Alhambra Review

Sometimes you want to play a game for adventure and excitement, escaping from cursed temples or eradicating zombies from your little corner of the world. There are times you’d like a tense brain-burner, silently matching Chess-like wits mano a mano with a worthy adversary. There are party games for laughs, cooperative games for camaraderie, and any number of exciting titles that have you howling with delight or crying in scorn with every roll of the dice or flip of the cards. There are also times you’d like a game that just lets you chill and relax. Nothing that makes you feels dumb, but a tranquil design still offering smart and meaningful decisions that sort of runs in the background, allowing you to enjoy the company of friends and family.

Alhambra lies distinctly within that last category. This classic is also a quintessential gateway game and Spiel de Jahres winner. Since those two terms are tossed about quite a bit in the hobby, and I never assume who is reading this, let me explain. “Gateway game” refers to an easy-to-learn design, one that you can introduce to an individual otherwise unfamiliar with modern board gaming – an experience you hope will hook him/her, the first hit to a greater addiction. It should involve decision-making, eschew cumbersome rules exceptions, and take no more than an hour to play. Most of all it should obliterate every entrenched notion that the non-initiated holds about board games from growing up with commercial mainstays like Sorry, Life, Battleship, Operation, and horribly invented house-rules of Monopoly.

Not every gateway game has won the Spiel des Jahres, but most Spiel des Jahres winners are gateway games. The German Game of the Year has been awarded annually since 1979 and always proves a profitable boon for designer/publisher. The committee that hands these out is very mysterious and very Teutonic, but is typically consistent in honoring designs safe for the whole family. They involve some admittedly light strategy, include variable doses of randomness, are easy to learn, don’t take long to play and eliminate downtime. In short they’re accessible to a broad range of reasonably-thinking ages. The honor also allows innumerable expansions, of which Alhambra has plenty if you want to add more depth and strategy.

This classic is one part card set collecting and one part tile-laying puzzle. In it you’ll spend four denominations of currency (cards) to buy buildings (tiles) in constructing your own re-imagination of Granada’s famous palace. On a turn you perform one of three actions: take money, buy a building or redesign your Alhambra. When taking money, you can grab one of four cards available – or more than one as long as the total value does not exceed five. When buying a building, you must pay with the correct currency depending on where it lies on the market. Overpaying is fine, but you don’t receive change. And if you pay the exact amount you get a free action. After buying a tile, you can add it to your Alhambra or place it on your reserve board. Finally, when redesigning you may either swap two tiles from your palace and reserve, add one tile from your reserve to your palace or vice versa. You earn points in three different scoring rounds based on holding majorities in the six different building types. Many tiles have wall segments and you also earn points for each segment in your longest continuous wall.

The reason Alhambra garnered the coveted Spiel des Jahres is because I’m able to explain the whole game in one paragraph. Okay, so there are a couple of other particular rules and I completely ignored the game’s set-up, but this design is extremely straight-forward. You perform an action and move on to the next player. Sometimes you can do an extra thing or two, but it still paces quickly. This non-intimidating structure has always appealed to the SdJ committee. Aside from that, the game is not very confrontational, requires smart play and includes some luck in the draw of cards and tiles. Yet its randomness is just enough to level the playing field. It’s never over-bearing and doesn’t give experienced players an unfair advantage. All of these elements create a very accessible family-style game.

The reason it’s a great gateway game is that it feels so familiar, in large measure like Rummy and Dominoes. Along with its simple rules structure, this makes Alhambra extremely intuitive. While more basic than Rummy, the set collecting element plays out in both acquiring currencies to buy tiles and gathering building types to score majorities. Yet it’s not completely luck-of-the-draw as you have a choice to draft from an available selection. The puzzle-style tile-laying is akin to Dominoes in which all buildings must be oriented correctly with walls placed logically. So there’s some thought into how you construct your palace without restricting yourself. These conventional characteristics, paired with manageable strategy, work well to transition the inexperienced into the hobby. Maybe even indoctrinate?

Fully modern even if over a decade old, Alhambra has an old soul harkening back to traditional card games. It’s not terribly deep, but has a touch of strategy and smart decision making representative of contemporary designer games. At the same time, it is relaxed enough to remind both new and experienced players alike of simpler times when games were largely casual affairs and didn’t intrude on a gathering’s true purpose – social company. Alhambra is warm, welcoming and truly worthy of its classic status.