Small World is one of the world’s most popular board games with 650,000 copies sold all over the world, spanning both its physical and digital versions which are dynamite sales in the board game world. We reviewed its digital version, Small World 2 (read the full review here), and while it had some fairly extensive multiplayer options available to it, it lacked perhaps a more competitive approach to its multiplayer modes. Thankfully though, Days of Wonder is adding a new update, the Small World 2 Tournament Style update, which adds quite a few features that board game buffs are going to really appreciate.
Chief among the updated features is the Tournament-Style multiplayer, which allows times to be set for how long players can take to make their moves. This includes a feature that allows an AI to take over for a player that runs out of time, seeing the game to completion, and although the AI may win in the person’s place, does not count as a win for that player. This is a really neat feature as it means that games cannot be ruined by people giving up or simply leaving the game, something that has typically plagued digital board games.
The update also includes several new modes, including Single and Multi Session games, Online Arena, which features a real-time chat lobby and other community focused features, and quite a few chat options have been added at player’s request, in particular persistent chat windows being available while in-game. It’s a pretty extensive update, one which Days of Wonder is hoping will foster the same kind of community that has taken shape over at its other popular digital board game, Ticket to Ride.
If you want to take advantage of the new Small World 2 update, you can pick up the game from the Play Store at the links below. And for more details about the update, take a look at the Press Release below.
Press Release
About Small World:
- Small World 2, the digital follow-up to the best-selling Days of Wonder digital fantasy board game, is officially expanding from iPad to Steam and Android platforms.
- The Small World franchise (physical game, expansions and digital game combined) has generated more than $20 million global sales
- The physical Small World board game has sold more than 650,000 copies worldwide across its digital and physical versions.
- To put that number into context: a “hit” independent/hobby board game typically sells between 5,000-10,000 copies.
- Small World 2 does something no other digital board game can: it allows players to challenge friends to a real-time game across iPad, Android tablets (including Amazon’s Kindle Fire), and PC’s via both Steam and Days of Wonder Online.Â
- Players can even start a game on one platform, and continue on another and challenge friends on any platform.
Download links:New Features – Small World 2 Tournament Style
- Full-featured Lobby (called “Online Arena”) with real-time chat, list of connected players, game creation and list of open games to join. This will help building a thriving community just like what happened with Ticket to Ride.
- Two types of games : “Single Session” games and “Multi Session” games.
- The single session game is real-time gaming à la Ticket to Ride, with AI taking over if a player quits the game. This will allow players to play quick real-time games and be sure to finish them even if a player “rage-quits”.
- Multi session games are the asynchronous gaming that already existed, but with the new system described below.
- Tournament-Style Multi-player – This is the big new feature. The player creating a game decides in advance how much time will be allocated to each player for the entire game.
- This includes a mechanism that works much like a Multiplayer Chess Clock, with the difference that if a player runs out of time, a AI takes over for that player until game end. The player that runs out of time loses no matter what (i.e. even if the Bot that steps in her shoes to complete the game wins the game), but the other players can finish the game to completion and see how they fared against each other.
- Bad players won’t be able to spoil the other players’ experience by dragging their feet when they lose.
- Allows for different styles of play, from “quick fix” to “deep strategy” games.
- Also sets proper expectations right from the start in terms of how fast or slow a player wants to play a game.
- Finally it paves the way for some future major features, such as tournaments.
- A Player Clock will govern both style of plays, albeit with different preset durations.
- Player Clock duration is adjustable to the minute, with a number of preset durations available for tournament play as well as more leisurely games.
- Additional improvements in the online gaming area. This implements the most important requests of players:
- Ranking, private games, karma filtering, starting player selection when creating a game,
- Persistent in-game chat,
- Chat at the final score screen, with possibility to add the other players as Buddies right away,
- An improved invitation system for “games with friends”.
- A detailed statistics screen at the end of each game to analyze how each player performed with the various race/power combinations
