Gaming, like art strive when you put constraint on your design. During the past few years a new breed of games have been developed: the microgames! Those games have generally few components. And their packaging is small.

Social games

The poster child for these types of games, and probably the game that sold the most (in all its different incarnations) is Love Letter. This game is just about 20 cards and that is it! That said Love letter is mostly a social game of deduction.

In the same vein Coup is really nice as well. It can handles 8 players in its French Version and is a really bluffing and backstabbing game.

Galaxy conquest

At the bigger end of the spectrum you have a game a really meatier game of galaxy conquest called: Eminent Domain: Microcosm. Tag line: the Galaxy on your pocket. The game is so small (30 cards) that the publisher felt generous enough to add promo cards for other games in the box! Even the rules are “micro”: a 2 page rules sheet… except that the original rules suck big time. They are really sparse and do not explain the game very well. I suggest you checkout the revised edition which are still sparse but have a more key details.

One Page Design

Boardgamegeek hosts a slew of design contests each year. One of the most interesting is the One Page Print and Play Contest where designers have to fit their entire game on a single sheet of paper! This geeklist also list a lot of One Page print and play.

One of the first game of that style I played was The D6 Shooters. It is a dice game with resource allocation in which as a Law Man you must deliver a criminal to Reno. Your possee of cowboys will accompany you and help shore all the obstacles of the Old West: desperados, animals, famine, drought. This is a nice design that really tells a story and that is the only kind of Print and Play games I play: print a single sheet of paper! No gluing or cutting!

Magic Realms in One Page

Magic Realm is a legendary game. It has a super complicated ruleset (some players have rewritten the rules []”in plain English”](https://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/9357/mripepdf)), it takes a lot of time but it really tells a good story… if you do not die on your first move!

Designer KK Su has achieved the impossible: miniaturized Magic Realm to a One Page Design that plays in about 30min. This is called Magic Realm Light 30 but do not be fooled: this is not a light game at all. Even if the rules are shortish, they are really dense and you will need more than one reading to properly understand everything. Or watch a playthrough video. Or all of the above while trying to salvage your first game. But it is a superb game, a great exercise in distiling the core elements of Magic Realm.

Two other One Page games that I have actually printed are Paper Mech in which you pilot a Mech against waves of enemies. This is really a kind of Battletech/Mesh Warrior light game with lots of varied weapon systems.

In [1572: Lost Expedition] you control a band of conquistadors trying to flee a failed expedition in the new world. This is a game a bit similar to The D6 Shootes in which you roll dice to manage your dwindling resources and try not to die.

Nano games!

One of the game that was nominated for the prestigious 2016 Golden Boardgame Geek Best PRint and Play Boardgame was Mini Rogue. This is a nano game: a Dungeon crawl in 9 cards! The illustration are evocative and the review is good. I haven’t tried it yet but I should remedy this soon.

A great small games

There are a lot of games that are not “micro” or “nano” but that comes in really small package. This is the whole theme of the “Tiny Epic Series” (Kingdoms, Galaxies, Western, Defenders, Quest).

One of my favorite small game is a Dunegon Crawl game called: One Deck Dungeon. It is just about 50 cards a few dices and some counters. The game is really challenging though: cards have multi used: traps, monsters, items, potions and skills! The game also comes with a pad of character sheet and you can play it like a campaign game in which your heo will acquire new skills each game. Really engrossing!