Every now and then, there’s a very small game with a heart that pumps very big ideas.

Guns & Steel is tiny. Not quite an appetizer since it usually clocks in at over an hour, but it’s a slender thing, only about fifty cards or so. And while the rules can be a little tricky to learn, that’s largely because it’s doing so much with so little. Each and every card, for instance, works double-duty as both resource and action, purchasing power and purchased opportunity. Once everything clicks, it slides from one beat to another as smoothly as a machine-tooled piston.

But that’s not the main thing that’s got me so impressed.

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