Splendor Kids Board Game Review
Splendor Kids is one of the first games released in the asmodee Kids lineup of titles, and they set the bar really high with this experience. The components are obviously fantastic, as we discussed, but the way the game is built from the ground up with kids in mind is fantastic.
One thing I never noticed when doing my components overview was the purpose of the stickers on the resource tray. My assumption at the time was that these stickers served some in-game purpose, but after getting it tabled and going through the motions, I noticed the stickers were actually a quick guide for kids, letting them know how many resources they needed in the trays depending on the player count. While I still hate stickers, this is a great feature that gives kids a visual on how things need to be set up, and I’m pretty excited about the fact that the design team put in that kind of thought.
The other production feature I didn’t note was that the central boards were not only double sided, but you could shorten the length of the game by removing a board entirely. This is fantastic for teaching kids for the first time, and playing through a quicker game. Once again, that is a brilliant design choice that so many other publishers overlook when it comes to creating kids games.
Players will be collecting resources and moving up the central board. On their turn, a player can either take 3 unique resources, two identical resources, or a single gold coin; gold coins can be used to replace any resource when spending tokens to move on the central board, which is another action a player can instead take on their turn.
While on the surface level this seems pretty simplistic, it’s worth remembering here that the resources in the game are finite, which means if they aren’t available to take, they cannot be taken. This will force players to look at what others are doing and decide their own turns accordingly. There is a lot more strategy here than meets the eye, and it’s a great way to teach kids gaming mechanics and strategic decision making they might not otherwise get in a kids game.
This level of thinking is constant throughout the game, but as players move to villages (circles on the board) and cities (squares on the board) they get additional bonuses. Villages provide players the chance to take another turn, while cities provide players city tokens. These tokens are permanent resources players can acquire, making their movement through the world a bit easier. Once used, tiles are flipped facedown until the player reaches another city.
There are additional tokens you can use on villages that adds a bit extra to the game, but one of those tiles is a Queen’s Jewel, which will break all ties at the end. In this game, multiple players can tie and there is no tie-breaker if you are not using these tiles.
Splendor Kids was a much better experience than I was prepared for, and while I’m not sure it will hit with all kids – or parents for that matter – it was a hit here. It’s probably a game that won’t stick around for a long time, as I feel the jump from this to actually playing Splendor isn’t that huge. Splendor, on its own, isn’t that complicated of a game either, and as my youngest gets just a bit older, I think he will be ready for that experience sooner than we think!
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Article By Adam
