LogFAQs > #932801197

94. It's a Wonderful World (2019)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Card-drafting, tableau-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 3
Game length: 30 to 45 minutes
Experience: 2 plays over 2 sessions with 2, 4 players (2019)
Previous ranks: NR (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - It's a Wonderful World is played over four rounds. Each round consists of drafting cards and production. Drafted cards can be placed either into a construction zone or a discarded for resources, used to construct the construction zone cards. Constructed cards then produce yet more resources. Some cards give you victory points.

Design - This game is both a little simpler than 7 Wonders and a little more involved. The variety of cards is comparatively smaller, but the way production works, and the fact that your cards aren't instantly built, requires a second layer of thought. To me, the drafting is less good than 7W (because the cards aren't as cool), but the cool part of IAWW comes after the draft. The most agonizing part comes when you decide which of your cards to keep (and potentially build), while the most satisfying part of IAWW comes when your engine starts firing, you're getting those beautiful cubes pouring in, and you're completing a structure during production which immediately produces its resource too.

On a separate note, it's also hilariously overproduced for the simplicity of the game.

Experience - Having only played IAWW twice, it's hard to tell of course how to play it well (and card-drafting games are often beyond me). However, to me, it felt awkward that you draw from the same deck for all four ages, but like any engine-builder, you want to "run" your engine in the final rounds instead of building it. IAWW lets you run your engine all right, but what it doesn't do is guarantee you access to scoring cards during the final rounds. Compared to 7W which stacks the third Age with the highest point values (and always provides you with Wonders), it feels like you have to bite the bullet much earlier to get ways to score in IAWW.

Future - After getting smashed like 60-20 in my most recent game, a little gunshy - but would like to get reps in and maybe boost this game higher. No reason it can't stand as one of the elite filler-weight games (with a lighter overhead than 7W).
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yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness