Splotter Spellen Games have stayed with me since I started gaming and before I started logging plays in 2017. My tastes have dramatically changed over the years, but owning and playing Splotters hasn’t stopped. In fact, I rarely pre-order games (Kickstarters included) and I pre-ordered 2023’s release. I think all their games have unique ideas, themes, and a lot of strategies through fairly condensed rules. They aren’t games that have wide appeal, as their designs are built under a philosophy: “If you can’t lose the game on turn one, what is the point of having a turn one?” Of their 15 released games, only seven of them received multiple print runs or wider releases. It would have been six, but they happened to release a game last year. Those seven are all good, but allow me to rank them based on my taste and preferences.

Top 7 Splotter Games

7. Antiquity

Antiquity takes some big frames of other games while being very unique at the same time. While taking some aspects from Splotter favorites, it can cause some weird spots compared to others. Let me explain. It has the simultaneous decisions like you may see in Roads and Boats, but it is just as fiddly as it. My close friend who owns it bought a tackle box with a handle to store and organize it. It has patron saints, which sees you gain new abilities like the milestones from Food Chain Magnate. For those who are looking for the intense interaction that Splotter games are known for, the majority of the game sends players working in their own cities. Many of you reading this are thinking that it sounds like it fits exactly with your type of taste in games. But throughout the whole play, Antiquity is punishing, one of the most punishing games I’ve ever played. And once interaction begins, it gets brutal. One of the possible victory conditions is enveloping another player inside your zone of control. While being my lowest of their seven big games, Antiquity is still a good game. And it is very different from the others while still feeling like a Splotter game.

2-4 Players • Ages 14+ • 120-180 minutes

6. Food Chain Magnate

The most well known of Splotter’s designs, Food Chain Magnate was my first exposure to their style. I was blown away by the different strategies to explore and the variety of ways you can pursue victory. As the years go by and we’ve had the game to play since 2015, players have found that they may lose the game on turn one. There are milestones that players receive when they hit certain goals and give them special abilities, but they are first come-first serve. And through repeat plays, certain milestones were revealed to be more consistent with victories. Splotter answered the balance issues with their expansion, The Ketchup Mechanism and Other Ideas. It has 17 total modules, but the most popular and the one I have the most experience with is the one that gives newer players a path to take advantage of some of the tough early decisions: Hard Choices puts a turn limit on certain milestones, and certain milestones are removed from the game if they were not taken one turns two and three. This small addition gives new players a very clear idea that “these milestones are so good, you want to get it before it’s gone.” Who knew that FOMO could be used to help? All in all, Food Chain Magnate is a great game and proudly stays in my collection. I just find myself reaching for it less compared to others.

2-5 Players • Ages 14+ • 120-240 minutes

5. Bus

I once had a thought that Bus was simply a minor reinvention of the worker placement game, so it actually ranked at the bottom. But when I recently played it, the blinders were completely removed. Yes, it’s a worker placement game, which is odd among the Splotter library. But it does things so differently than the majority of others that use the mechanism. You get all your workers at the beginning and are required to use two of them, but you can place as many as you’d like after the required first two. Once you use a worker, it returns to the box. There are only seven different actions, but 27 different spaces for workers. For the four actions that have multiple positions, you place them on the letter that is first alphabetically. But you always go through the actions from left to right. Meaning, for two of the actions, you may be the first person to place on the worker placement spot but the last player to take the action. For the other three actions, only one worker may be placed there per round, so they may be more important. And one of those actions is to use time travel of all things! I’m leaving things out, but it has moved up for me due to being familiar for the average gamer while still having lots of depth and interaction through each and every decision.

3-5 Players • Ages 12+ • 120 minutes

4. Horseless Carriage

I was totally off the hype train in the months before the release of Horseless Carriage. I knew that players were building their own factories, and that worried me. I was starting to assume that it was a fairly head down Euro. And it can be head down for certain. But it is remarkably punishing for an early-game mistake. When you add something to your factory, it will remain in that exact position for the entire game. Each part is assembled on the A, B, C, or D manufacturing steps. Those parts have to be either adjacent to whatever step they are a part of or another part that needs the required step, but is also adjacent to the source. So you are doing this for four different assembly lines along with placing departments in the same factory spaces. Combine the stressful side of this with selling your vehicles, running out of parts to add to your factory, and minimum specs that buyers need for a car creates something that is very different from Splotter’s other designs and other Euros that would be classified as heads down.

3-5 Players • Ages 14+ • 180-240 minutes

3. Indonesia

Indonesia does a few similar things to other games in the Splotter catalog. It has research/tech tracks. It has the selling of goods. It has multiple strategies to pursue. But the biggest difference is that it is almost entirely focused on economics. It is the driver of an economics car while Food Chain Magnate is in an economics Uber for a ride. The game lets players play as they want to. Want to always have first turn? Research to the top of the turn order bid track and if you commit five dollars, it is multiplied by 400, meaning you end up bidding $2000 to go first. Want to sell the most valuable resource? Well grab the oil company. But to sell it, you’ll be using another player’s ships for $5 to ship it. Want to sell TV dinners that use rice and spice, but you have neither of them? That’s totally fine because you can merge the two companies of other players for yourself and you win the auction. It seems like a lot, but turns are easy and it’s a nice look at an economic game that feels unique.

2-5 Players • Ages 14+ • 180-240 minutes

2. Roads and Boats

Roads and Boats stands out from other games of Splotter for two reasons. The first is that the game can fit with a plethora of game tastes. What you want from a game, and you can create a map to amplify that. If you prefer to have no interaction and want to do your own thing, you can build a map for it! The rulebook has a scenario that makes interaction impossible. If you want so much interaction that you can build walls to stop opponents from stealing your geese, that’s possible too. And if your game group has a mix of opinions on interaction, then build a custom map where those who do not want their opponent to be able to be in the same hex are off on their own. Roads and Boats does a great job of having mass appeal. What it doesn’t do well is its fiddliness and intimidation. They go together, but the game may be the most fiddly game I have ever played. The amount of components can scare new owners and players. But the reward you can get from it is rewarding and can reward all sorts of gamers.

1-4 Players • Ages 12+ • 240 minutes

1. The Great Zimbabwe

The Great Zimbabwe does so much right. You rely on helping one another, paying them to use their resources. Each game feels different based on the gods available to take and the map layout. Taking a god, specialist, or technology impacts how many points you individually need to strive for to win. The fight for turn order feels as important as what powers players take. And you are paying other players (and sometimes yourself) with each bid, giving them financial gains. It does a really good job at scaling for player count. The length of play goes from 90-150 minutes based on what the box says. I’ve taught and finished a game in an hour. And it offers a spatial puzzle that focuses on more than the rest of the catalog in a quick game.

2-5 Players • Ages 14+ • 90-150 minutes