AEG Santa Monica | Build Your Beachfront, Attract Tourists to The Boardwalk | City-Building Card Drafting Set Collection Game | 1-4 Players | Ages 14+

Santa Monica is a pretty game to put on the table. Even my wife, who usually passes on playing board games, was enticed to come to the table due to the pastel color palette, the calm beach artwork and the prospect of building your own visual representation of your dream beach.The tableau mechanic of this game is the draw for our family, the ability to make an ever growing picture of what you want your beach to look like. It’s a huge draw to both my wife and my 10 year old daughter, but it also poses a slight problem: table space. As you continue to add cards to the left and right of your line of beachfront, you quickly realize you need about 3 linear feet of clear table space in front of each player to accommodate all those cards! Not a big problem, but a consideration for sure.The point mechanic is one where you try to place beach tiles and meeples in certain spots on your line to reap more points. It’s relatively easy for beginners to grasp and adds a layer of complexity that my puzzle obsessed daughter eats up.The component quality is very nice. Tiles are thick cardboard and the meeples are screen printed wooden pieces.Don’t expect a crunchy, brain burning complex game, but if the theme appeals to you, I heartily recommend Santa Monica as a delightful diversion that many of your friends, gamer and non gamer alike, will enjoy!

Santa Monica has fabulous pastel art that fits the laid back play. This is a game full of meaningful decisions but many of them are of the 'taking lemons and making lemonade' variety: you will often have to choose the least bad option from four cards. However, there are many ways to mitigate your pain and to plan around problems. You can earn money that lets you choose from the 'back row' of cards, the cards that will normally slide down when the front card is selected. There are plenty of either/or nuanced decisions. The deck of cards is huge and the game never plays the same twice. We don't feel like luck determines the winner, rather, it challenges the players. This lives in the top tier of our 100 game collection for the pure joy from playing win or lose. Santa Monica scales very well, playing 2,3 or 4.

This game's artwork reminds me of the beauty of being at Santa Monica beach in person! This game has been fun and interesting, but isn't extremely interactive between players. We enjoy the game, but I would say that when I got it all out the first time and read through the rules, I was seriously doubting I would ever figure it out. The rules were not the most clear and there are still questions that come up about certain scenarios that we just decide as "house rules" as they aren't explicitly answered in the rules provided. With all that being said, I am pleased with the purchase and this has become a regular in our game roster!

A fun tableau game (that means you are trying to build a selection of cards in front of you to get points), there's also adorable wooden meeples that represent tourists (with cameras), a foodie and food truck, and vip's (with sunglasses) in addition to the regular meeples (locals). There is a bit of an overpowered strategy with collecting tourists, but besides that there's a lot of replayability because you can mix up the bonus win conditions.

Easy to learn, great middle-weight game. It’s so unique! The artwork is delightful.Other games in my collection that I’m a fan of include Parks, Mariposas, Jaipur, Calico, Wingspan, Splendor, Everdell, Tiny Towns, Evolution, Agricola, Imhotep, Horrified, 10 Days in Africa, Cottage Garden, Patchwork, Karuba.... so if you like any of those games as well, perhaps you will like this one too!

Build you own unique beachfront community in this fun and inventive game! The game design and artwork are beautiful and truly evoke the sights and sounds of Santa Monica.It’s easy to learn and is a fantastic game to play with friends and family. Plus it works very well over Zoom if everyone has a copy.5 of 5 stars, I can’t get enough of this game!!

We love this game and the artwork is amazing. It was a little difficult to learn but once we watched a few Youtube videos and played a few rounds, we got the hang of it and had a blast! Fun for 2 people or can be a good party game with 4. If you like strategy games like Catan, you'll love this!

I read a lot of reviews on this game before I ended up purchasing it. It definitely did not disappoint. I love how it’s a pretty simple game and it’s just really pretty to look at. We’ve played it a couple times and we’ve loved it!