Small World sports a standard game menu.
Small World promises to be the first game of its kind: a digital board game with full touchscreen control. Using the Apple iPad, Small World acts as a virtual board game on your tabletop.
According to the press release from Days of Wonder, the game’s developer:
“Small World for iPad is the first digital adaptation of this award-winning fantasy board game. It enables two players to face off against each other and vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate all of the zany fantasy characters that inhabit Small World. Sitting across from each other around the iPad, players use their troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other players’ races off the face of the earth.”
In this two-player game, the program automatically enforces movement rules and evaluates victory conditions, just like any other multi-player strategy game experience. The key difference is that you’re playing a board game and moving your pieces by touch, just as if you had set up the game on your table.
A fully touchscreen-controlled board game.
Small World is available for $4.99 on the Apple Apps store for iPad.
The Icrontic Viewpoint
Rob Updegrove: Many Icrontians are avid board gamers. When the Microsoft Surface was announced, we were excited by the possibility of having a medium on which we could play our classic strategy games like Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan without the inconvenience of setting up and manually calculating scores. Unfortunately, the Surface isn’t exactly affordable. Small World is the first step at making the dream of digital tabletop board gaming a reality. Granted, the iPad isn’t my device of choice, but at least it’s relatively affordable. I think Small World is a step in the right direction for this genre. If I had an iPad, I’d certainly give the game a try.
CB Droege: I’m glad that Days of Wonder is being progressive enough to try this, and I do long for the day when the line between “board game” and “video game” begins to blur, but I don’t think that day is today.
The iPad simply isn’t the correct device. It sounds cool to have a sort-of pass-around boardgame, but it’s just a novelty, and honestly, it would have been more convenient to play Small World on a DS or PSP wirelessly. I’ve played a few rounds of Settlers of Catan’s iPhone version (which could also run on the iPad, of course), and the passing around actually distracts from the game, making it an inferior experience to the physical board.
Wait a few years. When we’ve got table-sized surfaces to lay out between us, and set the game up for us, but not take away our physical pieces or hands of cards. Then the day will have come, and board gamers and video gamers can come together in joy!
Brian Ambrozy: I don’t ever want to come together in joy with CB or Rob.
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