Brodsky’s Board Game Review
Do you have what it takes to create a streamlined production and resource making empire to rule over a near-future or alternate version of Earth? Can you “out draft” your friends at the table, foil their plans, and score enough points to be named Supreme Ruler?
Today we are going to look at It’s A Wonderful World from Lucky Duck Games, designed by Frederic Guerard, and artwork by Anthony Wolff. It plays 1-5 players and takes between 45 minutes to an hour to play.
Game Information
Game: It’s A Wonderful World
Mechanics: Card drafting, End Game Bonuses, Hand Management, Set collection, Simultaneous Action selection, Variable Player powers (credit: bgg.com)
Time: 45 minutes to 1 hour
# of players: 1 to 5 (Yes, there is a solo mode with multiple prepared scenarios right in the instruction booklet!)
Age: 14 and up (I disagree with this. My 9 year old and 12 yo sons can play this game.)
Overview
In It’s A Wonderful World, you and your friends at the game table each represent an expanding empire in a near-distant futuristic version of future Earth. You must choose, through card drafting and passing the hand on, your path to developing faster and more efficiently than your opponents. You must plan (and observe your opponents plans on the table) to develop your empire’s expansion, foil your opponents plans, and have the best production power in this new imaginary world. Building up resources could score you the most points to be named Supreme Leader. And oh, yeah, it’s all neatly and compactly done in four rounds.
Components
The base game box includes: 1 five part color coded game board to assemble (to place resources), 5 two-sided Empire cards (A/B: generic/unique), 150 development cards, 170 resource cubes, 80 character tokens, 1 round-tracker token, and 1 score pad.
Gameplay
To start the game the color coded game board/tableau is put together in the middle of the table with all of the resource cubes placed in their appropriate sections (grey: materials: black: energy, green: science, yellow: gold, blue: exploration, and red:wild).
All players also randomly choose one of the two sided Empire cards to represent which empire from the futuristic Earth they are playing as. As a group, you have to choose whether you want to play as the generic side (A) where everyone gets the same resources or side B which offers more of a challenge and has a very specific set of resources depending on which empire you choose. For example, side B of the PanAfrican Union is going to be different from the side B of another empire.
Then one player must shuffle the 150 development cards and hand out 7 cards to each person participating including themselves. The development cards have artwork that represent which “faction” of development they represent. They also very clearly show how much they cost in various energies to create and what resources, points, or point modifiers they give back. Some cards will give back resources immediately or points in the form of the character tokens. Many of the cards also have a resource that you can gain if you choose to discard it during your planning phase.
Once the setup is complete, it is on to the game play which consists of three phases: drafting, planning, and production. It is important to know that in each phase, everyone plays simultaneously. There is no turn taking, everyone performs their actions at the same time.
In the drafting phase, you take a card from your hand and pass the remaining cards to the left (rounds 1 and 3) or to the right (rounds 2 and 4). After each person has a face down card, everyone reveals their card for all to see in their draft area in front of them. You do this drafting and revealing until all seven cards are distributed to the players. Be aware that you could end up sending very powerful and useful cards to your opponents to your right and left if you are not paying attention. Sometimes, it just pays to “hate draft” and take a card away from your opponent to just recycle it later in the development phase just to get a resource to help yourself.
Next is the planning phase which has two actions that all players, again, do simultaneously. You have a choice for each of the seven cards in front of you: either keep the card face up in front of you to construct, with energy cubes your empire produces, and gain the synergies it has with your empire or you recycle it for the resource printed on the card. One of the cool mechanics is that if you recycle enough resources to construct a card early, you get to place it under your empire card and you can get THAT specific card's complete amount of benefits immediately when we get to the production phase.
Lastly is the production phase, where you are gaining resources from the tableau in the middle of the table based on your empire and previously constructed cards to build more cards to put under your empire’s control. You also gain the card's printed amount of resources on the turns. During the production phase, this is where the game slows down, because each resource type is called out individually. Players count how many resources they are going to earn and call it out. The person with the MOST resources gains a character token for a victory point for having the MOST of that individual type of resource. For example if I call out that I generated 7 Science cubes for my production but Jazz calls out that he generated 8 Science cubes, he gets the victory point token or a “Supremacy Bonus”.
When players take their cubes they have the choice to place them on the cards they are building but they must match the corresponding color types printed on the card, unless you are using a red cube which is considered “wild”. Players will have up to seven cards in front of them in their construction zone, so various strategies of building up cards can be used. Any cards that are completed are nested under their empire card to generate resources for the next turn. Other cards are left in the construction zone for another turn to be finished later on. One other option during the construction phase is that if you have excess resources, you can place them on your empire and turn in ANY five to gain a red or wild (Krystallium) cube to use as a wild token on any card for any color. And, Krystallium offers players NO end game bonuses or points if you have excess or extra cubes of it produced - it gets you NOTHING. So create it carefully!
Just be aware that at the end of a round any resources you have left that cannot be used, must get sent back to the middle of the table. You cannot keep resources for another round.
After the construction phase is complete you’re right back to the drafting phase and start again with 7 cards. Wash, rinse, and repeat until you have finished four rounds using the tracker token.
The end of the game is triggered when everyone has finished constructing all of their final resources and distributing all of their final various types of energy cubes. Each player then tallies up their victory points and there is a score pad in the box for people to use. You add up the total of gross VP, any modifiers you might have for the various types of cards, the character tokens, and lastly any cards that have modifiers for the character tokens.
The player with the most points wins. The game also offers two ways to break ties: the person with the most cards/resources for their empire or the most character tokens. If the tie still stands, then it is considered a tie.
If you enjoy the Solo mode of games, the back cover of the rule book offers multiple solo scenarios to play through as well.
Final Thoughts
"...once you get into the layers...the game is very engaging and challenging for gamers of all levels."
After seeing so many people purchase It’s A Wonderful World and play it constantly at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia last November, I was curious about the hype and what the buzz was all about. After a few plays with Jazz and the Lobby of Hobbies crew, I knew I had to have it for my house.
As a Dad and board gamer, I have to be careful what mechanics I bring to the table in my house because my family is very picky about what games they play. There are times they love a dice tossing mechanic or an economy driven game only to play something else with that same mechanic and they tell me they hate it. This game hit the dining room table and was an instant winner. The card drafting and interaction with players keep it light and fluffy on the outside, but once you get into the layers of observing what your opponents strategies are, drafting your own cards to attempt to create “synergies”, trying to out produce your opponents, AND still earn VP the game is very engaging and challenging for gamers of all levels.
For people/families with limited time this is easy to learn and challenging to master because of the replayability and the many ways you can win. Do not be intimidated by the symbology or the 14+ age recommendation on the box. My 9 year old and 12 year old play this game with relative ease. I have had game nights where this game hits the table and never leaves because of everything it has to offer. I am excited to see what the Kickstarter expansions add to the game when they come out later this year or early 2021.
I highly recommend this game as an addition to any tabletop game collection and look forward to getting it to my table again in the near future.