Renaissance merchants race to grab gems, acquire property, and please nobility.
Splendor is another one of our family’s gateway games. The game came out in 2014, two years after I got into the board game hobby. Looking for simpler games to learn was a great way to continue delving into the hobby and bring my friends along.
In Splendor, you lead a merchant guild striving to collect rare gemstones and attract nobles of the land. You will acquire new developments that will produce more gems to help you acquire more difficult developments. The more rare a find, the more likely a noble will be interested in your guild. Once one player achieves 15 prestige points, whichever player has the most prestige points at the end of the game wins!
Mechanics & Categories: Card, Economic, Open drafting, Racing, Set collection, Family, Engine building, Resource management
ART: 5/10
If you like realism, Splendor does it well. The colors are vibrant, and the developments and humans in the artwork look like paintings you would find in the Renaissance. Very fitting for this theme and the time period in which the game takes place. As for the gemstone artwork, they do give off a glimmer as if they were actual gemstones. The artist does a great job with shadows and lighting to pull this off.
STORYTELLING: 2/10
This is one of those titles that is a straightforward optimization and engine-building game where you don’t need to consider the theme. Now that I read that we are merchant guilds trying to attract nobles, I get it. But I’m too focused on the pretty colors of the gems and trying to get three gems of three different types to realize what developments I am selecting and how they fit into the theme.
There is a subtle evolution of the cards from the first tier to the third. The first tier is landscapes, where you might find these gems through exploration. The second tier is traveling with them and analyzing them for their value. The final tier shows immaculate buildings and structures that can be created from your gems.
COMPONENTS: 7/10
You only get cards and gems, and what makes this game cool is that they use different colored poker chips for the gems. I would have expected gems as you see in Century, but instead, they use these. For fiddlers like myself, poker chips feel nice to play around with, and the clacking sound is oddly enjoyable. They also don’t take up a lot of space, as you can stack them for easy counting while still seeing the colors.
It might have been cool to have gemstones that match the shape of the corresponding gem, but I understand that would be more costly. Maybe someday I will upgrade my components to do that and keep them in a velvet pouch. But as it is, I still love the poker chips, which makes this game more travel friendly.
Cards are cards. Nothing special. No special print style. We have played this game a lot, and you have to shuffle the stacks of cards each game, so they are relatively worn. The nobles are thick cardboard tiles that have held up well. Lastly, the box insert has a place for everything, which is always a win in my book.
COMPLEXITY: 2/10
I want to give this a one, but that would be a child’s game. Though, this can be a child’s game if you want it. It’s probably an easy way to have your child learn numbers and counting. As long as you can differentiate the gems (thankfully, the gems have different shapes for accessibility), you can choose which gems to acquire to build a new development.
There is a strategy to Splendor. It took several attempts with different groups to finally see how others played and recognize the strategy. I don’t want to give away our secrets, but there is generally a way to optimize how to get the bigger buildings to attract nobles.
I can’t say that I have played a game where it necessarily felt like one person was SO far ahead of another. Players can choose whatever gems they want to acquire and do decently. There will be turns when a player just swoops up seven points, and that is that, but it doesn’t feel bad since they planned out their turns long enough to pull that off. If I lose from a single turn, I don’t feel like I wasted my time playing. The game is also quick enough that we often play multiple times in a row.
TRAVEL-FRIENDLY: 7/10
This is another excellent example of the box being way larger than it needs to be. We have a 3D-printed case that compactly fits all of the poker tokens and cards into organized stacks. No, it can’t fit in my pocket like some other games, but it is still small enough for a purse or backpack. It is a short and easy game to show off to friends or family members.
The real estate required to play this game is relatively small, and players can organize their cards more compactly to compensate for a smaller coffee table. If you are doing any type of travel, even a cruise, and you want to bring some games along, Splendor is a must. Lightweight, quick fun for any occasion!
UNIQUENESS: 4/10
This is tough to judge. I can’t think of a game like it, yet its mechanics are so simple that you see them in many games. Plain and simple resource management is where you try to buy the most expensive thing to get the most points.
The concept that makes Splendor feel slightly different is that you buy buildings for points, but those buildings also have worth and lessen the cost of future purchases. In other games, you can purchase a card with an effect that allows costs to be modified, but here, you are trying to gain an emerald to lure a noble, but you can also use that emerald you acquired to make the next card one emerald cheaper.
Innovation:
Using poker chips instead of gems is not something you see often. Many games choose to use wooden resource cubes or something of that nature. The only other non-poker game that comes to mind using chips is Brass (the deluxe edition) which comes with Iron Clays. Since you play as a merchant in Splendor, these poker chips fit that theme of being rich and playing with your wealth. Think Captain Jack Sparrow as he flips a golden coin across his fingers.
Final Comments
This is a gateway game and perfect for newcomers to board games. Small footprint with easy rules and a quick play time. You can’t go wrong. As I mentioned, it also took me several plays to “figure it out” and then try to pull off that strategy each time. To this day, our families still get this to the table for a quick time-filler.
No, I do not get the same enjoyment as I used to, but as I mentioned in my Artifacts Inc article, it feels like a solo puzzle to figure out and try to beat your last score. How can I optimize better this time around? Can I do the thing? It is still fun because other players can beat you to a card that throws your entire strategy off.
The game also doesn’t cost much as far as board games go, and I think it is a must-have for all gaming families. You can get non-gamers to play this and still have a good time! If party games pain you to play every outing, give Splendor a shot, you might be surprised that a friend might actually like a strategy game!
Similar To: Century, Azul, Ticket to Ride
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Publisher: Space Cowboys
Game(s) Pictured: Splendor
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