San Juan

San Juan is a card game version of the smash hit Puerto Rico.

The 110 cards in the game represent buildings, each of which has a building cost and a victory point value. Some buildings produce goods, others have special abilities. As with many other card games, the variety of cards creates a layer of complexity atop the basic rules, and replayability is enhanced through exploring different strategies underpinned by powerful combinations of abilities. The central concept of the game is that cards are purchased (transferred from a player’s hand to his tableau) by discarding other cards from the hand. In other words, cards are both currency and commodity.

On his turn, the active player selects a role: Producer, Trader, Builder, Councillor or Prospector. Then all players, beginning with the active player, perform the activity associated with that role

In a producer phase, production buildings yield goods. In a trader phase, players trade those goods for cash, i.e., cards. In a building phase, players purchase buildings as previously described. In councillor and prospector phases, players add cards from the deck to their hand – the councillor phase benefits all players, while the prospector phase benefits only the player who chose it.

The game ends immediately after a player builds his twelfth building. Victory point totals are calculated and the highest scorer wins.