I didn’t exactly welcome Days of Wonder’s latest release, SMALL WORLD, with open arms.

The game was announced on the Days of Wonder website via a series of cutesy portraits of various stock fantasy races with “funny” slogans that I found completely obnoxious, and aside from that fact early copy from the company attempted to get some more faltering comedic mileage out of the title’s uncomfortable association with the scariest ride at Disney World- “it’s a world of (s)laughter, after all”.

Aside from the fact that I found myself bemoaning yet another fantasy-themed game with all the usual suspects on board, let alone one from a company who has a bad track record with me following the disaster that was BATTLELORE, I wasn’t exactly thrilled to discover that SMALL WORLD was actually a rethemed and retooled third edition of Phillipe Keyaert’s 1999 game VINCI. I had played VINCI a couple of times and never really took much of a liking to it despite some fairly interesting design ideas that managed to abstract the “dudes on a map” style game to a minimalist yet not totally anti-thematic level.

VINCI was originally a sort of stripped-down Eurogame version of the Avalon Hill chestnut HISTORY OF THE WORLD, sharing with that game the general concept that players would guide a secession of different empires through phases of emergence, expansion, and eventual decline. Throughout both of these games, a player attempts to maximize the potential of a empire to score points before conflict or a lack of resources makes the empire no longer feasible or competitive. VINCI was a much more simplified and abstract game than HISTORY OF THE WORLD but both managed to capture a broad sense of the ebb and flow of nations over extended periods of history. Yet I always felt that VINCI was too dry, too calculated, and more of a bean-counting game than anything to do with history. I liked the idea of it, but every time I played it I felt sharply disappointed by the game’s lack of excitement, energy, or surprise.

“Surprise” is sort of a key word there, because I was very surprised to find that after a couple of games of SMALL WORLD I realized that I actually really liked it. It turns out that SMALL WORLD is one of those practically mythical Pretty Good Eurogames, and as such the simplicity and accessibility of it are some of its key strengths since they are paired with direct conflict and competition. SMALL WORLD is a fun game- it’s not going to blow you away and it’s not a classic, must-have title but for groups on the lookout for a fairly casual and extremely light “conquer the world” style game I think it’s a pretty darn good choice.

A game of SMALL WORLD plays anywhere from two to five players and the scaling issue that often sinks games of this nature for smaller groups has been smartly solved by including smaller boards for fewer players. It takes about an hour and a half to play through a game with a full table but two or three players could easily knock it out in 45 minutes. Days of Wonder usually goes a couple of extra miles in making sure that its games include great rulebooks and player aids, and SMALL WORLD is no exception. I think you could probably hand out the player aids to new players and they could figure out how to play without a formal rules explanation.

On the first turn of the game, players have to select a race from a display of various combinations of races and special abilities. Each race has a unique power, so combined with the modular special abilities there are a huge number of possible combinations so replayability and variety are built into the game despite the fixed boards. If a player takes the top race in the display, it’s free. But if a more interesting, powerful, or just plain cooler race is further down the line, they can put one of their victory points on each one above the one they take. With a race selected, the actual size of the empire is determined by adding a number on the ability piece with one on the race counter. Some powers and races get fewer actual pieces with which they can attempt to eke out their territory, and some get more. It’s extremely balanced, almost to a fault.

Once a player has their race tokens in hand, the idea is that they arrive somewhere along the edge of the map (or elsewhere depending on special abilities) and proceed to conquer adjacent lands. There’s no real conflict mechanism- players simply “pay” a number of race tokens to take over a territory. The cost is a base of one for each territory and then one more for each other piece (which might be a Troll fort, a mountain, a castle, or an enemy token) in the space. So a mountain space settled by a troll that built a fort on it would cost the attacking player four of their race tokens to conquer. If a player gets down to one or two tokens and wants to take over another territory, they can roll a die and hope to get the extra points needed to claim the land. Some races and abilities provide various discounts or victory point bonuses, so there are always strategic considerations surrounding conquests.

Once a player has conquered everything they can manage within their budget of race tokens, he or she can rearrange surplus tokens in each space to defend threatened areas. Scoring is simply a tally of controlled lands plus any bonuses. On subsequent turns, the player will take up all of their race tokens, leaving one in each space. Eventually, an empire becomes so extended that the controlling player gets fewer tokens than they need to take over new territories. At that point, the player can announce that their empire is going in decline. That race’s tokens are turned over to an “in decline” side and on the next turn the player gets to choose a new empire to start- but the catch is that all of a player’s declining empires continue to net points until they’re completely wiped off the map.

SMALL WORLD works better for me as a colorful, light fantasy wargame than a boring, abstract game with a phony veneer of austere historicity. Oddly, I found that its tone actually created an entirely different atmosphere for the game’s proceedings that transformed a game concept that I felt was too dry and analytic into something more lively and interesting. I think it is surprisingly satisfying in that it captures a strong sense of conceptual theme- the core mechanics specifically describe the main thematic actions of the game and it’s fun to pick a combination and try to make the most out of it.