Designed by: Dr Gordon Hamilton
Santorini is an abstract battle that takes place on an 8×8 grid, as the players add buildings to it.
At the start players place out their workers (two each in a two-player game) and then play proceeds with each player taking turns. On your turn you must first move your worker (one square in any direction) and then build on any adjacent square. When you build, you add another level to the growing buildings – there are three in total. When you move, you can always move up one level, and can move down as many levels as you like. The aim of the game is to be the first player to have a worker on a level three building – but! Other players can block you from doing so by placing a dome on a level three building, making it inaccessible.
That’s the basic game, but you can also add God cards where each player has the likes of Athena, Hermes or Prometheus helping them. The God cards each have a special ability, which each player has to factor into both their own moves and what their opponent is up to. The game comes with 30 of these, so you can try lots of different combinations. One of our favourites is Chaos, whose special ability keeps changing!
There are rules for three and four, but Santorini is best played as a head-to-head battle.
It's part race, part battle, albeit being blocked off is usually the worst that can happen. But some of the God powers can be a little bit spicy too.
Very low.
Rules are very light. It's about balancing your own advancement whilst being aware what your opponent is up to as well.
The God powers give the game a lot of variety, but the basic game also has a very more-ish quality as well.
2-4
Players
6+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
The artwork on Santorini's box and cards did not draw me in at all - I'm really not a fan of those cutesy illustrations. But I can see why the publisher took this route to make the game appeal to children - it's quite a special game that nippers can pick up and learn very quickly, but has enough tactical depth and replayability to keep adults wanting more as well. Not usually a fan of abstract games, but like Tak, this got under our skin - and the growing buildings look great out on the table.