Splendor – Board Game Unboxing

Splendor is a relatively new, abstract board game about collecting the right set of (gemstone-themed) cards.

Not the usual wargamer’s fare, but it is one of three nominees for the prestigious Spiel des Jahres 2014 awards. I also happened to have a copy.

Let’s take a look inside the box.

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#1 – Splendor – Box Contents

As you crack open the box, this is what you get… (the rules, just 4 pages, are not on the picture)

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#2 – Splendor – The Chips

The chips, which represent the different gems, are easily one of the nicest things you get with the game. For a lot of games of this type, you probably would’ve gotten little cardboard push-out tokens or, at best, differently coloured wooden cubes.

There are 5 different colours of gemstone-chips, as well as the yellow “gold”-chips that work as jokers.

Not so Splendor, these are really nice, surprisingly heavy, quality poker chips. Awesome stuff!

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#3 – Splendor – The Cards

The cards, in many ways, are the heart of the game. Visually, they are what you see laid out on the table and in front of each player. Game play-wise, the are what players try to collect.

Quality wise, they are great, sturdy cards that will hold up to many rounds of game play. They come in three types, colour-coded as green, yellow and blue on the back, with the green (lvl. 1) ones being the cheapest and the blue ones (lvl. 3) the most expensive. Picture above shows a lvl. 1, lvl. 2 and lvl. 3 card from left to right.

The art on the cards is nice, if a bit generic in my taste. It works for this type of game I suppose.

The layout of the cards is well done, however. In the bottom left are the “costs” (in gemstone-chips) of each card, while the lighter top bar shows the bonuses for owning the card; a white number of actual points for some cards and a coloured for each card.

It is a smart design that makes it easy to reference the information when the cards are stacked.

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#4 – Splendor – The Characters (or Patrons)

The patrons are the final elements of the game. They come in square card-board tiles with artwork and design that mimics the Splendor-cards themselves.

The patron-tiles might be the least “exciting” pieces, visually or game-play wise, but they are by still well done and serve their purpose in the game perfectly.

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#5 – Thoughts?

As a game, Splendor is not cheap by any means. It goes for nearly £25,- on Amazon, which is a lot for this type of game, i.e. one without a massive board, lots of different components, etc.. .

In the end, Splendor is “just” a quick, small “30-Minute-game”.

Quality trumps quantity however, and you certainly get some fine stuff in this box. The chips in particular are a welcome surprise, which really feel “weighty” in your hands. Lots of other companies would’ve gone for cubes or card-board tokens. Likewise, the cards are well-designed and make the game-play (more about that soon) very intuitive.

Content-wise, Splendor is definitely worth the price.

Z.