Splendor

Splendor App is Confusing and Abstract

There’s no question that Splendor is one of the most popular board games of the last year. But how does the official app adaptation from Days of Wonder hold up for mobile gamers?

The look is a sumptuous recreation of the original game, but mobile gamers may be puzzled by the font and icon choices. These have been replicated exactly from the original game, often at the expense of readability. Flavor text is presented in a stark sans serif font, while critical rules and other game information are in a hard-to-read cursive script.

Splendor
So how does all this work?

That’s a problem especially when dealing with a game that as abstract as Splendor is. New players will be unsure to do about the assortment of cards and tokens on their screen, and the tutorial is of little help. It works through the basic mechanics quickly, but gives little explanation of why you should take tokens or buy specific cards. The goals of the game simply aren’t that clear to new players.

The Challenges of Splendor

There’s no online multiplayer in Splendor, but a set of AI opponents provides an adequate solo challenge. These AIs pursue reasonable strategies, but lack any kind of personality. There’s a scoring system that adds some interest once you beat the AIs, but otherwise there’s very little to keep players engaged.

Each game moves quickly, though, taking fine to ten minutes to complete. If you understand and like the game, then the brisk play makes Splendor a solid choice for a quick break or “waiting in line” game.

After you mastered the AIs, there’s not much else to do. Three rudimentary campaigns provide puzzles for the player to solve. These variations are interesting, but the historical story bits attached have no connection to the challenges. The challenge page itself also showcases the game’s worst UI choices, with poorly-formatted flavor text obscured by a big, fat “Read more” button.

Not a fine moment in user interfaces
Not a fine moment in user interfaces.

There’s also a pass-and-play mode, but it’s unlikely to see much use unless you know another fan of the original board game. Days of Wonder is famous for its robust multi-player support for hit games like Ticket to Ride, so it’s baffling why online multi-player isn’t available.

Without that online support, this premium-priced app doesn’t have a lot to offer. If you’re not already a big fan of Splendor, this version is more likely to leave you baffled than bewitched.

But there’s another side to the story…