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Let'sTalk About: Splendor
- san il defanso
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In the "What have you been playing" thread, here's what I was about to post...
Michael Barnes wrote: I have to double check throughout the day to make sure I'm not playing Splendor. "Huh? A game?"
I don't care, I like it and I think it's an ideal SDJ-type game. I especially like that it more or less condenses the last 10-12 years of Eurogame design to one page of rules and 20 minutes. I also like how it gets back to roots, feeling more like a 3M game than an Alea one. It's something anyone can play and enjoy. It's not the greatest game of all time, but it is a simple business game with clear goals and nice production.
I knew F:AT would hate it on general principle.
But man, there are a LOT of games that fit this description. Off the top of my head I'm thinking of Origins and Steam Park, both of which are simple games that look way nicer, and generally have a lot more character. I'm with Legomancer, in that I don't hate the game at all. It's just that it's an incredibly safe title that really doesn't have much spark to lift it beyond everything else. A big part of this might just be the art direction and production, which I think isn't really that great.
It's an entirely functional game, easy to pick up and digest. But it seems silly to praise a game for working properly, which is perhaps the most notable thing about Splendor.
I definitely wouldn't presume to know why you appreciate it more than a lot of the rest of us, but from here it sounds like it's benefiting from your recent enjoyment of lighter German designs and your weariness of Kickstarter titles that barely function. Past that I'm having a hard time seeing it stick around long enough to get much SdJ press.
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- Matt Thrower
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For me, it's a step back toward the glory days of min-90's German games, when there was a focus on accessibility and maximum play from minimum overhead, and much less worry about stale, life-draining things like balance and depth. Except Splendor does somehow manage to be balanced and deep as well - it just feels like there weren't any sacrifices made to get it that way.
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- Michael Barnes
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Some of the criticism I'm seeing of it is just so off base, it's along the lines of criticizing a light comedy for not being hardcore science fiction. I'm also seeing a lot of smirking it off because of the theme (which is actually stronger than it seems- being jewel merchants and trading your way into better prospects and attracting clientele makes sense to me) or because it doesn't have some elaborate Pax Porfiriana design going on. That's just not what this game is trying to do.
The game is more than just "functional", there's some neat things going on and it's extremely well designed. It's _fun_ to play, and yes, the chunky chips impact the fun factor. To dismiss such a smart, minimalist design as just "functional" really says more about your group and how you played the game than the design itself.
But the problem is that this game is coming after the FFG era (which is, IMO, over), after the Ameritrash era (which is also, IMO, over) and during the era of post-hybridization. It does not fit in with this era, really, and it really doesn't fit in with what is going on in hobby games right now. It's not Kickstarter, it's not a fucking zombie game, it's not a dungeon crawl, and the whole game is in one box.
Origin is _great_, but it is also more complicated than Splendor is. It is also very 90s, and I think it was tragically overlooked. I think it's on the Miniature Market sale right now.
Also, some of your enjoyment of Splendor may be impacted by how you are saying the title. It should be pronounced "sssssplendOR" with a terrible quasi-Euro accent.
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I'm not faulting the game for not being a different type of game, and frankly, I don't really see who is. I'm faulting the game because it wasn't fun or interesting.
Edit: I also second Steam Park not being very good, it dropped off hard after my second play.
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- Michael Barnes
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It's not a deep or profoundly intellectual game at all. It's just simple fun without pretense, and it's all very casual.
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I wish you'd stop saying things like "this isn't Mage Knight" or "this isn't deep", because I don't hear anyone faulting it for those reasons. There are simple games I love, there are non-thematic games I love, there are short playing games I love, but this one left me cold.
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- Michael Barnes
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And I do think that AT or thematic games, whatever has as a term become equated with more complex and less approachable games. Back when Robert Martin and I were talking about his kind of stuff, the games we liked the best were the simpler, low maintenance ones. More like Dark Tower than Runewars.
I like complex games, but I have a great collection of them that all don't get played enough for various reasons. I appreciate that Splendor is a good game working in a different space with different design goals.
But hey, it wasn't fun for you guys then it wasn't fun. Period. That's really all that matters. But I don't expect something like Splendor to be the prime source of fun when I play it with my friends. It's understood as a casual game that we 're going to bullshit and drink around, usually before or after something we focus on more.
I'm probably going to ruin all of my credibility as a SEERIS CRITIC here but most of the time I couldn't really care less what game is on the table as long as I'm having a good time with people I like.
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I agree, games with simpler rulesets are great. It's why I think the D&D Adventure System was so great, It's what makes Wiz-War and Sentinels of the Multiverse great, you hit the ground running, that's a very appealing quality, particularly in the often overwrought AT genre. These types of games put the play in the hands and minds of the players. We don't have to wrestle rules to the ground, they're at our whim from the get-go. Not to mention they hit the table more frequently because of it.
I also agree that there are games that serve as background noise for friends at a table, I'd just rather they be Slapshot (which was the closest game I could think of to Splendor from my collection), Magical Athlete, or any of the dozen trick taking games I have. It just didn't connect with me personally, which as you say is all that matters, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around this game receiving such praise and getting a SdJ nod.
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This game...it's not like you can't make a stripped down, simple, quick, narrativeless game and have it also be FUN. Ticket to Ride (which this game is pretty damn similar to, but TTR actually has tension), For Sale, No Thanks, 6 Nimmt, ANY decent but still simple trick-taking game (or other traditional card game), Knizia's light card games like Loco...it's not like we're fucking donkeys that have no point of comparison for a game like this, so please don't treat us as such. This game makes me regret dissing 7 Wonders for being praised for nothing but its ability to seat lots of players and not be offensive to them.
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Michael Barnes wrote: And I do think that AT or thematic games, whatever has as a term become equated with more complex and less approachable games. Back when Robert Martin and I were talking about his kind of stuff, the games we liked the best were the simpler, low maintenance ones. More like Dark Tower than Runewars.
I totally agree with this. I feel like Amertrash designers and players got sucked into all that "I play games for the intellectual challenge," and "I need meaningful decisions" bullshit, and what we got were a pile of games that were complex, difficult to learn and hard to play. As if playing a game with a 40 page rule book and two more systems than were necessary proved that you weren't an illiterate hillbilly. About a year ago I finally hit a wall and declared that I wasn't going to learn another fucking rule for another fucking overwrought game that no one was going to be playing three months from now. I was like, just put that new 50 lb monster game back in your bag and hand me a beer and King of Tokyo. Shit you could even pull out Alhambra, or Ticket to Ride and I'd be happier than slogging through whatever deformed monstrosity of an "intellectually challenging thematic" game you got in your bag.
P.S. I did finally start learning new games about 6 weeks ago, and I played the "stupid" Batman game about a month ago and I liked it.
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