Ravensburger 81206 San Juan Game for Ages 5 & Up - Resource Management Strategy Board Game for The Whole Family

I purchased this hard copy of the game after falling in love with the digital version of the game on Android and iPad. I do love the digital version for travel or playing against the AI or even pass and play (it gets a big cumbersome pass and play digital...) - but nothing compares to the actual fun of playing this game with other people at a table. This is a very fun game and very interactive.Each player selects a role (starting with the lead player). The roles give you certain perks on your turn. Then everyone carries out actions based on their roles and the cards they have acquired. The goal is to collect victory points by playing cards into your tableau. The game ends when one player has placed 12 cards and the builder phase ends.There are various ways to collect victory points, so the game remains fresh. The player buys cards for their tableau by discarding cards in hand. This makes for some tough choices since hand size is limited at the start of each round. Some of the better cards are useless early on, but worth bundles of victory points in the end, others make building or collecting easier, but offer few victory points.This is basically a variation of Puerto Rico, somewhat simplified, yet streamlined. It is great with two players, but fun with 2 - 4 (Puerto Rico needs 3 players to be properly enjoyed). It is a bit like Agricola Creatures vs Agricola (not dumbed down, just adjusted and streamlined for faster play and fewer players).The lowest price (non Gold Box) I've seen is $22.50, though I paid $25... It is a solid game and one that will be a go to for many Euro gamers.

This game was purchased primarily to play as a 2P game with my spouse, but it turns out to work terrifically at all player counts! While we enjoy Puerto Rico, this game takes everything that was enjoyable about the parent game and boils it down into an even better game in San Juan. The role selection mechanic is a fairly underutilized one in games, and has you pick a certain action each round, allowing your opponents to take the action after you do - should they choose - however you get a bonus privilege for choosing the role first. There is a wide array of building cards to choose from, making several strategy styles available, and offering many buildings which synergize with specific role cards, adding an extra element of strategy to the role selection process, as certain actions may trigger buildings in your opponent's tableau. Perhaps most appealing, this is a medium to light weight strategy game, meaning the rules are easy enough most newcomers to the hobby should be able to grasp it, while there is enough depth that experienced gamers can have fun diving in as well. Final plus: It's extremely portable and sets up in 2 minutes.

San Juan is such a great alternative to Puerto Rico. It's streamlined, but still flexible. Using the cards in so many ways as income also keeps things simple (although I miss all the little pieces). Lastly, this can be played easily with just 2 players!This revision also comes with a lot of extra cards that were evidently part of an earlier expansion.My one complaint is that the market skinny tiles are a bit fussy and the box is HUGE for what it contains. I replaced the box with a small card metal tin and now it travels so much better. Really this could fit in a double card box.

i absolutely love this game. so does my family (brother and cousins). however, one HUGE recommendation. remove the 3 TOWER cards. Tower is too overpowered and messes up the balance of the game. especially in a 4 player game only 3 people can build it so one person is SOL. also, you may never see it when drawing cards.another thing i could mention is when fully sleeving the whole deck with high quality sleeves, the deck becomes very difficult to fully shuffle. not a problem with the game, but just a heads up if you plan on sleeving the cards.

Yes, I said it! San Juan is the better version of the Euro-classic Puerto Rico! San Juan is the card game version of said game. I like it more because:A) It's faster. San Juan takes only about 15mins per player at most, about half the time of the board game.B) It still has many of the tough choices as the original game.C) Most importantly, San Juan is NOT AS SCRIPTED as the original board game! Yes, Puerto Rico is an insanely SCRIPTED game. Your entire turns/strategy are already spelled out for you based on turn order and what buildings are available. If you don't believe me, check out BGG. Why play a game when you're expected to follow a script?San Juan, as a card game, is by it's very (random) nature next to impossible to script. For me, this makes turns much more interesting and fun as compared to the original game.

Our family loves games, so I got this to have on hand before the holidays. It was a big hit. It's kind of similar to Puerto Rico but everyone felt like it was its own game. People played it multiple times. They liked it because it didn't take a long time to play, and it wasn't overly complicated. However, the first time we played it, we did play with our cards showing. It also much easier to learn if you start with just two player and then add more after you learn the game. My husband and I have played it by ourselves several times.

This is an interesting game because it is relatively quick to learn (especially for those familiar with engine-building type games). There are a variety of ways to score points, and you don't necessarily have too much focus on the engine-building facet to score a winning number of points. It takes a few rounds to really appreciate how some of the cards can work some synergy, and has more opportunities to sabotage your opponents than Splendor. Once you get it down, it is quite an enjoyable game.

Game with several parts missing. Manufacturer could not assist. Game unplayable. Complete waste of money and time.