “merchant”, or “hill”. These characteristics could give a bonus to your force allotment, give you extra victory points for controlling certain spots on the board, or give you an attack or defense bonus. This is so elegant and innovative that this too deserves 1*!

Small world is great for the non-gamer. As a gateway game, it’s ranked #2 in book–second only to FFG’s Kingsburg. It’s a fairly quick game and has a minimal learning curve–all the requirements for a gateway game.

The only reason I don’t give Small World a full 5***** is because it’s a little bit shallow compared to games I give 5 stars to. The game is fun but it’s not the type of game that will really scratch your gaming itch.

Review by Stephen J. Guy for Small World
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After reading some of the other reviews I war really excited to receive this game, and was not disappointed! The game is much what you would expect from the cover. Players take on common fantasy races (elves, giants, wizards, halflings, trolls, etc.) with various special powers and abilities (dragons, heros, flying,…) and duke it to be top dog of piece of land much too small to contain everybody.

The rule book explained everything fairly clearly, I’d say it takes maybe 15 minutes to read and digest it all. The theme is great, and leads to some really enjoyable artwork. The randomly drawn combination of powers and races make the game fun and different every time. There are two things, in my opinion, that makes this game really shine though: 1) There are different sized boards for different number of player, which keeps the world feeling cramped and basically forces people to attack each other (which is where all the fun is) and 2) If your current race gets beaten down too harshly, or over extended you can easily give it up for another race and get back in the game. In fact, this is half the fun. Over the course of a normal game you get to try at least 2 to 3 different races. This really keeps people from feeling too bad when they get attacked, because they can just try another race.

I’d give this game an easy A+. I have over a dozen games in my collection (Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Puerto Rico, etc.) and I foresee this getting the most play time out of all of them for a while. It’s great both for hard-core gamers and to entice new people into gaming. If you think you might like it, you’re probably right!