I just wanted to share my impressions about San Juan, the card game version of Puerto Rico. Right off the bat, These impressions are based on my home made version of the game. Using the rules that have been posted on line, I laid out the cards in Powerpoint, printed and stuffed into deck protectors with card stiffeners. So no comments on production quality! The game is very accessible. I showed a colleague at work how to play over lunch, and he picked up the mechanics very quickly. The game progresses relatively swiftly, and soon you are getting a lot of cards in your hand. So many that I had to discard on the Governor phase twice. It can be hard to plan much ahead of time, and sometimes, when builder is called, you have little or no choice on what to build. But it seems that you should always build something, if you are able. Key buildings seem to be those that give you cards on phases other than trader, as well as cards that allow extra privileges. (with the library, you can sell 2 extra goods, for a total of three to your opponent`s one good, so you get a lot more cards) We played two player, and it worked fine. The governor chooses first, then the other player, then the governor. Then, hands are checked for card limit, the roles are returned and the governor passes to the next player. The game has certain Puerto Rico like elements, and I found myself thinking things such as, I could choose craftsman, but then my opponent will call trader, and I need the extra sale bonus, so I will let him call craftsman, and I will take prospector instead.... The small starting hand size makes it hard to build much, but once you have some extra production and bonus buildings, things move much quicker. The game is fairly light and accessible, and it might be a good way to get people interested in games like Puerto Rico. It won't ever take the place that the board game currently occupies in my game group, but it might be just the thing for a quick lunch game. Back to Table of Contents -- Game! # 3 To Game! List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by George Phillies. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com