I suppose the idea of San Juan is that it scratches the itch of Puerto Rico. The theory goes that Puerto Rico is fiddly and takes time. So if you are short on time or players or space in your bag for a game then San Juan should do it for you. Surely PR is such a great game that’s its legitimate heir will have to be nearly as great.

Well the kid has grown up and I am of a mind to see it back to it’s parents, because although I love Puerto Rico, always have, always will, I just can’t get the enthusiasm for San Juan. I’ve played face to face a handful of times, but downloaded the AI version the other day to bide away the time until our twins come. One may reasonably think that I should be experiencing other things in my last few months of no dependants, but the truth is that I suspect that I will be allowed to bike and swim and run when the twins come, but I won’t be allowed to game.

So in my search AI gaming heaven I ran into San Juan and thought, this was great right? Unfortunately it wasn’t. Now that I remember back there is a reason I don’t often say ‘San Juan please’ when the waiter comes by asking what I’d like to play. There are a couple of reasons.

San Juan is a card game. Like PR one picks the role they implement and builds buildings as depicted on the cards. Some buildings are similar to PR and there are a bunch of new ones as well. Instead of money a player pays in cards. When a production building is built and goods are produced one card is stacked under the building to indicate a good of that type. When the trader is called then you may sell that card for cards which go into your hand and help you build more buildings etc etc. Cards are the buildings the goods and the money. It’s a card game disguised as a board game.

The parallels with PR are seamless, suing the same buildings, colour scheme and scoring. Except nothing is quite as good. The colours on the cards seem muted and faded. Where is the corn and its bright yellow colour. It’s not there, in fact it is replaced by silver which is coloured white. The buildings are all basically the same, the only difference being the cost and the return for the good. And the strategic choices, although similar, are reduced. You can only build what you have in your hand, end of story. So luck determines your path instead of other players.

Don’t get me wrong the basic mechanics are good, and perhaps that’s why Race for the Galaxy is so successful. There is nothing wrong with it and it would be much better if it wasn’t related to the number 1 rated game of all time. But when you have famous parents, reflected glory is probably the best you will do. San Juan fails to step out of the shadow of Puerto Rico and I am happy to let it sit there, out of sight and out of mind.