Re: a faithful translation well worth the price – San Juan Review

Long-time fan of the tabletop game. Truly a classic. As a translation of the original (without the expansion cards) it delivers in single player a nicely scaled set of AI difficulty levels. The expert level bots are tough but beatable. (And, contrary to the comments of the previous reviewer, if you adopt his advice you will lose nearly every time against the expert AI, at any player count.). For those who love the original and appreciate the nuance and need to adapt as play progresses, just as in the tabletop, you will find this version entirely rewarding. If you have no taste for or experience with the original game, then you will complain as the previous reviewer did. But it is not a complaint about the quality of the app, rather it is a complaint about the original game which the app translates faithfully. Also, to clarify his criticism of some of the cards being unbalanced. That is patently false. The tabletop version got an expansion, not to “fix” the balance of the original, but to add more variety. The extra cards from the expansion required that the game be rebalanced to account for their addition, not the other way around. Online play: I have never even bothered trying the multiplayer, so I’m not competent to comment on it, but as a veteran player I can vouch for both the quality of solo play, and the ease of the interface to intuitively track all the info you need to simply play the game. I’d go so far as to say that it’s elegantly simple. Just like the original San Juan, without the need for the expansion cards. Though it’d be nice to have the option to play with them. If the publisher decided to add them at some point I wouldn’t protest, but wouldn’t use them that often, either.
Review by Casual Floyd on San Juan.