One of my favorite things to do with my family is play games!  I talked a little bit about my love of games in my post about the King of Tokyo board game.  Today I wanted to share a little bit about the game Splendor. I absolutely love Splendor. Now I have to admit the first time I played it I liked it but didn’t have any lasting impressions of it.  That changed rather quickly though.

My daughter’s favorite game

So my tween daughter was talking about this game over the next several months.  She absolutely loved playing Splendor. Whenever she would get together with my brother’s family she would get to play it.  She would come home talking about Splendor. Fast forward a few months to November. When asking for Christmas ideas one of hers was the game Splendor.  I didn’t remember it that well by then so I was slightly skeptical and we also had to convince her dad it would be a good game to have. So…we borrowed it for a family game night.

Family game night

The weekend we borrowed it in November we played it as a family.  It was a hit! It is a strategic game but there is also an element of chance involved.  And one thing I absolutely loved about it was that it is complex enough to not feel like a kiddie game but simple enough that my kindergartner could play without much help.  He caught on quickly and could make the decisions on what he wanted to do on his own. We could offer him advice as he was not as strategic as his sister or dad and I, but rarely did he take it.  So it was nice to be able to sit down and play a game that felt more mature as a family.

Game play

I don’t want the meat of this post to be about how to play Splendor but I want to give you a quick idea (with a few pictures) of what it’s about.  It is a game with cards and tokens. The tokens are gems and there are 6 different colors/gems. In the center play area there are cards turned up.  Each card has a picture of a gem at the top and the number and color combination of gems needed to buy it. There also might be a point value. When the game begins you go around selecting the gem tokens.  When you have enough to get a card you want you buy it with the gem tokens and take the card. You continue doing that until someone reaches 15 points. This is a very brief description of how it works. Suffice it to say it is really fun.

Let the fun begin

So after we had our family game night and played it again the whole family fell love.  And guess what, it made our daughter’s Christmas list. Secretly her dad and I couldn’t wait for Christmas either so she could get it and we would have it to add to family game nights.  So as you may have already figured out she did receive it for Christmas. My husband was off of work the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day so we spent it as a family. This year we just hung out at home and watched movies, played games, and enjoyed our time together. Splendor got used well that week.  Almost daily you could find us at our kitchen table engaged in a battle of whose strategy would play out first.

I would highly recommend Splendor

This probably goes without saying but I would recommend Splendor for any family looking for a fun game to play together.  Even though it says ages 10+ it is simple enough for a kindergartner to play so it’s great for all ages. And even adults will enjoy it. So if you have never tried Splendor you should!  If you would like to try it I’ve included a link if you click on the picture below. 

Be sure and share with me what you think of it!

~Melissa  

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