Santorini Full Playthrough

welcome to John gets games today I'll be doing a full two-player playthrough of Santorini this game is currently live on Kickstarter and it will be until April 27th of 2016 and in the game each player takes on the role of a God and they are commanding some little builders on this island in the middle of the ocean trying to build the tallest towers and then get their Builder up to the top in order to win uh each God has different asymmetric player powers that shift them in different directions as far as what they can do and uh well I'll go ahead and jump into the game now and I'll explain the rest of the rules as we go and when I'm done I'll give you some Impressions I've had of the game so far before I jump into the game I want to show you some of the differences between the print run that I will be doing this video for and the one that we'll actually be going through with Kickstarter first of all I will be playing with these individual blocks here but the kickstarter one is going to have these nice molded pieces here so this is the first level uh we're gonna just stack two of these on top of each other for the second level but the kickstarter these will be able to stack up like that and the third level will just be three for us but that little um circular spot will get to go up there and finally there's a really big dome here and we have this nice Blue Dome that will get to go on the top there lastly there are going to be figurines similar to these that you'll get to play with uh with the final production run of the game but for this video I'll be using the blocks and these cylinders for the builders and lastly I do want to show you this really awesome board it's kind of floating on a rocky pedestal over this ocean and this is a pretty good representation of what the final uh production version of the game will look like the first thing that you do in the game is deal out four of these numerous god cards to each of the players and then they pick one of the four that they get dealt the left-hand player chooses Artemis and the right hand player chooses Demeter each of them has a special ability but I'll explain those as we play the game Artemis gets to go first so they have to place both of the builders somewhere on the map they'll go ahead and put one over there and one over there and now Demeter has to put both of their people down and they'll go ahead and put one over here and one down there the structural return is really simple each player takes one of their Builders and they move it and they can go in orthogonal or diagonal movement and then they build one building block down onto an orthogonal or diagonal spot that is next to the Builder they moved they're not able to move into a zone that already has another Builder and of course they can't put a block down where a builder already is the bonus that Artemis gets is they get to move their Builder twice before they do their build and the bonus that Demeter gets is once they've moved they can actually build two different blocks down but they have to be in different spots the Artemis player begins they're only going to move once and they're going to go ahead and build this block down here kind of trying to put it in the corner to start building some buildings but also be able to control the ability of the Demeter player to get in on it demeanor seems okay with that they're going to move once over here and now they get to put two blocks down so they'll go ahead and put one there and one there so it's pretty powerful they can build it twice as fast Artemis decides they want to be a little closer to all this action that Demeter is doing so they get to move twice and then they're going to build one building down and RMS decides to move here now they can see that the meter might want to move up onto this block because you're allowed to jump up onto buildings but only at one at a time you can't go from the base to a second level building and if they did that they could then build on this first level building making a second level building which the Artemis Builder would not be able to scale up unless they built this little staircase here and at the end of the day you win the game if you're able to get one of your Builders up onto a third level building so they definitely want to have the ability to jump up here and stop the Demeter player from just over building the meter seems unfazed by that they move at a diagonal over to this block here and then they're going to throw two blocks down and they're actually going to stack up on both of these so they're both second level buildings Artemis decides to use their good movement to move twice and they're going to throw this block down here once again giving them the ability to potentially jump up onto these buildings that the Demeter player is building so quickly Demeter thinks it's getting a little crowded over here so they're going to go ahead and move this Builder over and they can throw two blocks down so they may as well they're gonna throw them both down over here and maybe they can start building over here and trying to spread the Artemis player out it's back to Artemis and with these two moves they're going to jump up one level here and then another level here so they're on the second level and then they're going to throw down this second level onto that zone there hoping to maybe move over and get a third level built and try to rush up and put their Builder on there to win Demeter thinks that this Builder is still in a pretty good position to do something about that so they're going to jump up onto this spot here and they'll throw two buildings down it's back to Artemis and they could move over here and build a third level building here the issue is that these domes exist and the Demeter player has a builder over here now these domes can only be built on a third level building and if they were to move and be adjacent they could plunk this down and it essentially neutralizes that entire building and no one is able to jump on top of it because it's so curved they just fall off I suppose and it stops that building stack from being a possibility to win the game so right now they don't want to make this a third building Stacks they need to think about other options so Artemis decides they're only going to move one spot to go over to here and they're going to put their building down right here it is next to where they're currently trying to build a tower which would potentially let them win and it also gives them the potential of jumping into this situation over here to stop the Demeter player DaVita decides that they're going to move up here and they're going to throw down their two buildings one goes here and one goes here they're essentially forcing the Artemis player's hand to build a dome on this spot here because on their next turn they can potentially just jump right up here and win so Artemis really doesn't have much of a choice they go ahead and move to this spot here and now they go ahead and build this Dome up here stopping the Demeter player from going over there but also uh the Demeter player was able to split the Artemis Builders up a little bit and that might play into their favor Demeter is unfazed they saw that coming they go ahead and move over here and they're going to throw two building blocks down over here at this point I think I'm going to actually rotate the board a little bit so we can better see what's going on in that region of the board the Artemis player knows that even though they're really mobile there's no way they can catch up to the crazy building power of Demeter so they really need to try and make use of the building blocks that demeanor makes so they're going to go ahead and move one two to kind of get up in this business and try to utilize what's going on here and then they'll go ahead and build right into this slot which happens to be next to uh this Builder they already have here on the second level and I'll try to make something happen here and uh take advantage of the fact that Demeter is actually really slow to me it doesn't seem happy about this incursion they're going to go ahead and move here and they're going to build two blocks out here in the back trying to get them kind of away from the Artemis player's current position it's now artemis's turn to try and put the pressure on the meters so they're going to go ahead and move twice and then they will build a third level building here now they know that the Demeter player can move over here and build a dome and they're fully expecting that player to do that but it moves this Builder piece away from a much better region and maybe they can kind of trap them in there so now Demeter doesn't really have a choice if they don't build a dome here then they immediately lose on the next turn so they go ahead and move here and they'll build their Dome they could build another building tile if they want to but they don't think that's a good idea at this point and it's back to Artemis and they decide to kind of undo that term they just did they'll go one two going back to that spot they were in but now they're going to throw a building block over here which is pretty much only because it's farther away from the Demeter player so they can try to build some buildings and Force the video player to move away from these pretty nice regions Demeter doesn't seem two-phased by that they're going to go ahead and move over here and they're going to build one building block right there and another one right over here essentially trying to build as many buildings as they possibly can in this area to the point where the Artemis player cannot stop them from jumping up onto a third level maybe they can build two third level buildings on the same turn and that would be really powerful for them the Artemis player decides to move over to this spot and build a second level building on this location which is again the best spot on the board for them because it is far away from the Demeter player this uh Builder would have to go all the way around and this Builder would have to go all the way around over here to try to get to this spot in fact on the following turn the armist player could move this builder in such a position to build up to the third level here and go up on there on the next turn so the demeanor player sees they have two turns to deal with this while still trying to do good stuff for themselves I think I'm going to go ahead and spin the board again to get a little bit better perspective on what's going on in this region over here commuter decides to move down to this spot here and since they must build at least one block they're going to put one there but they're not going to do a second block our number sees that Demeter is kind of doing what they have to do to stop this potential combo so what they're going to do is they're going to modify it a little bit they're going to move here and they're still going to go ahead and put the third level here knowing full well that the Demeter player will have to move over here to put a dome down but that really does pull the Demeter player very far away from all these big blocks over here so now Demeter goes and they have to move here if they don't do this and build a dome up on this third level here then the Artemis player would win which is exactly the plan that the Artemis player was kind of forcing them into RMS can tell that they are in control of the tempos they're going to go ahead and move one spot over here and then they're going to build another third level building because they know that the Demeter player can only move once and they can't go from the base to the third level so they're going to have to move to either here or here in order to build a dome over here which once again pulls their Builder even farther away from this area Demeter doesn't have a choice they have to build a dome on the spot which means they have to end in one of these two locations they decide to go here so at least they are going a little bit higher and they have a little bit more flexibility for what they can do going on so they'll go go ahead and build this Dome here it's artemis's turn and they've got a plan they're going to jump into this hole here and they're going to go ahead and build a third level building right here because they can see that the meters Builders are not in a position to build a dome up here they have to move this one to any of these zones which will pull them away and this one has just no way to get over there because they put their Builder right here so they officially stopped a meter from having any shot at putting a dome up here which is great and next turn they can just go one two up from one level to the next and win the game it's not Demeter's turn and they could tell that there's no way they can build a dome on this spot here but there is one other way they can stop the game from ending and that is if they can stop the Builder from having a path to get up to that spot so they're going to move their Builder up to here and they'll go ahead and put a third level building down right there which essentially kills the staircase that the uh this Builder was able to do now unfortunately they also need to build right here because there's still a staircase for this Builder to jump up there so they plunk down there and they've at least stalled the game out a little bit there sometimes player looks a little miffed they thought they had it in the bag they didn't quite see that but they've got another good trick up their sleeve they're going to go ahead and move this Builder up to that spot and now they're going to build right here essentially building a new staircase in order for them to get up to either of these triple level buildings so now it's back to Demeter and it looks like they were just prolonging the inevitable at this point there's really nothing they can do they can move this Builder to this location or this location but that's not going to block this staircase over here they could you know build here but that's just going to add more staircases for the Optimus player to win and over here even if they could move they could um well actually they are Demeter if they could move one spot they could have put two domes down but the Artemis player was smart they left this uh Builder right here stopping the Demeter player from having any good movements in order to be able to end their movement next to either of these spots so there really is nothing they can do since they can see they can't stop Artemis from winning on the next turn they may as well be nice they'll go down there and build this here just giving another stepping stone for the Animus player who uh when it's their turn they just go one two they have now gotten a builder up to the third level and they win the game so that was a full two-player game of Santorini now I'm going to jump into a couple initial Impressions I've had for the game the first of these is that it's just a beautiful looking game the production value that they have going on is great you have a board and then you have a little plastic Cliff face another board that goes on top of that really pulls it off the table and then when you see the wonderful plastic building pieces that are going to be coming in the final game you realize it's gonna be a very tall three-dimensional experience and it is a three-dimensional experience anyway even with the flat discs because you are stacking these uh buildings on top of each other trying to go up high but I love how beautiful the actual end product is going to look and I also love the variety of gods that come with the game and how they really change things up the game itself is very simple you know just move one person build a building that's it try to get to the third level but it almost feels like an abstract toolkit of a game because you have this core mechanism but then people have these asymmetric powers from all these gods and they add extra mechanics on top and the way they're going to interact is going to be different each game based off of how which God you have which God your opponent has maybe um this game you can move faster because uh of the God you have or your opponent might not let you move up to another level when they moved up to another level so it's not just what you can do on your turn but sometimes your opponent can restrict you from even doing things based off of which gods they have so it's a very cool variety that goes into it also when you think about the play length of the game you could potentially if you're enjoying playing the game get several sessions in because it seems like games usually last like 5 to 15 minutes from the small subset that I've seen and uh by five minutes I that really is true I've seen that happen because you need to be paying attention to what you're trying to do and how many turns it's going to take you to do stuff but also what your opponent is doing because at the end of the day this is less a game about building and more a game about uh location and where you are on the board of course you are building buildings in order to get your people up on top but you oftentimes build uh Towers up to three with just the the reasoning of pushing your opponent's Builders into a place where they shouldn't be to build that Dome it's all about getting your opponent out of position to finally take advantage of the fact that they're nowhere near a spot in order to stop you from winning the game so I really like the kind of multiple layers that are going on there it is a simple game I don't want to oversell its complexity from my perspective yet I mean maybe it is a very deep experience but I can't really uh talk to that at this point but I like the different decisions that the game presents to you considering you have a very tiny rule set if you'd like to see more full game playthroughs like this one as well as in-depth board game reviews and Vlogs please subscribe to my channel also you can directly support the channel at patreon.com John getsgames thanks for watching