Santa’s Workshop – Holiday Fun for All

The elves make toys, take care of the reindeer, and decorate for Christmas. Who will be rewarded for their hard-working holiday cheer?

Find out in Santa’s Workshop, a seasonal worker placement game for 2-5 players. Elf Creek Games published the second edition of this game by Keith Ferguson with refreshed art, an overhaul of the game mechanics, and a new simplified family edition (the “standard edition”) for your littlest gamers.

Gameplay

In Santa’s Workshop, you play as an elf foreman. You control three or four elves, scurrying about Santa’s workshop to gather reindeer, hang ornaments, read letters to Santa asking for gifts, and build those gifts. Several times over the course of the game, Santa will come to inspect and take all of the toys you’ve built, to distribute them to children far and wide.

Because there are essentially two games in one box, we’re going to look at the gameplay mechanics in general, and highlight a few things that are different between the two versions.

Board Locations

On a player’s turn, they simply place one of their elves on one of the various open spots on the board and take the corresponding action.

Mail Room

Choose some letters to Santa to assign toys to build. The first worker here takes three toy cards, up to the limit of five in your tableau. Later workers take two.

In the advanced game, the second Mail Room spot discards all the available cards and places six new cards before the player chooses two to keep.

Reindeer Stalls

Take one of the face-up reindeer. The more unique reindeer you have at the end of the game, the more points you’ll earn. The standard game provides additional materials when you take a reindeer. The advanced game makes players pay in coal for a reindeer, but each card gives a specific benefit when it’s taken.

Christmas Tree

In both versions of Santa’s Workshop, there are just two spots for elves at the community Christmas tree. Ornaments add to your “holiday cheer”, and also give an immediate bonus.

In the standard game, there are ornaments in the community tree face-down. When you choose one, you gain the reward on the ornament, and a reward for where you place it on your personal tree.

In the advanced game, you place ornaments onto the community tree from your personal supply, gaining the reward on the ornament you placed, plus the reward from the location on the tree.

Material Shops and Assembly Hall

Here is where you’ll gather specific materials (cloth, wood, metal) and “assembly tokens” to use in building your toys. In the standard game the elves “work together” – so you’ll get more of each material when placing more elves here.

In the advanced game, the two spots in the material shops cost a different amount of coal, and provide a different number of material tokens. Each shop offers an opportunity to pay an additional coal to “train” the elf who gathered the material, enabling them to gather more material in the future.

Material (and assembly tokens) must be used immediately, placing them on toy plans (or upgrades). As soon as a toy has all its required pieces, you’ve built that toy! Add its points to your total, and flip the card over to show the toy is complete.

Coal Mine (Advanced Game Only)

Place a worker in the coal mine to refill your coal cart.

Donation Center (Standard Game Only)

In the advanced game of Santa’s Workshop, players discard any materials they gather that cannot be immediately used on a toy. But in the standard game, excess materials go to the Donation Center instead. A player may place a worker in the Donation Center to gather any left over materials – as long as they can immediately use them on their toys.

Upgrades (Advanced Game Only)

The advanced game gives another path to differentiate your elves from your neighbors: you can upgrade them!

Pay an extra coal to pick up a “training” token when visiting the material shops. Training an elf makes them more efficient at gathering a specific material – and also gives bonus points.

Or pay material to unlock upgrades to your equipment: load more coal, earn points when collecting coal, and/or pay less for reindeer.

Santa’s Inspections

At the end of each “day”, Santa moves along the calendar track. When he reaches a sleigh symbol, it’s time for an inspection!

The player with the most “Christmas cheer” (ornaments plus completed toys) gets eight points. The next-best player gets four points, and so on. Ties are friendly, with all tied players getting full points.

After inspection, all the completed toys are loaded onto Santa’s sleigh – but ornaments stay on the tree(s) to contribute in later rounds.

Game End

After Santa’s final inspection, the game ends. Players tally up additional points for reindeer collections, materials on unfinished toys, and in the advanced game, a bonus for any completed upgrades.

Impressions

Santa’s Workshop is a very much a straightforward worker placement game: There is a natural tension between the number of workers you have to allocate (never enough!) and the number of things you want to do (too much!) But despite it being a “straightforward” game, it is incredibly well implemented.

The art is lovely and carries the Christmas spirit, with details such as different names and languages on the “letters to Santa”, personalities for the elves, and shiny ornaments. Although there are a lot of symbols, the layout and graphic design make it easy to jump in to the game, at any level.

Fun for All

We are really impressed with Santa’s Workshop. It manages to work for two very different audiences in one box: the standard game for a more laid-back, introductory experience, and the advanced game for more serious gamers who want a tight, challenging game that’s still wonderfully Christmas themed.

In both, Santa’s Workshop gives a satisfying breadth of choices with no wrong answers. Whether you focus on taking care of the reindeer, hanging ornaments, or efficiently completing toys, you’ll be happy with the progress you make.

Friendly Family Fun

When playing the standard game with children, we really appreciated the friendliness of the options. You’re rarely blocked out of a spot; instead, most areas get MORE powerful as more elves stop there. (The exceptions are the reindeer and the ornaments, which remain a limited resource in both games.)

Even the advanced game is infused with Christmas spirit: elves placed in some locations can “help” future elves placed there – leading to a bonus for both players involved.

Christmas Joy for Serious Gamers

As we noted, the more complex advanced game offers more decision making and the opportunity to “level up” the very elves that are at the core of the experience. This, combined with slightly more complex location dynamics, serve to level up the entire gaming experience, making Santa’s Workshop satisfying as a deeper experience without feeling like a different game than the standard game.

Whether you want to introduce worker-placement gaming to kids, or share the more advanced game with your buddies, Santa’s Workshop will bring holiday cheer to your game table.

Editor’s note: Santa’s Workshop is not currently available at large retailers at the time of this publication, due to issues with the publisher. But it may be available at a friendly local game store near you!

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Santa’s Workshop from Elf Creek Games for this review.