Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 30-90 minutes

Summary of the Components

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork (henceforth: Discworld) comes in a square box containing: tons of cards, tons of wooden bits, some player aid sheets, some coins, a 12-sided die, and a board.

Quality: The board is thick and linen-textured, as are the coins, while the huge supply of wooden bits are all good quality. Though not linen-textured, the cards are thick and sturdy. 5 out of 5.

Beauty: The board looks like an attractive, Medieval-period map (colored appropriately to show 12 districts). There's also a huge array of attractive, full-color artwork on the cards. The wooden bits deserve special note; though I don't think the houses are great designs, other bits like the minions and (especially) the demons are very nicely shaped. 5 out of 5.

Usability: The majority of the game's usability depends on the cards. The symbols on them become easy to recognize very quickly (and if you forget anything, there's a player aid sheet full of explanations). The player aid's back side describes the five different victory conditions and the value of the various city districts. This is less successful because rather than using helpful, easy-to-read icons, there's lots of text. This makes them harder to quickly assess (which can be a real issue with the victory conditions). There are also some slight issues with the board, where the irregular districts can be slightly hard to distinguish at a few points due to similar colors. Despite these relatively minor complaints, there's a lot of great usability in this product. 4+ out of 5.

Theming: The game is set in Ankh-Morpork, as clearly labeled on the board, which is the start of the theming. However, theme really shines through the game's 100+ cards which portray locations and characters from Discworld--from Captain Carrot to Carcer, from Moist von Lipwig to DEATH. The cards generally have powers appropriate for the characters & places, and I think Discworld fans will get a lot of enjoyment out of them. This game's deep immersion in the Discworld setting is exactly what I hope for in a licensed product. 5 out of 5.

Generally, quality, beauty, and theming are all strengths of Discworld, earning it a "5" out of "5" for Style.

Summary of Gameplay

Discworld is a game of asymmetrical victory conditions. Each player will secretly take a character, which will reveal how wins. Three of the characters are trying to gain majority control of several of the districts in Ankh-Morpork; one needs presence in most of the districts; one is looking for money; one is trying to create trouble; and the final character is just trying to wait out the end of the game.

If no one accomplishes their individual victory conditions then a default victory condition is used that scores minions and money. However, in my inexperience an individual player will usually hit his victory conditions.

Setup: Each player is given some cash and some cards and gets to place three minions on the board.

After that, the gameplay is really easy: a player plays a card on his turn which defines what actions he can take and then he draws back to a hand-size of 5.

Playing A Card: A player's core action is to play one of the five cards out of his hand. Each represents a character or location from the Discworld books. Most cards have special text and most also let you take one or more special actions. A line of icons across the top of each card tells you the order to do things in.

Special actions often allow you to assault other players, taking cards or money. They sometimes let you discard bad cards and sometimes let you draw cards. The standard actions are as follows:

Place A Minion. You put a minion on the board in a district. If there are already minions there, this creates TROUBLE.

Minions are one of the major elements in the game. You must have a minion to build buildings. They also can give you control or presence in a district, which relate to 4 of the 7 potential victory points. Even if you're not trying for majority control, you may be trying to stop other people. Finally, minions are the main determinant for who wins if the game ends otherwise undecided.

Place a Building. If you have a minion in a district without TROUBLE and without a building, you can purchase a building for a cash outlay. The building helps toward majority control and also grants a special power (taking money, placing a minion, modifying TROUBLE markers, discarding cards, etc.).

Assassinate a Minion. You remove an enemy minion in a space with TROUBLE (and then remove the TROUBLE).

Remove TROUBLE. You take away a TROUBLE marker.

Take Money. You earn $1 or more.

Random Event. You draw a random event card and then play it. These are often bad, and are particularly bad for buildings, which can burn, flood, be assaulted by dragons, etc. Players who are running behind will be eager to play events, while those running ahead will have to decide whether the rest of a card makes it worthwhile.

Play Another Card. This is a critical card power that's available on a small (but notable) number of cards. You get to immediately play another card, thus extending your turn.

Draw Back Up: At the end of a turn, you draw back to a hand size of 5 if you're under.

Ending the Game: The game most frequently ends when someone announces that they've met their victory condition at the start of their turn. Else, the players will go through the whole card deck, then count up minions and money to determine victory.

Relationships to Other Games

Martin Wallace tends to design what I call Anglo-American games. These are primarily Euro designs that nonetheless take notable elements from the hobbyist American design school. They thus tend to be very well themed, they sometimes (but not always) have some element of randomness, and they typically involve more direct conflict than you find in an average Euro.

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork flips that equation around, feeling more like an American game design with Euro touches. Actions in the game are entirely constrained by the cards you have to play, adding a notable random element to the game. This is amped up even more by the random events which can cause wide-scale chaos. The game's majority-control element is straight from the Euro school, but Discworld also has far more of a "take that" element than your average Euro, as you can use cards to deliver serious pain to opponents.

In some ways, Discworld feels to me like a twisted, alternate-universe version of Martin Wallace's London. They're both card-driven games of city management and acquisition, centered around a districted board of the city, but from there they start to vary immensely.

The Game Design

The cards are clearly the most innovative element of Discworld in the way that each allows for multiple actions--some standard and some unique--which must be done in a specific order. I think it's a mechanic that's somewhat underused, but it's nonetheless an interesting one.

However, I think it's the hidden, asymmetric victory conditions which really make the game. Players have plenty of opportunity to both disguise their own goals and try to figure out those of the other players', and this adds a delightful layer of intrigue to the game. Beyond that, trying to stop players who are getting close to the various victory conditions drives much of the game.

I think that gamers who are more familiar with American games (which I think are nowadays exemplified by the Steve Jackson releases) and those familiar with Euro games will have different takes on Discworld.

American gamers will find that Discworld ticks off many of the criteria they like in games, most of which I've already mentioned: great theming, random elements, take-that attacks.

However, I think it does so considerably better than many American releases. It brings in tight game mechanics with its carefully designed cards and its simple majority control. It also avoids a problem that many take-that games run into; whereas others get into infinite loops of players stopping each other from winning, in Discworld the take-that options are just slightly limited, so that you can try and slow down a winner, but probably not stop them entirely. (It also has a time limit built into the cards, which makes sure that it won't go on forever even if everyone manages to hold back the leaders.)

Euro gamers may be put off by their inability to take actions unless they have the proper cards and the large element of random chaos in the game. But, if they don't mind those elements, they should still find Discworld to be an enjoyable and different sort of game.

Overall, I've given Discworld a strong "4" out of "5" for Substance, though my strongest recommendation goes to fans of Illuminati, Munchkin, and other games of that ilk.

Conclusion

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork is a very different sort of game for Martin Wallace. It's more of an American design, full of randomness and confrontation, with some touches of elegant Euro design. Fans of American games should find it a well-polished and well-themed entertainment. Fans of Euro games will need to be comfortable with the random elements, but if so will enjoy a fun game.