Publisher
Horrible Guild
45
minutes
€55
cost
2-7
players
Game overview
In The Great Split, you're going to collect riches in order to accumulate the most prestigious collection. But there's a twist: Each round you have to split up cards and let your opponents choose which ones to return!
You start the game with a number of cards in your hand. These cards show riches that you can get at the end of the round. Before you get these, you have to start splitting. This means that you have to start putting your splitter card somewhere between your set of cards, so that you have a number of cards to the left and right of this card. You pass this set of cards to your opponent in an envelope. This player may now choose the set to the left or right of the splitter card and return the rest. Of course, you yourself also receive an envelope with a set of cards from the player to your right. As a result, at the end of the round, your hand consists of cards that the player to your left did not choose and cards that you choose from the player to your right.
At the end of the round, you can play the cards in your hands. You may move your pawn forward equal to the number of symbols shown on the card. In addition, you may move another pawn of your choice with your splitter card. How far you move a pawn forward on a track determines your score for that track. You can also get bonuses, such as moving another pawn forward on a track.
After the 3rd and 4th rounds, there are intermediate scorings. Here, only certain tracks are scored. You can see in advance which tracks are more important at the beginning of the game. At the end of the game, you score all tracks again and the player with the most points wins!
Our thoughts
The Great Split combines two popular mechanisms: set collection and drafting. We have seen this combination of mechanisms before, but The Great Split uses closed drafting. With that, this game manages to bring something unique to the table.
The game is easy to learn and plays intuitively. You certainly don't need to rack your brain on the rules. Instead, you can use your brain to play nice and tactical! That's nice sometimes, too. The Great Split challenges you in all the right places, namely in the gameplay. After all, the choices you make are incredibly important.
It doesn't matter if you play The Great Split with 2, 4 or 6 players. This game will always provide you with a fun night! Because you perform the actions almost all at once, there is little to no downtime. Everyone can just keep playing! This is ideal in a game you can even play with 7 players! The different player numbers do affect gameplay. With 2 players it is easier to keep an eye on which cards are in play. With more players the game becomes a bit more unpredictable, but certainly no less fun! We find it ideal that you can play The Great Split with different numbers of players. This ensures that the game offers many options and has great potential to be on the table often!
Another plus to The Great Split are the beautiful playerboards. These are double-layered and easy to understand. No sliding cubes, ideal! The combination of the fun, accessible gameplay and the quality of the components make us find The Great Split a very enjoyable board game. We have our doubts about its replayability, but hope that with the right opponents, this game will be on the table often!
Pros and cons
+ Unique twist on drafting and set collection
+ Double layered playerboards
+ Easy to learn with challenging gameplay
- Doubts about replayability
