Last updated on January 4th, 2026 at 10:59 pm
Small World – The Board Game – Strategy Game Review
Small World – The Board Game is a Strategy/Board/Entertainment game from Twin Sails Interactive, first launched in 1st April 2010.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 707+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Small World – The Board Game Stand Out
CONTROL FANTASY RACES, SET OFF TO CONQUER NEW LANDS, OVERTHROW YOUR ENEMIES AND CLAIM THE VICTORY!
In this digital adaptation of the legendary board game, dive into a world inhabited by whimsical fantasy races.
Take control of the dwarfs, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs or even humans. Then send out your troops to battle mercilessly and conquer new regions. Make shrewd use of the special powers of your races to expand your empire and win the game! Meanwhile, weaker civilizations will be ruthlessly chased out of this Small World! Carve out your place in a world that’s too small to accommodate everyone!
This game of strategy and conquest can be played over and over again thanks to the nearly endless combinations of races and special powers. Whether you’re a newbie or an experienced player, you’ll love playing this classic board game with simple rules and tactical gameplay.
Features:
• MULTI AWARD-WINNING BOARD GAME: a digital adaptation of the award-winning board game that won the prestigious, Spiel des Jahres prize
• HEROIC FANTASY: a heroic fantasy world full of humor with 14 Races and 20 Special Powers
• ACCESSIBLE: accessible and tactical gameplay
• SOLO: play solo against the AI. Games of one to five players
• ONLINE MULTIPLAYER: challenge your friends or other players around the world
• LOCAL MULTIPLAYER: play with other people in the room by connecting to the same Wi-Fi network.
• EXCLUSIVE BOARDS: discover exclusive boards for 3, 4 or 5 players
• EXPANSIONS: Enhance the game with new 34 Races & Special Powers to discover in the expansions: Cursed!, Grand Dames, Be Not Afraid, Royal Bonus… and A Spider's Web, available in the game shop.
IDENTICAL RULES to the original board game but with the BENEFITS OF DIGITAL:
• A tutorial to make learning the rules easy
• Automatic point scoring
• Play anywhere, anytime with family, friends or other players around the world.
This Strategy game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Small World – The Board Game is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 3rd March 2021
Recent improvements include:
Changelog SW
- Add on the rules the number of token of winter and loot token
- Update A Spider's Web expansion image on the expansion box in English
- Now when put in decline combo with heroic power copied we remove the heroie token from the board. Same with fortified Power.
- Remove the peace indicator of diplomate power when player allie put in decline its combo
Download & Availability
Small World – The Board Game is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Small World – The Board Game on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
It has been years since our friends and we used to play Smallworld boardgame and had a blast. This mobile version is just as good maybe even better with how quick and easy it is to get into a game and how user friendly the whole UI is. Highly recommend to anyone whos a fan of fantasy and world domination type game! Very satisfied.
We take this game camping with us with our in-laws and the only down side is that seven people cant play. We ALL love it! Our youngest was 10 when he first played and hes now 14 and still cant get enough. Our other two kids, 17 and 20, our wife and we, and our mother- and father-in-law (87) can easily get playing and laughing long past bedtime. We love the board game, too, but the app makes it super easy to keep track and to go fast enough that no one is ever bored. The extensions are a MUST. Once you get the hang of it, definitely add them in one at a time to keep the fun going. Especially once you have them all, the power + creature combos are endless.
We are really enjoying this game and learning better how to play the board game to teach to others.
We like the game but we got the be not afraid expansion on the app and the mercenary ability is off- you get half the attack bonus Also the game crashes.
The current AI still as of July 2024 makes terrible choices in every way, from conquests to decline. The AI even somehow fails to attack with ghouls before going in decline with the active race, which the timing rules shouldnt allow. On another session the AI went in decline in the bottom of the final round for no benefit. The AI leaves singleton units exposed to the Sorcerers, and the AI doesnt properly redeploy to attack from a new area when cornered. Maybe its for the best that the AI doesnt have a Smart Mode so that we dont play more often. We download this from the cloud to remind ourselves why we only play with human opponents. Kudos to the design team for so many great features, though.
Im playing this on phone and it works good for the most part – its stable etc. One big flaw Im running into is that there is no undo button. We have had most of our games ruined already because of little accidental bumps to end turn etc and no way to reverse that action. The buttons are extremely close to each other and its easy to hit the wrong button by mistake. That reverse decision feature would make it so much better. Other than that its fun.
We would give it five stars but the app closes out at random times. Otherwise the game is a lot of fun! Definitely want to pick up the hard copy now.
Not sure what happened or why, been playing the game for years and all of a sudden we cant play anymore because the game just shoots us in an authenticating loop. Ive tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game Ive tried different devices and it dropped This authenticating problem on us in the middle of a game with buddies. Wouldve given us five stars but we are absolutely frustrated beyond belief that there is nowhere to find help to get this fixed.
A little clunky, with a fast play feature that can often cause you to skip your whole turn. Also have had issues where a game will disappear entirely from games list in the middle of playing.
We like the port, but we wish it didnt crash every 20 minutes. Also an undo feature would be nice.
We love the game but this app consistently crashes near the end of each game we play locally, and it does not let us return to it, we have to start a new gameonly for it to crash again. Its very frustrating that we cant finish a game.
Our family and we love this game however after purchasing the base game and a couple expansions the game is too glitchy. It will skip peoples turns or will get stuck on turns and not let you play your attacking pieces etc. Etc.
We enjoy the game and the digital version is very true to the board game version. Unfortunately, they dont seem to be updating the app anymore (last update was a year ago) and many bugs are creeping into the app. Turns get lost, games disappear. Its a mess. You should wait to purchase until they start to update again.
A couple of days ago we and one of our friends that we play regularly with stopped receiving push notifications for Small World.
The only way to set up an online asynchronous multiplayer game is to start a game in the online arena, and then leave your phone open to this app, forever – until enough people join. Which never happens. So an asynchronous game requires synchronous joining / starting. Terrible design.
Doesnt work, overly complicated, dont waste your money.
The app is slick but the actual game mechanics just arent that interesting. Maybe its just not our thing personally but the entire drafting races and territory conquest felt more tedious than exciting and since thats the core mechanic the whole experience was therefore just pretty meh to us. Like, why play this when you could play wingspan or Jaipur or 7 wonders just one mans take though, other people seem to think its fun.
Local player mode boots players out every time a play is made.
The latest update relocked the Royal Bonus dlc that had previously been purchased and wants it to be paid for again.
Its very easy to accidentally click something on your turn. Example decline or moving q piece, so why is there no undo button.
App is Great game but a little buggy.
This game glitches so bad and the AI is ridiculously unbalanced, save your money.
PLEASE give us a difficulty setting for the bots. We dont want to take the time to play another person or Id just play our physical copy. The bots are so insanely hard and they seem to attack the human player way more often than they attack each other. Im no god at this game but Im pretty decent and Im just getting wrecked by these bots.
The board game is fantastic, but we cant read any of the text in the app! There should be a way to increase the font size.
Updated review: With the July 2020 updates, we have to drop our rating. The game crashes 1 out of 10 times. It also freezes when the bots dont know what to do, such as with heroic + halflings (not enough places to put heroic shields) or with sorcerers who run out of tiles. The game lags a lot too, which is sad because it used to run seamlessly. The bots are dumber than ever, sticking with a race for the entire game when theyre only scoring 3-4 points each round. Its evident that Asmodee isnt committed to making this a solid entry in their iOS gaming line. Other games by the developer are awesome and run very well. Please make the needed changes so the game returns to its former glory! We've played most of the Euro games available for the iPad. While many are good, we get bored of them too easily. Not with Small World. We can play it anytime and still enjoy it. Plus, the new update is amazing! Keep it up, Days of Wonder.
The game overall works great when you are actually playing. However, when playing with friends, if a game ends when Im not in gameplay, there doesnt appear to be a way for us to re-enter the game and view the score. Did we win? Who knows…. Additionally, a large portion of ended games we seem to be unable to withdraw from so they stay on our game list indefinitely.
This is the same thing they ported unchanged and dumped on Steam as abandonware.
This game has always been buggy, but the latest forced update is unplayable. More than half of games crash or get stuck. Thank you for ruining a great game.
Since the last update when playing a multiplayer online game only the player who completes the game is able to view the results. Having to wait for someone else to tell you the results and hoping they relay the information correctly takes the enjoyment out of this game. Hopefully they will fix it soon. Wont be playing it again until it is fixed.
Why do you people have to improve things. Constant crashing when first run on our iPad Air is OK? We wish we had never updated. If we could give ZERO stars we would have.
Apparently they released this for the iPhone now, but regardless of owning the iPad version already we now have to repurchase it in order to play on the phone.
Small World is easily in our top 3 favorite board games – BUT for it to be fun, you need 4-6 people and we only get to play the physical board game once or twice a year… But with this app and AI we can enjoy games all the time. Please keep adding expansions! (Sky Islands is a MUST) Also, please make Small World Underground available as a stand alone game! Thank you for the amazing update here.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Ive been a fan of the game since its original version, Vici. We always hoped for an iPhone version. Ahhhh.
It was LONG overdue. We hate to be one of those people and point out that the app expects us to pay for the Royal Bonus. We paid to put our name in the credits so you wouldnt bother us with these types of things. Please put back access to the Royal Bonus that weve had since the SW2 Kickstarter campaign. Thanks! PS: we havent updated to 3.x on our iPad, and still have full access there. You broke something.
The game itself is pretty fun to play. The iPad version is great for lockdown since its super easy to get back in game when its our turn again. The game devs are also surprisingly responsive to bug reports, and has a bug fix for an issue we saw in a matter of days.
Have loved this game for a long time. Am disappointed that the update to 3.0 erased our high-score board. And the race selection board is now needlessly smaller. The animation of stealing victory coins (for Ransacking) seems to be broken.
We just updated to 3.0 and we cant see our current open matches. We also noticed that the update allows for play on our iPhone, but it looks like we have to purchase the game and expansions again. That will not happen. We hope these glitches are fixed soon because before today this was a 4-5 star game.
This is one of the best board game adaptations on our iPad. Everything flows smoothly. Access to the information on the races, special powers and other things are a click away while in the game. We cant recommend this game enough.
Family loves the game. Its very competitive even against computer. Would love to see more updates as we have purchased all the expansions.
We never played the actual board game but if you want a polished board game that is entertaining and contains just enough strategy then this is highly recommended. The amount of sheer combos of and ever present ability to switch combo characters on the fly adds endless possibilities. Presentation is awesome and user friendly. A great gem of an app. With the fast forward button, games are a mere 10-15 min and if you exit it's saved. We picked up Be not Afraid and can't wait to play it. We have not tried online multiplayer though so we can't speak to that. But solo games can be with bots or bots + other pass and play people.
This is one of our favorite board games. The app is exactly what you want if you're a Small World fan. Little to no bugs – all races and classes work as expected. Expansions are reasonably priced, but you can have lots of fun without them. Our only complaint is you can't add AI to a local network game. The reason this bugs us is our wife and we like to play each other on our own tablet. No AI means we can only play 2p, which if you've played the game you know is not ideal. They recently updated for 64-bit so the future of this app looks solid.
Updated: am we crazy ( don't answer that) or did the computer get way harder? We used to win games all the time. Now we haven't won in months and we play almost daily. Something change? Seems we get selective attacking on us or blue… Always blue, gets an unbeatable combination like sorcerer merchant or something. Old review still true: Why wouldn't there be a redo like something if you accidentally hit the done button before making any moves? No intent… Just a tablet touching error that tanks for entire game! Very annoying. Also annoying is not being able to set up log in even though you have contacted the developer. Wish this worked on iPhone and applet as well… But now we are getting picky. Don't miss this, smallworld 2 is the very best boardgame in the app store…period. Best variety in gameplay and highly captivating. But these gripes are legitimate.
We have, on multiple occasions, caught the AI player conquering territories not adjacent to one they control. No, they did not have the flying or underworld ability and they were not halflings or sorcerers on their first turn. We're an experienced player who knows the rules of this game. This behavior by the AI is not allowed. This calls everything else into question as well – how many times does it count points incorrectly.
Nice graphics, but Im new to this game. Frankly, the tutorial video wasnt very helpful. Please, please create a tutorial mode to help those of us who are new to the game! It would also be great to be able to see as Im trying to conquer a place how much it takes to overtake that region and how things are scored each round, rather than just a total.
True to board game port of a good game. But online multiplayer struggles – go check out Lords of Waterdeep or Galaxy Trucker for online asynchronous multiplayer done right. Problems with Small Worlds async multi: -Create an async game, and you have to sit there and wait for everyone else to join. If you create the game and leave the app… Your game is deleted. Why?!?! Its ASYNCHRONOUS. Why would we want to have to sit there for possibly hours waiting for everyone else to join? -Create an async game, and you cant create another async game until the first is fully joined and started. WHy?!?! Why cant we create 4 of these, and leave them there for anyone to join? Theres other bits, but those two are why async multiplayer is a ghost town for SW2. Fix it Asmodee, this wouldnt be hard.
We really want our money back, the tutorial wasnt helpful, and the game got boring.
As an experienced gamer, two of us found the game rules odd and obtuse. How can you decide on a strategy when you can nail down the rules? There is a brief and generic tutorial, but besides that, we were SOL. After an hour of frustration we deleted the game. What a waste.
Unlike Apple who immediately gave up on the original iPad, we are glad to see Days of Wonder continue to develop games that continue to be backwards compatible. Thank you.
Flawlessly designed and feels just like playing the board game at home…minus the cleanup afterward. Best alternative for those times family/friends aren't around to play the original.
We have played the board game 5 or so times and after 5 or so iPad games we think we like the iPad version even more. It is really nice to have all the coin counting done for you and have descriptions of the races and powers organized for you. We have enjoyed playing the computer as well as passing the tablet playing against our wife. Great game! Goes faster on the iPad than with tabletop version (still 10 rounds).
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 3.0.6
- Size: 496.36 MB
- iOS: 9.0 or later
- Languages: NL, EN, FR, DE, IT, JA, ES
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: Twin Sails Interactive
Last updated: 3rd March 2021 | Genre: Strategy, Board | Developer: Twin Sails Interactive