San Juan

About this board game

San Juan is a card game for 2–4 players that plays in about 60 minutes, with players developing cities from a 110-card deck based on Puerto Rico.

The deck combines production buildings for indigo, sugar, tobacco, coffee, and silver with violet buildings that provide special powers or extra victory points. Cards from your hand can be built into your city or spent as money to construct something else, creating a constant choice between expanding your buildings and preserving useful cards.

Production buildings use cards from the deck to represent goods. These goods remain face-down, while a seven-card hand limit is enforced once per round. Goods production and trading are normally limited to one card per phase, and trades cannot be blocked.

• Choose roles: During each governorship, players take turns selecting from the available roles.
• Trigger shared events: Role choices can produce goods or allow buildings to be constructed, usually affecting all players.
• Claim a privilege: The player who selects a role receives an advantage, such as producing more goods or building more cheaply.

Unlike Puerto Rico, San Juan has no colonists and no shipping of goods. Victory points are gained exclusively by building, so every construction contributes toward the final race.

The game ends as soon as one player has put up twelve buildings. With its role selection, hand management, production, trading, and distinctive violet buildings, San Juan offers a focused card-game adaptation with mechanisms that set it apart from its inspiration.