Splendor Family Game Review (age 10+) for Blogger Board Game Club

Splendor is recommended for 2-4 players aged 10+. Players take the roles of merchants and over a 30 minute game the aim is to trade and upgrade your developments, attracting noble patrons and prestige. The first player with 15 Prestige Points is the winner.

Inside the box we see this is a token and card game with no board. The tokens are lovely, a nice tactile size and representing gems and gold. This is your basic monetary system.

There are 10 thick card tiles representing the Noble Patrons - they're a dour bunch! Each brings with them extra value with their own treasures.

The main system of play is via a set of 90 Development Cards which you buy with collected gem and gold tokens. Some Development Cards have their own prestige, or gems, which are always with you once you 'own' the card, and can be used to encourage Noble Visitors or subtracted from the total needed to buy more Developments.

We played with my 8 1/2 year old game playing expert, and he kept pace - my 7 year old also wanted to join in and is almost able to play. Learning the game was simple, it really did only take 5 minutes to work it out and gameplay was intuitive.

You play with a small hand of cards and tokens and a fairly large table layout of pieces. It's very simple to understand though - the 3 colours of cards represent different levels of cost and reward - you can't afford the blue ones until you have built your way up, and the Noble Visitor tiles can only happen once you've several developments.

Our first game took over an hour, but once you get into the swing of it, play can be really fast - this is when younger players do suffer a little as they don't watch as carefully, and can't spot Development Cards that they can afford so quickly.

This is a really nice twist on a classic game theme of 'acquisition and trade' - accumulating wealth until you have defeated the other players.There is a lot of scope for learning tactics and gameplay, each turn only requires one move and can often be over in a flash. With 2 players who know what they are doing, it can be a pretty rapid exchange and very competitive! With 4 of you, including an 8 year old, it's a far more sedentary and thoughtful game.

Splendor is best suited to experienced game players 8+ or those over 10 and plays just as well with 2, 3 or 4. Available to buy now rrp £24.99 from all good game stores, including on Amazon where it is currently £19.99.

We were sent our copy of Splendor for review.