World's Fair 1893

Today's review is of the 2016 release, World's Fair 1893. For 2-4 players, it takes 45 minutes.

Overview

You are an exhibitor at the famous World's Fair. Your goal is to gain influence and acquire exhibits across five areas (transportation, manufacturing, fine art, electricity, agriculture). Smart choices will gain you a nice variety of exhibits, key to gaining points at the end. But along the way, you can also pick up points by area control and ticket collection. Do you have what it takes to stand out?

3-player setup; image from here

Play is straightforward. On your turn, place one of your cubes in one of the five areas on the board. Take the corresponding cards; if you took any tickets, advance the ferris wheel car that many spaces. Draw three cards from the top of the deck and place one in each area going clockwise from the area you selected. If a given area already has the maximum number of cards, place the card in the next available area.

If, on one turn, you pick up one or more influential figures, you must play them on your next turn in addition to playing a cube. These can give you the bonus of placing an extra cube or moving a cube.

When the ferris wheel car has completed one rotation, scoring happens for that round. 

- the player with the most tickets gains a 2-point bonus

- every player gets coins equal to the number of their tickets

- the player with the most cubes in an area on the board gets a 2-point bonus and can discard one or more cards that matches that area's color to gain a token of that color

- all ticket cards are discarded

- the next round begins

After 3 rounds are over (each with scoring as described above), a final 'set collection' scoring happens, where players get points based on the diversity of tokens they have collected (each complete set of 5 a player has is 15 points, each set of 4 is 10, and so on, as indicated at the bottom of the board). Final scores are tallied; highest score wins!

Review

Quick to learn and simple to play, I would call this game solid but unspectacular. It is a combination of mechanics: worker placement, area control, and set collection. The combination itself is fun, but each element is rather standard. The theme is also cool, but pasted on, and (as my friend pointed out) won't hold interest in repeated plays. The beginning seemed liked 'points salad,' meaning you could score many different ways and it was hard to strategize, but subsequent rounds tightened up and had meaningful decisions. I don't dislike the game, but other games do each element better, so this won't see a lot of play. It is a great gateway game for those getting into the hobby, though.

Rating: B-