lucky!

ToadInTheWoods I am eagerly awaiting my KS version. I'm sure it will be fantastic, no need to worry!

Thanks! Santorini is a 2017 release, we had a limited number of advance copies to send to reviewers ahead of time.

Joshua Davis This is technically a 2017 release, so no. However, it might show up on next year's list!

This is true but for a limited time, pre-orders still include the Golden Fleece. (It's also at what we feel is a reasonable price point if purchased separately).

how will we know if the pre orders include the expansion or not.

If you're ordering from the Kickstarter page, they will. It will come physically inside the box you are shipped.

thanks for the reply. if im getting from online stores such as csi , that have it on pre order, then i will not get the expansion. am i right?

The expansion is sold separately at the retail level, but the games are otherwise the same.

The sea base is in the expansion, which is totally worth buying even just for the tons of additional Gods and Heroes. The sea is just an eye candy, although an excellent one ;)

jcolumbia me too!

So did I 😂

The sea base is in the expansion, which is totally worth buying even just for the tons of additional Gods and Heroes. The sea is just an eye candy, although an excellent one ;)

The sea base is in the expansion, which is totally worth buying even just for the tons of additional Gods and Heroes. The sea is just an eye candy, although an excellent one ;)

European distributors are able to stock it, yes. I would ask at your FLGS whether they have planned to order any, or if they will for you.

Colin Nordstrom: #Sarcasm??

just a little. awesome game.

Since he says he'd give it a seal of excellence that means - yes . I've watched the live play of this game yesterday - he and Tom enjoyed this game :D Cheers!

Colin Nordström Your comment cracked me up. He was about to have sex with the box.

The pieces are literally plastic cubes with a dome on top. The gameplay is abstract.

Naruto San Or Hastius, the god of short, obscure board games

This is pretty late, but it's coming back to kickstarter on April 11th

It doesn't look riciculous to me at all, not the Kickstarter version anyways (includes the expansion). Of course the main reason for its price point is the production value, but I definitely wouldn't call it "just a very simple abstract", it seem to offer so much more than that.

It's true this price point is not for everybody! We took a fair number of pledges for the Print & Play files, and love seeing people's homebrewed versions on social media and BGG.

Kamaitatchi the game features more value than most $50 games, due to the amount of content you can explore. You will likely not experience this whole game even if you play it a lot. Value is not merely a function of rules complexity, is it?

I played the online, older version when the Kickstarter was running to see whether or not I'd like it. Two basic games to test out the rules, then another three games to test out some of the god cards visible on the Kickstarter page. We had fun, yes. Afterwards though we never even felt slightly inclined to play again. Now I’m a big sucker for good components. It’s what attracted me to the Kickstarter in the first place. Would I have found the game more fun after playing with this fancy version? Yes, I would’ve. My brother, who I played with, doesn’t care about components. He should have loved this game since it’s easy to pick up and play without losing depth. He didn’t. Two days later he requested to play Hive instead. I’m the person in our game group that spends the most time on board game media. I buy most of our games. When people see a new game on the shelves then they ask me for some info and whether or not I recommend it. For this MSRP, I can’t recommend Santorini. 50 bucks for a game that will not hit the table all that often? 50 bucks for a showpiece? I’d much rather recommend Hive to them. Sure, this won’t hit the table all that often either. But for under 15 bucks that’s a lot more acceptable. And Hive also has gorgeous components. Is the person in question a fervent abstract player, will these games hit the table a lot for him/her? Then I’d rather recommend Tash-Kalar for 25 bucks. Again, good components (though indeed a lot less awesome than Hive or Santorini) but awesome gameplay. Right now I only feel comfortable with recommending Santorini as a gift for people that have fond memories of playing Chess when they were younger. These people want a showpiece. Santorini, permanently set up to look as if you’re mid-game, occupying a corner of the living room… They want a game that’s easy to pick up, play and quickly get over with. Sadly enough these people are likely to not appreciate the best of the game; the God cards. But hey, it’s Christmas. I could gift it. Still a lot of money but then it’s well spent. About value in rules complexity. Like I said, I’m the one in our group with the biggest collection. So I often bring my games and teaching them falls to me. So I greatly care about games that are easy to explain, games that are easy to grok. And Santorini is great for this. About the value in replayability. In today’s market replayability is overrated. People like the idea of it but have so many games that it doesn’t matter. My games have a hard time getting 5 plays. That’s sad, but unavoidable without culling a lot of other great games that I don’t want to part with. But let’s assume the 50 bucks goes to replayability and is not due to overproduced components… That’s even worse then. That means you’re asking 50 bucks for playtesting 30 God cards. You’re already reimplementing an existing ruleset so you can’t count that. The other 25 cards are reserved for the Golden Fleece expansion. Can’t count them towards base game cost then. So let me repeat. If variability is your answer, then you’re telling us 30 cards is worth 50 bucks. I’d like to point you towards Marco Polo. They had an expansion as well with new characters, a new city tile, new mechanics and more content. For this tremendous amount of extra reliability (in a vastly more complex game, thus requiring more taxing playtesting) they charge you 5 bucks. Let’s look at Hive. Per insect tile expansion they charge you under 5 bucks. The pocket version even includes two of them for free.

TL;DR - Santorini is too expensive for what it is and is almost certainly so due to being overproduced. It makes a good gift (to give or to receive) but the hobby is already expensive enough that this price point will keep it off many shelves. People that do want to scratch that abstract itch have a lot of very good, cheaper alternatives.

The game is amazing. The colours are attractive and really pop. Since the game is an abstract, you don't need a "realistic" greek mythology look (say like Cyclades). It looks great, plays great, I would highly recommend it.