YORKTON - In a board game world seemingly dominated by big box productions with elaborate rule sets and loads of bits and minis, sometimes it’s the small, unassuming box that produce the most pleasant gaming surprises.
While this is not to say the flashy boxes are not great – Frost Punk was The Meeple Guild’s collective top new game we played in 2023 – but smaller options can be fun too.
Take the card game Splito by designers Romaric Galonnier and Luc Rémond, with art by Maud Chalmel.
The game is one which will scream buy me on a store shelf, small box that it is, with nice but certainly not immediate eye-catching cover art.
But if you are lazily perusing game store shelves, and you want something which plays light, fast and is fun, well Splito is worth a long look.
The game has a few elements of interest. To start it’s a card drafting game, you play a card and pass your hand on to the next player. Magic: the Gathering players will know the concept from creating draft decks at events, and of course 7 Wonders might be the poster boy of the genre.
It’s a fun mechanic that keeps a game – at least in the case of Splito -- very light.
There are two types of cards, coloured/numbered ones, and a variety of goal cards.
When you play a card it goes to the table in a grouping on either your left or right. You share the cards and points achieved there with the player to that side.
So if you play a card where you earn points for having 15 or more cards at the end of the game in that field to your left, it’s a goal you and the player share.
There will be multiple goal cards in a given field to work toward. It can be a bit mind-frying to analyze all the options but in a sort of fun chaotic way.
At games end you multiply your points from the right-hand pool with those from the left for a personal final score.
Now the scores in Splito can be wildly different, and that seems to make it a bit hollow since a player can be miles ahead or behind, but in-game you have no sense of how anyone is doing so you aren’t disheartened until the very end, so that issue is sort of mitigated.
The game plays three to eight and since it’s simultaneous card placement extra players won’t slow the game too much, or leave anyone with dead time.
The one knock on Splito is the card stock is a tad flimsy and since cards are handled a lot the wear and tear factor must be considered. The cards are also not standard card size so sleeving is not a perfect solution, and if you did go that route they’d never fit back in box either.
Still given the ease of rules, versatility of player numbers and general fun play this is a very easy one to recommend. Check it out at ilo307.com
