In Santa Monica, we move to the sunny California coast of the United States to compete in managing our own section of the beach. During the game, attractions on successively added cards will attract tourists, local residents and our VIP. In the end, the host of the most organized terrain will win.
The main element of the game is a deck of cards that come in two types: the beach and the boulevard, which at the same time determines where we can put them in our area. The place to build is crucial for the final result – attractions have a scoring condition printed on them, most often as adjacent to specific cards. Sometimes, however, to get points, we will have to work harder. Cards will require a large group of the same icons lying next to each other or placing appropriate people on them.
Exactly – crowds of tourists and local people will attract to our beach, attracted by hotels, shops and wedding ceremonies organized on the shores of the ocean. And when they come, they need to be provided with additional attractions in the form of areas of activity. These spaces provide victory points when they are occupied by a certain number of people. The only problem is that the pieces still have to get there somehow – so a big part of the game is carefully moving them in the right direction.
During the turn, we choose one of the four available locations or, by paying with “sand dollars”, we use a special action that will give us the card in a different way. We arrange it in our area (preferably in such a way as to maximize the points), perform the immediate effect and … already. It is the next player’s turn. There are just enough decisions to be made so that there are no automatic, best possible moves, and at the same time – that you do not have to think about optimization forever. In addition, during the movements of other players, we can already choose a perfect card for us and hope that no one will take it from us on the way. Or maybe something even better will show up?
Santa Monica is passing us quite quickly and intensively – just in time for a lighter, but still complex title. The number of cards, combinations of special actions and general scoring goals will keep the game going for a long time.
The illustrations form a bustling beach, but the graphics functionality is worse. Beach cards have a border with actions, scoring and icons at the top, boulevard cards at the bottom, which makes it difficult to see at first glance what the location is actually doing. In addition, because some effects are unique, we must check their operation in the manual. And so: one place scores for icons in our entire area (and not only in the vicinity of the card), another allows you to “teleport” people, another gives negative points under certain conditions, yet another blocks the possibility of building cards on your left side. There is also no consistency when it comes to marking areas of activity – sometimes the scoring description is placed inside the field, sometimes below, above or away from it.
In the Polish version of the game, I am also offended by the use of the word “seat reservation” as a synonym for a place and “locals”. I also found a few slips in the translation, including some that affect the game – read carefully the orange objective card scoring rule. It boasts of the ingenious localization of proper names of objects appearing on the cards.
To sum up – Santa Monica is an interesting, eye-catching game that will be perfect when you want to strain your gray cells a bit and have a good time. We don’t have much interaction here – apart from picking up cards, we can’t bother each other. The age 14+ on the box is somewhat exaggerated – the biggest difficulty in the game is understanding the iconography. Both in two and four people, the gameplay is smooth and satisfying.
