This week Mike checks out the latest in the popular Smallworld line from Days of Wonder.
Date: Thursday, August 04, 2011
Author: Michael Barnes
Game: Smallworld: Underground
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Designer: Phillipe Keyaerts
Genre: Fantasy Genocide
Players: 2-5
Playtime: 45-90 minutes
What's Hot: Game acts as a standalone title but is compatible with previous products; new races/powers are fun and inventive; Relics and Popular Places add some new strategic wrinkles
What's Not: : Integration with other Smallworld expansions isn’t quite seamless; new additions aren’t exactly earth-shattering or game-changing
by: Michael Barnes
When I reviewed Days of Wonder’s lightweight fantasy game Smallworld a couple of years ago, I gave it good marks but I didn’t quite love it and after a few games after the review cycle I wound up trading my copy to a Canadian for some Xbox 360 games. But over the past year, one of my game groups started requesting it again after one of the members played it as part of a game design class at the Savannah College of Art and Design. So I reacquired the game and wound up getting all of the expansions for it, and it’s become a staple of our game nights. Smallworld is incredibly easy to play with almost no administrative overhead and there’s plenty of both civilization-ending genocide and thoughtful strategy to keep everyone pleased.
I’ve come to really love the game, and it’s also become one of those games like Cosmic Encounter where I’m willing to buy any new expansion for it. It’s the kind of game that just gets better and better when more variety is brought into it. And since expanding the game simply means increasing the number of civilizations and their modifying powers, it’s easy to add to the design without incurring rules burden or exceptions. It’s a highly evolved and streamlined “Dudes on a Map” descended design, and it’s always a delight to see what combinations of civilizations and powers spring up- and how players exploit them.
Apparently hearing my “I’ll buy anything Smallworld!” proclamation, Days of Wonder has recently issued an all-new standalone title in the product line, Smallworld Underground. The new game takes the lighthearted territorial tussle of the brand into subterranean caverns brimming with the rising and declining civilizations of Mud Men, Mushroom People, Cultists, Drow, and other cellar dwellers. It’s essentially the exact same game but with an entirely new set of special powers and races in a new cavernous setting with variations on the terrain types found in the original game. There are two major new additions: Relics and Popular Places. Both are guarded by a pair of monsters, which are treated just as the Lost Tribe neutrals from the original game.
Relics are essentially items that impart an extra benefit to the holding race while Popular Places remain on the board while contributing their ability to its occupants. The Places are interesting in particular because it changes the valuation of certain territories and creates potential objectives. The best of the Places has to be a summoning pentacle, which brings forth a rampaging Balrog that simply lays waste to entire swaths of land. Another, oddly enough, brings the ghost of Lara Croft into play. (Hang on…what?- ed)
SW: Underground is 100% playable out of the box, and its format is exactly the same as its predecessor. This means you get two boards with a side for each variation in player number so scaling is not an issue, and the same great tray organizer is provided to keep all of the race tokens straight. What’s more, the game is completely compatible with the first game as well as all of its expansions so races and powers- as well as the great “Tales and Legends” expansion that adds event cards- can be ported into Underground and vice versa. It’s not a seamless compatibility, however, as some terms and terrain types are slightly different. Hardly a big deal, however, since it just means recognizing what the analogs are between the games.
For gamers who may not have tried the Smallworld board game or the excellent iPad app, the recommendation is to check one or both of those out first. But that being said the Underground version isn’t necessarily a bad place to start as it is virtually identical to the vanilla “overground” edition. The new additions hardly increase the complexity of the game at all. The easy criticism against it is that it doesn’t really do all that much to expand the Smallworld concept other than adding variety and some cosmetic changes, but I also feel that it’s just enough. Anything more extensive in terms of revision or creating complexity could risk the easy-to-play, accessible fun on offer in abundance throughout the Smallworld system.
