World’s Fair 1893 is a light area-control game, with aspects of card-drafting and set-collection.
Your goal is to collect sets of Approved Exhibits (coloured tokens) over three rounds. During each round you’ll be working to collect proposed Main Exhibits (coloured cards) whilst aiming to have the most supporters (player cubes) in one or more areas matching the colour of your proposed exhibits.
There are also Influential Figures allowing the placement of extra supporters, and sometimes moving any one supporter from one area to another.
The gameplay is very easy to pick up; non-gamers should be up and running in a couple of minutes.
The subtleties of the game mechanics start to surface after the first round of scoring: controlling areas leads to opportunities for Approved Exhibits; you need to collect the proposed Main Exhibits to be able to convert them.
It’s an interesting balancing act; trying to optimise the areas you control whilst actually having Main Exhibits for approval.
Gameplay
Each turn consists of the following steps:
place a supporter (player cube)
play influential figures
collect cards (from the area the cube was placed in step 1)
add new cards
During the round, you will also be collecting Midway Tickets. These move the Ferris wheel car one space on the central board.
The round ends when the Ferris wheel car reaches the start space.
End-of-round scoring takes place giving points for:
Midway Tickets
Area majority
It’s also an opportunity to exchange proposed Exhibits for Approved Exhibit tokens.
Components
The game comes with good quality card tokens and wooden cubes.
The artwork is very good, with plenty of themed content on the Main Exhibit cards.
The modular board looks fantastic. It’s cleverly designed to modify the round length by using a double sided board combined with a double sided top-wedge.
The theme isn’t crucial for gameplay but makes for a lovely experience, preventing the game from being completely abstract.
One small improvement would be to have meeples representing the supporters instead of plain cubes. (If you’re in Europe you can purchase small meeples for under €10 + p&p)
Rulebook
Thanks in part to the beautifully simple gameplay, the rulebook is easy to follow. It’s very well laid out, with clear instructions and examples throughout.
It’s well-spaced with excellent diagrams and artwork.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a light area control game with no direct conflict and free from dice rolls this is a very strong contender.
It’s a good introductory game for new gamers while remaining interesting and challenging for more experienced players. (In the first session I lost two games to one with someone who’s had almost no exposure to tabletop games.)
It’s one that I’m happy to have added to my collection and once I’ve introduced it to a few colleagues it’s something I might suggest during lunchtime game sessions.
