BENGALURU: As legend would have it, the Greek island of Santorini was created as a result of a friendly contest between the Gods. Well, at least that’s what the game Santorini wants you to believe as it goes about recreating this contest.
Although it says 2-4 players on the box, Santorini is, at its heart, a game for two players. On a turn, you simply have to move one of your two pawns one space and then build a structure (or an additional level of a pre-existing structure) on an adjacent space. Sounds simple, but if you ever can’t do that basic move-and-build action, you instantly lose. But that’s something to worry about later!
On to the business of victory — you instantly win if you get any one of your pawns up to the top of a three-level structure. However, wrinkles soon crop up here too; you can only ever move up a single level (although you can move down any number of levels), so you’ll have to methodically build a series of ascending structures and slowly climb them.
Which is usually when your opponent shows up and ruins everything; either by climbing the structures you built and blocking you, or building the structure even higher so you can’t climb up, or (worst of all) placing a dome on top of the very three-level structure that you were about to get to next turn. Because both of you are playing on a shared board and there’s no randomness or hidden information, everything is laid out in plain sight for your opponent to see. Your only consolation is that the same applies to you.
If that were all Santorini was, it would still be a very good game — a pure abstract with a pleasing spatial puzzle, which in fact is what it was when it was originally designed by Dr. Gordon Hamilton over 30 years ago. However, that’s a long time to refine and think about various additions to a formula; and when Roxley Games came calling, this new edition of Santorini was born.
And just look at it! Presentation can’t fix a bad game, but it can elevate a good one and that is quite literally the case here. When it’s set up or in play, Santorini is the sort of game that causes people passing by to come over and ask what it is. It isn’t just about the attention-grabbing, though — it also makes the game board easier to read at a glance and much more interesting to work with. And yet, good as it is, the component upgrades in this edition are still only the second-best thing about it after the god cards.
With the addition of the God cards, Santorini moves away from its pure-abstract roots but enters the realm of asymmetry — each player draws (or drafts) a card at the start of the game, which gives them a particular God’s special power, each of which radically changes the game. Hermes, for example, can move two spaces instead of one, while bountiful Demeter can build twice if she chooses.
Apollo can swap places with an opponent, while Pan might just be my personal favourite — the Pan player can also win by jumping down to the ground from a two-level building. There’s so much variety and replayability here that you could be having new and interesting matchups for years; and that’s without mentioning the expansion decks, which introduce heroes and monsters such as Achilles and Medusa and so on.If you like two-player games, spatial puzzles, abstract head-to-head duels, you’re going to love Santorini.