San Juan
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The exciting card game based on the award-winning board game Puerto Rico is finally available for your iDevice. Experience the Spanish colonisation once again with San Juan.
Puerto Rico is at its prime. But can the same be said of this beautiful island’s capital city? Take on the role of the governor, builder, producer, trader or councilor and bring the city wealth and prestige. Are you smart enough to build the most profitable production facilities? Can you outdo your competitors with the most important buildings? Each building, whether a palace, poorhouse, smithy or silver smelter have their advantages. Who will finally win the battle for supremacy in San Juan?
Features
- Digital adaptation of the card game based on Puerto Rico.
- Designed by Andreas Seyfarth.
- Stand-alone game, can be played without having played Puerto Rico.
- Interactive tutorial to make San Juan easier to play.
- Full Retina support on iPhone and iPad.
- Play with up to three other players or computer opponents on one iDevice, or play online with players from all over the world via Game Center.
- Discover new tactics and ways to become the ruler of San Juan!
- No need to assemble: simply start the game to enter the colonial world! And best of all: no need to put away the game once you have finished playing.
Store Links: (prices may vary)
- San Juan (universal) - $7.99
User Reviews (2)
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Shortly after getting my iPod I went on a mission to find games that could be engagaing time killers. I landed on San Juan while searching for the game Puerto Rico. At the low price of $2.99 I figured it was worth the gamble. Here is what I found:
Gameplay
I foolishly tried to jump right into the game without watching the tutrioal. I assumed that a card based game would be intuitive and very simple to pick-up on the fly. I was wrong. Never having played the original San Juan (or Puerto Rico) the tutorial was essential. Once I went through the tutorial, I observed that there was an excellent game here.
The mechanics in this game were new to me. The cards themselves represented different buildings that could be constructed in the city of San Juan of which the player is responsible. These cards also display a number that indicates their building cost and the benefits that a player will glean in the collection of cards. These cards themselves don’t only represent buildings but also are used as the currency to construct the various buildings. There are other aspects to the game with regards role selections that afford different benefits to the players.
Once the very clever mechanics of the game are understood, this game is an excellent game.
Presentation
Since this is an IOS game, there are no components to speak of. The presentation of the cards and playing screen are simple yet elegant. Gameplay is fast and smooth without any hesitation or lagging in the programming.
Overall Impressions
If players are familiar with the games of San Juan or Puerto Rico, the learning curve would be greatly diminshed. Gameplay is interesting having variable difficulty levels and strategy is at a medium level. Once experienced, players can expect a game to last 10-15 minutes. At the games low cost, it is definitely worth the investment.
San Juan is the happy wild-child of Puerto Rico. It has a bit more luck, but it plays in like 1/3 the time of PR and is done before it overstay’s it welcome.
The basic premise of San Juan is that you start with 4 cards in your hand and single, poor farm on the board. The starting player selects one of the roles and game play commences. The roles are:
Governor – starts a building phase and gets to build for 1 card less
Producer – starts production phase and get bonus production
Trader – starts a trading phase and gets an extra trade
Councillor – draws 5 cards and keeps one, every one else draws 2 and keeps 1
Prospector – draw a card, no other players get to draw
So the first play select a role and everyone acts on it. Then the second player selects a role and everyone gets to act on it, and so on until the round is completed. The player the selects the role always gains an advantage related to the role.
One a round is completed, the second player gets to select from all of the roles and the next round begins. Each go around is about building up enough cards to purchase the things that you need. The trick is that the game ends once someone has built 12 structures and the game is constant trade-off between quality and keeping up with the frenetic pace that the AI players seem to prefer.
San Juan is as much about denial of advantage as it is about seeking an advantage. For instance, you might notice that you can sell a single good – and no one else has anything to sell. That might be a good time to gain a small card advantage. The Prospector role is the ultimate me-me-me role, but the card advantage can be comparatively small to other actions.
In terms of interface and presentation, the Android version gets high marks for both. Watching cards being dealt about the table is a little overkillish, but it does help you maintain better knowledge about the real sequence of play.