Santorini: Second Edition - an Elegant, Accessible Strategy Game Based in Greek Mythology | Ages 8+ | Plays in 20 Minutes

My husband and I love this game! Sort of like chess. Lots of strategy but not as many different moves to learn.The box comes with a game board and ocean rim for the bottom, 6 worker figurines, a die, building pieces, and 32 high-quality and colorfully designed God cards, each with a special ability. (Please note: the seller images are slightly inaccurate as one shows coins. The game does not come with coins. I’m not sure if those were a part of the 1st edition or what, but they are not a part of this edition.)The rules were a bit confusing at first, but it only took a couple of games to get the hang of it. Once you do it’s simple, move and build. Each God has their own special ability which means you can play over and over again and each game will be different.I think this game is best played with 2 players, which makes it a perfect couples or parent and child game. It does come with a 3 players and 4 player mode. We played 4 player with our 12 year old and 9 year old. While it was still fun, it was challenging to strategize with your teammate without the other team hearing your plans.Absolutely worth the money and will be a game we will enjoy for a long time!

...but similar in many ways, and still a good game that has surprising replayability. Nice board and piece design, especially enjoyable to have a more tactile game experience. There are many different "gods" you can play, which range considerably in terms of being simple to understand to more complex, require dice rolling (or not!), etc. For that reason you can pick who is playing who, so for younger players you can keep it much more simple if you want to.Have only played with two people, not sure how it would be with more, but the three and four person variants look interesting. Only con is that it is maybe just a bit too expensive. There are several expansions sets that are coming out (more meeples, more cards, etc). The game came with enough stuff I think I could play this base game for a long time as is. A nice change of pace!

The game's theme does a lot of work to distract you from the arbitrary and highly mathematical nature of the game. But the core idea isn't that interesting (or anywhere comparable to, say, chess), which is why there are about a million different player powers and "expansion rulesets" which are not really balanced. Fortunately, there is a flood of DEI artwork in the game, as you can probably tell from the box, which conveys the message that the ancient greeks had a lot of gamer girls with died-hair, as well as "diverse" gods. This filters through in all the card art and is highly obnoxious.

Best 2 player game we’ve found. My husband and and I learned this game quickly and played for hours. We can’t wait to play again!