Santo Domingo Card Game First Impressions

Santo Domingo sees you play cards to gain Wares or Victory Points.

Or maybe just trade your Wares for Victory Points?

In Santo Domingo, all players have the same set of eight action cards. Each round, they choose one or two (depending on the number of players), reveal them at the same time, then execute the actions in a fixed order.

A quick look at the game followed by my final summary.

Santo Domingo Summary

The old ‘put a card face down and reveal simultaneously’ has been done a fair bit.

Mission: Red Planet does this really well. The difference is, in M: RP that the cards are revealed one at a time. it’s the same thing, but tenser 🙂 The cards are resolved in numerical order like Santo Domingo but unlike SD they don’t really affect each other directly.

A new favourite of these is another I’ve played recently, Dungeon Raiders. The cards are revealed and resolved simultaneously, not in numerical order. But each card will affect what other players are able to do.

Neither of them is as directly interactive as Santo Domingo

The different cards all work well together. You have the red ones and the blue ones interact meaning you can clearly see across the table who has played which one.

The choices are tough too. You’ll want to play a card that no one else will play. But everyone knows which is the best card to play… So you’re safe to play the card and will benefit from everyone playing that card right? Of course, you’re not the only person thinking that.

This is what makes this game better than similar games.

Also, the limited resources are great. It really means you have to be patient at times, or just go for it and hope!

Jesta ThaRogue