“Child of Light” Review

My friend, Tere, coined the phrase, “going Small World” after we wrapped up our attempt at playing the game.

As we were putting away the game and it’s many pieces, her eldest son, Caspian, began explaining certain of aspects of the Star Wars franchise to my partner, who is a casual fan. Caspian went on to explain more than the major dynamics and continued onto fish bone fine details that left someone with no previous story knowledge cross-eyed.

Tere stopped Caspian by saying that from now on she was going to say he was “going Small World” whenever he gave too many details.

Here’s the context:

Before I attempted to play Small World I would look through the booklet and the double-sided board to get a general overview of the game. I gleaned a pretty broad sense of the game, but there were still many things that I didn’t understand. This didn’t worry me. I assumed with other players and all the components laid out, Small World would make sense as a working system.

Biggest Problems: Clarity and Setup Pain

I played this game with people who sincerely enjoy playing games of different persuasions and the youngest player was 15. My friend Tere raised some intellectually curious and kids open to trying new and challenging games and will then co-opt you into also playing with them. I have no complaints, they are discerning game players and media consumers. Tere; her son, Caspian; her daughter, Emma; my partner, Taydy; and I embarked to play Small World. There were 5 of us in total.

Two satellites in the form of other family members also dropped into observe and to help interpret. The game was in good hands.

Total Time played: 1 hour and 45 mins

Total Number of Turns Played: 1

Small World contains many pieces such as the money broken down in 1, 5, 10, 25, 100, the race cards which pair with special ability cards. You need to lay everything out, including pieces that are not in play. This can be great for variety and Small World seems to be setup for long game play. The regions on both sides of the board were beautifully executed.

Assessment and Grievances:

The element of choice was very limited by all the constraints imposed on the player. The Player Game Turn guides that each player has in front of them aim to clarify the way the first turn goes and then the subsequent turns including additional special traits of races. I wanted it to be a resource, but it really just adds another layer of something you need to keep track of as a player.

These layers should add meaning, but they take away from the spirit of conquering lands, using strategy and being creative with your modes of attack. If you are going to invest the time and brain power in a game like this, it needs to be engaging and moreover allow the player to engage.

We really wanted this to work and that made it all the more frustrating.

List of Grievances:

We made an actual list after the game and it wasn’t my idea.

1. The game isn’t intuitive. You have to scrutinize the instructions and if you miss a detail, it can mess up the game.
2. There is a process to chose your character, which eliminates the option for free choice for the race card.
3. The icons on the board are not easily interpreted or explained. Is the pick on the mountain associated with the Dwarves who mine?
4. Conquering lands: This is the basis of the game, somewhat like Risk, but it was confusing how much money each person needs to conquer lands and how many per turn. There was a calculation that was different for each person / race.
5. Finally: “The point of the game goes unnoticed. It’s too complex to be fun.”

Simple Suggestions:

1. Provide examples with diagrams or just pictures of actual game play. Don’t just use words. Too many verbal explanations the player gets confused and tired.
2. Apparently, some people really enjoyed Small World. It was enough to fund a kickstarter for Small World 2 and there’s an online tutorial for that version. If you have a tutorial, link to it.

Metagame:

Tere mentioned that she didn’t like the idea of the race cards being discarded after the race was in “decline” and then the apparent opportunity to select a new race and use this new race again to conquer lands. The operative word on the game box is slaughter, so it’s no mystery what you are supposed to be doing with the races. Actually, the mechanism behind the decline and switching of races was unclear. Either way the sentiment was screwy especially when the suggested minimum age of play is 8 and 13 for the online version. All of us who played are all (not to be pompous) very intelligent people and age 8 wouldn’t be where I’d start for this game.

This didn’t hit a good note with me either. The race decline and disposal sounds like pretty blatant exploitation and to a person with double post-colonial issues (Trinidad and India), but still watches British TV shows, this was all kinds of twisted.

The only female “race” card were leaf clad Amazons and waiflike. The only one. I understand that the world is supposed to be fantastic and barbaric, but honestly the Amazonians didn’t seem to fit with the Orcs, Halflings, Giants, Elfs etc. So if you are going to break form, why just choose one skimpily clad woman “race?” This just seemed like a lazy choice to me. Perhaps, Small World creator, Philippe Keyaerts, really likes Amazons and that’s his prerogative, but I remember Amazons being more imposing.

Here’s a downloadable image from the Days of Wonder (company that produced Small World) site:

This was as far as we got with our effort. No one race conquered, one was in decline, but no race was eradicated.

On the travel site HipMunk, a traveler can sort flights by a factor of “pain” that takes into consideration flight times, length travel and layovers.

I don’t know what numerical value I’d give the Game Pain for Small World, but I was disappointed.