Recommendations: Dice Games

Hey all, Dani here.

Considering that Gen Con is right around the corner, I figured I would take a brief break from recommending books so that I could recommend some games to you. The last time I posted this recommendations series, I had a post about card games, and I had a lot of fun figuring out what games to recommend. Well, this time around I am focusing on a different type of tabletop game.

What do I consider a dice game? Well, that would be any game where dice are the primary tool for gameplay. This would be a great place to talk about Yahtzee, but I’m not going to recommend that one because it is a standard and classic game that can be found in most stores that have a board game section in it. Instead I’m going to focus on other dice games that I have seen and/or played over the years.

Oh, and if there is an episode of the Geek & Sundry Web series TableTop where they play one of the games I mention, I will link to the episode so you can see a how to play video. Also, I will say here that all of the game photos came from each game’s page on Amazon.

The first game I have to talk about is Zombie Dice. I own this game and despite not really being a fan of zombies, I am a fan of this game. It is easy to play and usually pretty quick as well. The only thing you really need is some way to keep score. You can do this with beads, pennies, a bowl of foam stressballs shaped like brains, or just paper and a writing utensil. The first person to successfully collect 13 brains wins. The green dice are easiest to roll brains on, the yellow is in the middle, and the red are the most difficult. All the dice go into the game’s tube, and the active player reaches in and takes 3 dice without looking. They roll those dice and look at the results: brain, runner, or shotgun blast. Brains and blasts you keep but runners you can choose to re-roll. You continue to press your luck and roll the dice until you decide to stop and collect the brains you’ve earned, OR you’ve been shot three times and you earn no brains for the turn. Super simple and I really enjoy it.

Next up is Dragonwood. I don’t own this (yet), but we played it when we visited a game lounge, and it was super cute. It uses both cards and dice as the main game mechanics, and you use the cards in your hand to take on creatures or earn buffs–by rolling the dice to beat the difficulty numbers, until the creature deck reveals two of the biggest creatures. Once both of those creatures have been beaten, you tally up the victory points from everything else you’ve defeated and the person with the most points is the winner.

Then I have to talk about King of Tokyo. You could also do King of New York, which is pretty much the same thing, but with a different map and a couple different game mechanics. Each player picks the monster they want to be, and you roll dice to deal damage, heal up, and earn buffs. Your goal is to be the one to earn enough points to be declared the King of Tokyo…or to eliminate all of your fellow monsters. This is another pretty quick game and it can make you feel like you’re playing out a wonderfully bad Godzilla movie.

My next recommendation is Dragon Farkle. This takes the classic game of Farkle and adds in a fantasy element to it, which I think is fun. You roll the dice and press your luck with each turn. The goal is to recruit an army so you can take on the dragon and save the land. Most dice games are pretty simple in explanation, and they are quick to start playing, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a fun time. Plus I think they are a little more up to chance than skill, though strategy can be a big part of them, like with this game.

I’ll also recommend Roll for It. There are challenge cards in the middle of the game field and everyone has their own set of dice. You take turns rolling the dice, trying to press your luck, and roll the dice shown on the cards. If you succeed you win the card. It’s such an easy and quick game.

Finally, I think Tiny Epic Galaxies is also a fun game to recommend. Honestly, I haven’t actually played this one, but it just seems to cool to skip out on for this post. Each person has a different starter galaxy and on your turn you roll dice to determine what actions you can do, including expanding on your galaxy, improving it, or even going out to conquer. So this is actually probably one of the more complex games I’ve mentioned today, but it still seems like a whole lot of fun, and since what you can do each turn is based solely on what you roll on the dice, it definitely counts as a dice game in my mind.

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Oh, okay, and I guess I should mention that there are several board games that have created dice versions of their game. Those include Sushi Roll (Sushi Go Dice), Settlers of Catan Dice, and Lanterns Dice. I haven’t played any of them, but they seem pretty fun.

That is all for my dice game recommendations, but if you’ve played any dice games that you’d like to recommend, let me know in the comments. My next recommendations post will be focused on board games and then I’ll get back to books for a while. Thanks for reading, and I’ll be back soon with more bookish content.