Why Make It Big?

These next two sections could just really start out with, so that the game stands out. A bigger game, it stands out among others. 1000+ cards, 200 minis, 500 tokens, weighs 300 lbs., all of those things stand out. It stands out on a shelf because it dominates the presence over other games. It stands out because you see it and all the stuff it comes with and it makes it more tempting.

But there are other reasons to make a game bigger. Firstly, it can lend itself to being more immersive. Hero minis fighting monster minis in a dungeon crawl, more immersive than just playing with tokens or a meeple or pawn. And you can’t really fit 200+ pages of story into that small a box. So it’s about creating that space for that immersive and epic storytelling.

Because that’s the other thing, it is more immersive and it’s more epic in nature. Again, those minis are going to make it feel that way.

But not all big games have a ton of minis, Gloomhaven for example has a few, Roll Player Adventures has one. These games are big for the story reason. But also because they offer things like, rolling a fist full of dice in Roll Player Adventures. Or 17 character classes you can play in Gloomhaven. So it isn’t just minis but it’s about the game play components as well.

Why Make it Small?

Making it small, you want it to stand out because it’s a smaller game than others. We have the Button Shy Wallet Games or the Tiny Epic game series. Those are about getting a game to be a small size, at least in a box to stand out as different from other games that way. How much game can you pack into small package.

But beyond that there are some other reasons you might go small. Portability is one of the biggest for them. It allows you to have that game that will get tossed into a backpack or suitcase on a trip. Easy enough to fly with, or even with some of the smaller ones, Orchard, Grove, For Northwood, or the Button Shy games. those can fit into a pocket and just be with you.

Besides that, I think most of the time the reasoning for making a small game or making sure it’s a small game, because some games are naturally small, is to show off that you can do it. Not a great reason, but I understand why some designers like to do that as a challenge.

Thoughts on Board Game Size

But what size is right? And I think that this is an interesting question. I think that both the massive game and the tiny game are used to extremes often for their detriment.

Let’s take The Isofarian Guard, for example. I removed two trays and now it fits, just barely, on my game table. And I don’t have a small game table. It is a game that is massive in size, and thus far, I think that it could have been scaled down, just a little bit, to make it fit better. The whole thing is done for the epic nature of the game, and it’ll make it easier to see and read. But it’s just big and bulky in areas for little reason other than to be big a bulky.

At the same time, there are games, Tiny Epic games are notoriously bad for this, that cram so much into a little box. When you start to put stuff back into the box you realize that you need a masters degree in packing logistics just to fit everything back in. It’s a constraint that then becomes a bad thing. And the flip can be true with big games. You get too much space and now what could be two boxes is size boxes.

Focal Point

The issue with either big or small, like I said, is when that becomes the focal point of the game. It reminds me of stories I’ve read or heard about. There the author writing a piece of fiction has a point they are trying to make. It starts to beat the reader across the head and become preaching a point versus telling a story.

Big and small games are like that, when they become about being big or being small. They beat you across the head with that versus being a good game. If your great game lends itself to being in a tiny package. That is great. If it needs three boxes of minis, that’s great. But it is about the game finding its size versus a size being put upon it.

What’s your favorite game that is tiny? And what is your favorite game that is massive?

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Basics of the Board Game

Let’s talk a little bit about how each one is played. As they do all do things differently but there are also some similarities. We’ll get to those in a minutes.

Grove

In Grove you are growing fruit trees to get as large a crop as you can. To do this you start with a base card and then you layer on other cards to cover it. You want to match fruit symbols to raise the value of the fruit you are getting from it. If you overlap the wrong type of tree you place a squirrel that is worth negative points.

Grove offers two things upon that idea. First the idea of a glade, an open spot on a card. This can cover anything. Of course, it does cause the fruit to fall to the ground. Unless you match the right color again. And then there’s the point cards, which basically give you goals and a target for your scoring. You can play just to see how high you score or you get a target to score.

Orchard

In Orchard you also layer cards so that you build out an orchard. But it is slightly different. There are no open spots, instead you get two bad apples you can put on your board that are bad matches. It doesn’t hurt you as much, just with where you can layer out the cards. And you try and get the best score possible as you layer the cards.

Sprawlopolis

Sprawlopolis has nothing to do with fruit, it is about building a town instead. You gain points for building large residential, commercial, industrial, or green spaces. And lose points for roads that go nowhere. But you layer the cards, if you want, as you play them down to create these areas.

You also need to pay attention to how you place them out because there are objectives which will give you more points that you play with for each game. This will add to the basic scoring that you do every game.

Similarities

Most obviously, all of these games have you layering cards. Though, while the symbol on the card matters for both Grove and Orchard, most of the time, it doesn’t for Sprawlopolis. But by layering the cards, you are trying to optimize your scoring in each of the games.

They are all also games that come in very small packages. Sprawlopolis is a Wallet Game from Button Shy Games, and with both Grove and Orchard you use 9 cards, plus dice in a given game. And while all of them don’t need to be played solo, they are small enough that people tend to play them solo more often than not. It is just easy to put them into a pocket and take them with you.

Differences

Firstly, both Grove and Orchard have to be specifically matched and use dice. Those are two things that aren’t part of Sprawlopolis. So Orchard and Grove are more restrictive on card placement. You have ways to “cheat”, but it is limited.

Also in Sprawlopolis, it is possible to play without layering any cards. Now that might not work out too well for you in the long run. Because you’ll see every bit of the town and every bit of the roads which might give you negative points. But it is possible.

And finally, Orchard doesn’t have goal based scoring. While all of them do give you points that make up how well you did in a game. Grove optionally offers goal based scoring. And Sprawlopolis always has that target that you are trying to reach.

Board Game Battle

Let me start out by saying, I think they all do things differently. I have all of them in my collection and I don’t foresee getting rid of any of them in the near future. So they are different enough, but there is also a lot of overlap, all word play intended, in these games. Mainly around the basic mechanic of the game. Layering cards to get your best score possible.

For me, it comes down between the two of Orchard and Grove. Sprawlopolis is very solid, but it offers you more choices in that you don’t have to overlap, but you probably want to at times. And you have more cards in hand that you need to think about. So it just takes a short and snappy game premise and stretches it out.

And when I talked about Grove, in it’s review, I said that I think without the goal scoring, I prefer Orchard. That is still true. Orchard offers a better card layering puzzle if you don’t have a target number. It’s friendlier in it’s card layering.

But the winner is Grove. I was worried originally that the objectives were going to bog down the game somehow. It doesn’t. Now, you don’t always focus on the objectives. Because they might not give a lot of points. But it is in the back of your mind that those scorings might just be able to push your over the threshold.

Which one of these is your favorite?

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