Antoine Bauza’s family-friendly phenomenon takes players from the beginning of civilisation to seventh heaven in less time than it takes to order a pizza. Here’s why you should wander into its midst

7 WONDERS

Words by Matt Jarvis

Civilisation is a slow beast. After all, humanity’s been at it for thousands of years and it’s still working on nailing down some of the basics.

With such a span of time and change between the invention of the wheel and the proliferation of the internet, civilisationbuilding games often tend to skew towards being epic, complex simulations of culture, technology and conflict – not quite running through the development of modern society in real-time, but still managing to rack up the number of hours needed to fully understand the nuanced strategy of, say, learning to write before creating hand tools. Don’t get us wrong, many of these are some of the best experiences the tabletop has to offer, from epic card-drafter through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization to the classic that started it all, Civilization, and its PC game-inspired spin-offs – but sometimes don’t you wish you could hurry the advancement of humanity along just a little?

Like the apple to Newton’s head or Archimedes in the bathtub, 7 Wonders’ arrival in 2010 was a eureka moment for the tabletop. Created by Antoine Bauza, who picked up the very first Kennerspiel des Jahres (‘Expert Game of the Year’) in 2011 for his design and would later go on to win the 2013 Spiel des Jahres for the ingenious Hanabi, 7 Wonders took the card drafting core and millennia-spanning scope of through the Ages and condensed it down from multiple hours to a snappy 30-minute game that doesn’t require a degree in history to understand.