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April 4 - Giving Credit(s) where it's due

March 31 - Behemoths for Chocolate

All updates published to date

The World of Board Games

The world of board games is different from the rest of gaming: You get larger boxes, lots of cool components, and games that can still be played 20 years later. You don’t ever need to worry about what platform it’s on!

But even in that world, we've developed a reputation for being a bit different at Days of Wonder:

• we focus on developing board games with the coolest components, best theme and gameplay, not on producing the cheapest games possible;
• we develop digital versions of our games ourselves, in-house, rather than licensing them to third-parties;
• and we never, ever, discuss new products and future plans ahead of their actual release.

But this time, we'd like to Play Different!

The Project: Small World 2

A year after the launch of Small World - the Board Game, on the first day the original iPad became available, we launched Small World for iPad, pioneering a whole new world of board games on Tablets! 

The game earned critical acclaim and hordes of devoted players, but soon took a backseat to our own Ticket to Ride - the train game that pays the bills at Days of Wonder.

The game didn’t die though. While fans kept playing the original iPad version, deep in a corner of our Paris office, a dedicated team started creating the next generation of Small World.

Development of Small World 2 is now well underway...

Small World is about to get A WHOLE LOT BIGGER, in Small World 2. 

For the first time, the game will accommodate not just 2, but 3, 4 and 5 players, each players configuration with its own map, just like the board game!

More players also means more ways to play: Beyond its original Solo and 2 players Face-to-face mode, Small World 2 will now also support Pass'N Play, Local Play and a true Turn-by-Turn asynchronous online mode that lets you play with friends across different platforms and multiple time zones, while remaining fast enough to support real-time play.

There will also be more Races and Special Powers than ever competing for world domination in Small World 2, now. In addition to the original Cursed! and Grand Dames expansions, Be Not Afraid will be available as an In-App Purchase. 

And if this campaign gets funded, all backers at the Tritons level and higher will automatically unlock and receive The Kickstarter Backers digital Bonus Pack, a set of 3 new Races and 3 new Special Powers that Philippe Keyaerts has developed specially for this release.

Even better, all these expansions will be playable under a generous "boardgame-like" policy, where as long as the person who initiates a game owns an expansion, all players in that game get a chance to play with it; no risk of waiting for opponents with the same set of expansions you own!

Why Kickstarter?

We're committed to releasing Small World 2 on iPad no matter what; but we've also heard those of you clamoring for a port onto Android and Steam. 

For a small company like us, especially one doing all its development in-house, creating versions for these platforms is a non-trivial project, and one that will divert significant resources away from our Ticket to Ride mainstay. 

In our forums, on Facebook and on Twitter, enough of you have told us you’d like to spend some hard-earned cash on Android and Steam apps to make it worth our while. Now is your chance to prove it. 

And to sweeten the pot, we've come up with some very cool swag to help you decide to pledge!

The Rewards

The Online game and Kickstarter Backers digital Bonus Pack

Philippe Keyaerts has designed 3 new races and 3 new special powers specially for Small World players who choose to back us with their pledges during this campaign. These new races and special powers will be unlocked through a special achievement linked to each backers (at the Tritons level and higher) player account, when Small Word 2 for Android and Steam ships.

Pledge at the Skeletons level if you want the bonus races & powers along with a copy of the game on the platform of your choice.

If you already own Small World iPad, and are interested in getting a copy of the game on another platform, no problem - Go ahead and pledge for this new platform, and your Bonus pack will automatically appear and be playable on all platforms you own Small World 2 on!

If you already own Small World iPad, but don't care about the Android or Steam versions, pledge at the Tritons level instead:

Physical board game rewards for higher pledges

If you're a committed player of the board game, you might also be tempted by the rewards for some of our higher pledges, such as...

The 6 Player cardboard Map of Small World that Philippe is designing for this campaign.

Featuring Small World on one side, Small World Underground on the other, this reward will ship with all the additional tokens (mountains, lost tribes, monsters, etc.) required to play with 6 players around the table.

If you already own Small World on the iPad, and don't care about any of our other digital versions, but choose to pledge at the Goblins level to get this map, you will be given a chance to donate the digital copy of the game you receive as part of your pledge to a friend, while still choosing to keep the Kickstarter Backers digital Bonus Pack for yourself!

Finally, if you don't care at all about any digital versions, but still lust for this map, we hope to offer some for sale on our web site, at a later date and slightly higher retail price.

We're also busy designing The Small World Pocket Encyclopedia, a 110x140mm hard cover notebook filled with 84+ full-color pages of concept art, illustrations, strategic advice and trivia surrounding the denizens of Small World.

To receive the Encyclopedia, simply up your pledge to the Orcs level.

The same comments as for the Goblins pledge apply, if you're interested in the Encyclopedia but don't care about digital versions of the games (or already own the iPad version, and have no friends to donate a digital copy to ;-)).

And last but not least, for the most committed, crazy, extravagant or dedicated of you, we are offering a very limited number of opportunities for you to design your very own Small World race or mini-expansion! 

We will professionally illustrate this expansion, lay it out, print it, and who knows? - maybe even publish it or code it into the game, if we really like it!

Some all important Add-ons...

But it wouldn't quite be Small World if we'd stopped there, right? It's a Board game after all, so we thought we should have some things for those of you who still live in the digital dark ages and couldn't care less about tablets, phones and other strange electrical contraptions.

So we've come up with some very special add-ons; physical rewards that you can receive by simply adding the corresponding $ amount to the pledge of your choice. 

For instance, if you wish to get yourself our sure-to-be-cool 'I Backed a Troll' T-shirt, simply add $ 21 to the pledge of your choice. We will ask your choice of T-shirt size (S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL) once the campaign ends.

If you only care for some of our add-ons but none of the digital stuff, just pledge at the $1 Kobolds level:

... and add the $ amount of the physical rewards you want to receive to your pledge. 

For instance, $ 10 ($1 Kobolds pledge + $9 for the Royal Bonus) will get you a cardboard version of the 3 new races and 3 new special powers Philippe designed for this campaign, along with all the race tokens and markers needed to play them in Small World the board game.

...and a very special Designer Edition!

For those of you who wish to go even further, we've come up with a very special add-on: The Designer's Oath version of Small World's upcoming deluxe Designer Edition. 

Small World's Designer Edition is a spare-no-expense version of Small World the board game that will ship in 2014; this version of the game is true to Philippe Keyaerts' original wooden prototype.

The Designer Edition will feature: 

• 307 deluxe wooden tokens covering all races from the base game and its Cursed!, Grand Dames and Be Not Afraid expansions + the Lost Tribes
• each race will comes in its own individual, lavishly illustrated box
• the banners, special powers and markers that complement the deluxe tokens will all be heat-printed on wood, matching the tokens neatly
• the victory coins will all be distinctive metal coins specially forged for Small World
• the maps will be super-sized copies of Small World's 2-5 player maps, and include a new 6 player map specially designed by Philippe Keyaerts for this campaign
• The Dragon, the Catapult, the 2 Heroes will all be represented by custom resin miniatures

We are still in the early design stages of the Designer Edition; Back us now and we'll work hard to make your own copy even nicer...

By adding $ 320 to your pledge now, you'll receive a Kickstarter exclusive version of our Designer Edition, that will include:

• A deluxe wooden version of the 3 new Races & Special Powers in the Kickstarter Backers Bonus Pack
• A signed plaque - numbered and engraved in your name
• Shipment 3 months ahead of the actual retail release
• An $ 80 discount off the $ 400 retail price of the Designer Edition

International customers please add $ 50 to your pledge, to cover for our additional shipping fees; If you live outside the US, you must be prepared to take responsibility for custom or import fees, as well as taxes (including VAT) your home country may impose when we ship you your Designer Edition. International copies will ship through the US Postal Service - Priority Mail International.

We are investigating the possibility of shipping Designer's Oath versions to European customers from our European warehouse. Should this option materialize, you will be given a chance to select it before we ship you your copy, but your costs may increase as a result of the 20%+ VAT European countries will typically charge us.

So, which pledge should I choose?

Still a bit unsure about which pledge to choose and which add-ons to select to get the rewards you want? Consult this table 

Also please make sure to check our FAQ at the bottom of this page, and our Updates at the top for additional details and answers to your questions!

Stretch Goals

The most frequent requests were for long-out-of-print expansions to come back into print.

Stretch goal # 1 is now confirmed - Thank you!! We are going to design an updated version of Leaders and mail a free copy to all Kickstarter Backers who pledged $ 30 or more (regardless of how your pledge reaches that amount, whether through add-ons, shipping fees, etc. and regardless of where you live).

This revised expansion will contain Leaders for all Small World & Small World Underground races published to date, for Cursed!, Grand Dames, Be Not Afraid and for the 3 new races from the Kickstarter bonus pack.

Stretch goal # 2 is now confirmed - Thank you!! Necromancer Island is coming back into print later this year, we will mail a free copy and a folded Necromancer Island poster, to all Kickstarter Backers who pledge $ 60 or more (regardless of how your pledge reaches that amount, whether through add-ons, shipping fees, etc. and regardless of where you live).

Stretch goal # 3 is now confirmed - Thank you!!! All backers of this campaign who wish to, will be listed in the Credits to the digital version of the game, at their respective pledge level.