“Success is measured in money as you build your global smartphone empire.”
Link: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/246684/smartphone-inc
Playing Time: 60 Minutes
Weight: Lower End of Midweight
Genre: Territorial Control
Designer: Ivan Lashin
Players: 3-5
Smartphone looks like a meaty game but it’s really not. It’s a complex-looking Eurogame that you can teach in 15 minutes and play in an hour. It’s got quick turns, a slick modern presentation, and a lot of interesting decisions that leads into an easily understood territorial control game.
The cornerstone of the game experience is the action selection system, where players take two game pads, shown above, and overlays them over each other. The icons left showing are the resources that you have to play with this turn. In the above example, the player has two logistic actions (the blue trucks), one research (purple gear) and increased stock of two (the black crates – which also come with a price cut – this player is trying to make cheap phones in bulk!).
Along the way, players will research additional cardboard chits they can place over their pad (the red and purple duo in the picture) allowing them to get more and more satisfying resource yields each turn. It’s an simple puzzle that breaks your brains in new and interesting ways.
Leave a Reply