Game Overview and Re-Boxing: Die Seher von Santiiba, or Seeing Through You

In February 2021, I posted a video overview of Die Seher von Santiiba from Leo Colovini, Teodoro Mitidieri, and Zoch Verlag — but for some reason now unknown to me, I didn't post that video here. The game has hit the table again recently, however, so now I'm covering the game in full, while adding a second video to address the one aspect of the game that doesn't work for me: the component-to-box ratio.

Die Seher von Santiiba ("The Seers of Santiiba") has a simple concept: Anticipate what others will choose, and you'll profit. On your turn, you roll the five dice — the dice have pips for numbers 1-3 and numerals for numbers 4-6 — then everyone else secretly chooses one die they think you will choose.

Gold on white was not an ideal choice;for clarity, we read off the numbers after rolling

You call out a color — "Brown!" — and if anyone reveals on their crystal ball that they chose brown, then you must take the reward associated with that die: pips give you movement on the point track, while numerals give you a card of the matching color. The player that caught you, that read your future intentions in their crystal ball, receives this same reward immediately, whether movement on the track or a card.

If no one chose that color, then you can take either the normal reward or the "reverse" reward, using the numeral for movement and the pips for a card. If you take a reverse reward, then you have played "unfairly" and therefore must choose another color to put yourself at risk of being caught. If you take a normal reward, you can stop choosing colors and collect your reward(s), or you can choose again.

If all opponents have revealed their crystal ball, then you lose all the rewards you would have had and your turn ends. Everyone else has collected something, and you got bupkis because you were too transparent in your desires.

If, however, you have chosen four dice without all of the opponents catching you, then you can claim either the normal or reverse reward for that fourth die, then end your turn and collect everything.

My hidden guess

Thus, Die Seher von Santiiba is a straight-up Vizzini-style challenge of outguessing your opponent, whether you're the one making the prediction or the one choosing dice. Initially everyone starts with nothing, so you have little to go on in terms of who is choosing what, other than anticipating that someone will pick a high numeral in the hope that no one will catch them so that they can move on the scoring track, but as the game progresses, people start collecting cards and they start separating on the track, giving them — and you — more incentives for what to choose.

Here's why: The game ends when someone reaches 30 on the scoring track, then everyone compares their cards. Whoever has the fewest green cards must flip their blue cards upside down, changing them from a value of 4 to a value of 0; whoever has the fewest blue cards much flip their brown cards; and whoever has the fewest brown flips pink and the fewest pink flips white. White cards are the tie-breaker, so if we tie on fewest green cards, then whoever has the fewest white loses that tie. If we tie for white cards, then we both lose that tie. After all colors have been resolved, you sum the value on all your cards and move your figure ahead on the scoring track. Whoever is then farthest ahead wins.

Thus, you have a two-stage race of immediate movement during play and delayed movement at game's end based on who has what — and that's what drives a lot of choices. Everything is public, so you can track who has what. If you have no white bowls, then you're going to lose ties, so I know you have an incentive to pick the white die on your turn, but you know I know that, and if you don't have the fewest cards of other colors, then ties don't matter to you — or perhaps you're going hard on movement in the first stage of the game, hoping to build enough of a lead that the card points won't matter.

In other words, the game is all about reading others while staying unreadable yourself. In one recent playing, a player with no brown cards about halfway through the game chose brown on his first guess, and all three opponents revealed brown. Boom, turn over! Next turn, he did it again, thinking we wouldn't expect that — yet all three of us had once again chosen brown. Double boom! Next turn, well, what do we do now?

Seher is completely focused on direct player interaction based on our standings amongst one another, and it creates great moments that build on repetition of choices, with little rewards as you guess or get away with something. As the active player, you can press your luck to try to grab more on a turn, so the game indulges that desire on top of outthinking others.

I had played three times on a review copy when I recorded the video below, and now I've played five times. The two-player game works, but it lacks the excitement of the game with three or four players because one successful guess is all that it takes to end your turn.

In that video, I complained about how the components float inside the box. I can understand why Zoch released the game in its standard large square box. Seher doesn't have a ton of components, but it has cards, a game board, punch boards, plastic doodads for the crystal balls, and custom wood components, so it has a lot of things to source from different places, and I imagine the production cost merits a large box to convey the "proper" price of the game — but that doesn't mean I need to keep the game in a large box.

An hour's work was all it took to shrink the game to one-quarter of its original size, now making it far more shelf friendly. The game design has held up well for me, and now the game box is far more to my liking. If you need inspiration for similar shelf slimming, maybe this video can help: