Splendor Review

GAME INFORMATION

Designer: Marc André

Artist: Pascal Quidault

Publisher: Space Cowboys & Asmodee

Year Published: 2014

Number of Players: 2-4

Suggested Ages: 10+

Playing Time: 30 minutes

Game Genre: Family

Game Category: Card Game, Economic and Renaissance

Key Mechanics: Card Drafting and Set Collection

Contents:

40 Poker Chip Style Tokens (7 Emerald, 7 Sapphire, 7 Ruby, 7 Diamond, 7 Onyx and 5 Gold)

40 Level 1 Development Cards

30 Level 2 Development Cards

20 Level 3 Development Cards

10 Noble Tiles

1 Rulebook (if two pages is a book)

GAME OVERVIEW

(Taken from the back of the box and the Rules Book)

As the leader of a merchant guild, you invest in mines, send your ships to the new world, and recruit the most renowned artisans. Build a commercial empire and receive the visit of wise monarchs, patrons with infinite resources, to acquire glory and prestige.

During the game, the players take gem and gold tokens. With these tokens, they purchase development cards, which are worth prestige points and/or bonuses. These bonuses allow players to purchase subsequent development cards for a lesser cost. When a player has enough bonuses, they immediately receive a visit from a noble (which is also worth prestige points). As soon as a player reaches 15 prestige points, the current turn ends and the player with the most prestige points is declared the winner.

REVIEW

REPLAY VALUE

The cards and nobles are always different when you start. The cards are random as they replace the purchased ones. That makes for a decent level of replay value.

ENGAGEMENT LEVEL

This game does require a bit of focus to do well but it isn’t hard to muster the want to do this. When it comes to player to player engagement there is less as players only affect each other through removing cards from the mutual pool and taking of gem tokens. There is little social influence involved or needed.

FUNCTIONALITY

This game is kind of like a train as it starts off slow with little card purchases until a few rounds in. Once cards start getting purchased things can really speed up and end quickly. So, it makes your early game pretty important. It is also good that there are multiple paths to acquire the points to win and ways to stop players from making their “resource machine” work efficiently. I personally find the blind draw to get gold unnecessary compared to getting a card I know and can plan around. Having both seems superfluous and I have yet to see the blind draw be used.

VISUAL APPEAL

The theme and art are well received and look great. The art layout supports the games function very well without being too muddy or distracting. Kind of wish I had tokens that looked like gems rather than poker chip tokens with stickers.

RULES COMPREHENSION

It is called a rulebook but it is far from a book or booklet. It is a bi-folded 16”x 21” piece of paper. The rules are simple and concise. Unfortunately, there a few sections where images could have reduced the amount of text.

PACKAGING

This game is well packaged when it comes to keeping the game organized which makes set up and putting it away very easy. That being said there is little need to be in the size box it is besides “Shelf Presence”. If you remove the plastic insert, there is a lot of unused space in the box.

ENJOYABLE

Splendor is a great game that is easy to learn, quick to set up and put away. There is as much strategy as you want to find with great artwork and theme. If your strategy is just going with the flow, you can do that. If you want to think about your next three turns and the next three turns of your opponents, you can. This is possible because the game functions in a beautifully simple way that kids can easily understand and adults can really bite into.

SCORING