The name certainly invokes a sense of foreboding, doesn’t it? This game isn’t actually about dead bodies, but the suspense is well deserved, because Captain Carcass is a press-your-luck game! And like all luck games, there’s no knowing when yours will run out.
There are 10 suits in the deck. The lowest value cards of each are placed in Davy Jones’ Locker, while the rest are shuffled to form the Loot Deck. On your turn, you’ll draw these face-up into the Exploration Area, choosing each time whether to press your luck or Return to the Surface and empty the Exploration Area into your Hold. But wait! Each suit has its own Effect, and you have to resolve the card you’ve just drawn before you decide whether to keep going. Some of these are extremely helpful – for instance, the Anchor safeguards everything you drew before it, so even if you dive too deep, some of the loot is yours. Others, like the Giant Squid, are much more inconvenient… the Giant Squid forces you to place two more cards in the Exploration Area before you can choose to return to the surface.
A Diving Incident is triggered when you draw a suit you already have in the Exploration Area. Instead of relocating to your Hold, the whole lot goes to the Locker! (Listen, it’s a luck game. Sometimes, you were greedy and went for a seventh card. Sometimes, your first card was a Giant Squid, your second, Squid-mandated card was also a Giant Squid, and fortune is just not in your favor today.)
The game ends when the last card of the Loot Deck is revealed and that player concludes their turn. Scoring in this game is interesting: instead of adding all the points in your Hold, only the highest value card of each suit is counted. Add ’em up, and whoever has the most points wins!
Once you’ve got the hang of the core game, there are also some optional additions. There are Variant cards, which offer alternative rules surrounding gameplay or scoring – one such example is Over Troubled Waters, which triggers Incidents by matching value rather than suit. These help to keep the game fresh and new, even if you’ve played several times. The other optional set is Diver cards. Each player gets one, and with it, a special ability that changes the Effect of some suit. (Unless you’re playing the Saboteur, in which case your ability is bound to another person instead.) Some suits have multiple variations, such as The Romantic (1) and The Romantic (2) – the first draws Mermaids straight into their Hold instead of the Exploration area, and the second gets bonus points for having at least one Mermaid at the end of the game. If there’s any suit overlap between players when the Divers are dealt, the duplicates are simply discarded and replaced.
“You are an intrepid researcher, unearthing words man was not meant to spell.” Well isn’t that a promising description? For a more mechanics-based synopsis, I’d say Unspeakable Words is a bit like Scrabble, but with cards instead of tiles, less spatial awareness, and more sanity loss.
Here’s how it works: each player starts with five sanity tokens (Cthulhu pawns) and a hand of seven cards. Most cards are letters, assigned a corresponding Lovecraftian monster and a point value based on the number of angles the letter has. For instance, U is for Ubb, and worth 0 points. (Sorry Ubb! It’s not your fault.) On your turn, you may make any common English word of three or more letters using cards from your hand. The total value of the word (the sum of the letters’ values) is added to your score, and the word is written down – it may not be used again by any player for the rest of the game. Additionally, you must roll a sanity check. Roll the d20 – if the roll is equal to or higher than the value of the word, you lose one Cthulhu pawn. (Exception: a roll of 20 is always a success, even if the value of the word is higher.) The results of your sanity check do not affect whether you get to score points for the word, and you always draw back up to seven cards at the end of your turn.
You may notice in the image above that there are a few nuances. The first of these is non-letter cards: I don’t know how many of these are unique to the Deluxe version, which is what we have, but they’re quite useful and shake up gameplay a bit. For instance, you can discard the Yellow Sign card to reroll your sanity check. Another point you have have noticed is that “cx[w]” is definitely not a word, which brings me back to the title of this post! If you have only one sanity token left, you’re officially unhinged, and as it turns out, “unhinged folk can believe anything is a word.” In other words (many), you can now score any word from as many letters as you want, regardless of whether it actually exists in the English lexicon. Convenient, right? Don’t get too ambitious with your nonsense, though – if a player loses all their Cthulhu pawns, they’re out of the game.
For those of us (‘us’ being used very loosely here) who still have enough sanity we’re bound to conventional vocabulary, there may be times we just can’t make a word. And that’s ok! Instead of playing a word that turn, you’d just discard your entire hand without scoring and redraw. In fact, two of the optional rules build on this mechanic, the more benign being Psychotherapy: if you’re playing with this rule, then when a player discards their hand, they may roll against its total value and, if they roll higher than that amount, regain a sanity token. Another option is the Chewx rule, which stipulates that single-sanity players must provide a definition for their gibberish words.
Whatever modifications you’re playing with, the goal of the game is to be the first to reach 100 points without going completely insane. There’s a catch, though. If your word would put you over the victory condition, you must succeed your sanity roll; otherwise, you score no points that turn. You also still take the standard consequence for failing the roll, which means even if your opponents are way ahead of you, there’s a chance you’ll win anyways by being the last one with sanity.
I wish I could take credit for that witty title, but no, that is actually the name of the game. And – surprise! – it’s about gnomes! The objective is simple – be the richest in gems at the end of the game.
There are several ways to get gems, but they all start by rolling the die and moving your gnome; then, you may choose to play a card. There are three types of cards in Oh Gnome You Don’t: Purple (Actions), Green (Items), and Red (Interrupt, Remedy, or Attack), though Red cards don’t actually have to be played on your own turn. Actions are fairly self-explanatory. For instance, the image below shows the “Mining” action, which lets you roll a die and take that amount in gems. You may notice there’s only one gem in the picture – that’s because it’s blue, which actually has 3-gem value; the key for which gems have what value is posted above the Gem Mine on the board. It’s actually a rule that when collecting from the Gem Mine, you have to collect in the highest denominations possible – this is because there are several cards that let you rob your opponents of a gem of any value (except gold, which is the highest, and usually off-limits).
The more honest way to make an income is to collect items along the way (in other words, you always draw a new card at the end of your turn) and play them, tabling the card in front of you to be sold later at a business. This is important because while you can only play one card per turn, you can sell as many of your tabled cards as you want. There are four businesses on the board, and you don’t need an exact roll to enter them – if you choose to stop, your gnome steps inside and your movement ends immediately. Unless a card has interfered in your affairs, this is the only time when you may neither play nor draw a card; instead, you may exchange your tabled cards for their value in gems and discard them. Note: items have specific businesses at which they are worth more (Ex: Firewood is usually worth 4, but sells for 6 at Gnome Depot) and if you want to hold onto some (but not all) of your items because you know they’ll be worth more later, you absolutely can. You can also choose to sell nothing! Moving into a business may still be a strategic move for you, as while you’re in them is the only time you may “change up” your gems for higher denominations (preferably gold, since those are usually safe).
There is one important exemption to the standard business mechanics, and that would be the last one: the Tinker’s Cart. Here, the value on the item card is disregarded, and the price is bartered by a roll of the die. Any remaining tabled items when you reach the end of the trail are sold for half price, rounding down, so it’s up to you whether you think bartering is worth the risk. There are a couple other places on the board that have special rules, too. The first is the Slug Slime space, which acts sort of like a ladder in Chutes and Ladders – if you land exactly on its start space, you slide right on over to the other side and get to skip the path in between. You can actually see my gnome, Barney (yes, they all have names) at the Slug Slime exit in the photo above. The other spot is the Troll Bridge, where you can either pay to cross the bridge or hazard the path beyond it; these spaces are rife with penalties such as “Roll for gem loss” and “Lose 2 items.” Honestly, if you can afford to take the bridge, I’d advise you do that, though my opponent skipped the dilemma altogether by playing a card that let her teleport to my space… safely past the toll and its alternative.
If you’re playing with the advanced rules, sharing a space isn’t just a way of cheating the troll out of its fee; it’s also an opportunity to brawl! Any gnome sharing a trail space with another player may choose to start a brawl, regardless of whose turn it is or how they got there. All players on that space then look at their brawl deck (numbered from 1 to 10), select their card of choice, and reveal – whoever has the highest card wins the brawl! They also collect the difference in gems from their humiliated opponents. You collect separately from each of them, so if Jud’s player played “6-Shin Kick,” Wayne’s played “3-Nose Tweek,” and Dave’s played “8-Head Butt,” Dave would collect two gems from Jud and five from Wayne. Because there’s nothing that says “friendly competition” like shaking your friends down for loose change! Be careful, though, because once you use a brawl card it’s discarded for the rest of the game, and if you tie (like in the picture below) nobody wins anything! Also: no brawling in businesses. It’s rude to the proprietors.
Scoring is pretty simple. When you reach the Gnome Cottage at the end of the trail, you get a reward dependent on how many folks have already arrived (unless you’re fifth or sixth, in which case there’s a penalty), you can no longer play cards nor be affected by anyone else’s, your hand is discarded and your remaining tabled items are totaled and sold for half price, rounding down. Once everyone has reached the end, whoever has the most gems wins!
Tacocat Spelled Backwards is a simple two player game that’s quick to learn and, surprisingly, has nothing to do with spelling — though you should definitely read the palindromes on the cards anyways. Along with the wild wordplay, the box actually is the board, which I think is awesome; all you have to do is empty it, leave it open, and voila! the hinge of the lid is now your starting space.
But on to the actual game! First off, Tacocat starts in the middle of the board, on the letter O. The space Tacocat is on determines how many cards you draw and who leads the discard phase; for the first round, you start with 7 cards and can discard as many as you want, drawing to replace them. For future rounds, who discards first is indicated by the arrow on Tacocat’s space, and the other player may only discard up to as many cards as their opponent did.
Who goes first each round is determined by a duel: both players choose a card and reveal them at the same time, and whoever played the higher value card attacks first. (If it’s a tie, discard those cards and duel again.) Attacking is done by playing another card from your hand, which your opponent must either defend against – play a card of equal or higher value, in which case they’ll get to attack next – or sacrifice their lowest value card, which means you get to attack again.
Once you’re each down to one card left, compare them; whoever has the lower value card wins the round. (These ties go to the arrow’s favored.) Tacocat moves one space towards the winner, the previous space is covered with a (palindrome-infused) tile, indicating that it is no longer an available space for Tacocat to move to, and the deck is reshuffled for the next round. The only exception is if Tacocat has landed on the “Wow” or “Yay” end spaces – congratulations to the player on that side, because they’ve just won!
The first time we played this, Mom mentioned of the tile mechanic that “There’s no such thing as getting an early lead, because it can go either way each round,” and personally I think that’s one of its selling features; there’s always the chance for a comeback. Additionally, there are some advanced rules that let you attack with multiple cards at once, but we haven’t actually played with those yet.
Caves & Claws is a cooperative board game, marketed for kids but fun for anyone. The premise – much like Quetzal, actually – is that you’re archaeologists trying to recover ancient artifacts.
First, you lay out the board. This is actually part of gameplay – from a shuffled set of path tiles, players take turns drawing one and setting it in their choice of orientation on an open space, until all spaces are filled. There are four spaces that don’t get paths: the two Temples in the middle of the board, and the two Caves on opposite corners. These are the Gathering Places, which will each have a face down pile of cards, four on each Cave and five on each Temple. The goal of path placement is to have as many routes between these spaces as possible, as well as at least one path leading off the edge of the board.
Next comes the part where you actually look for the artifacts. Starting from one of those entrance paths, each player will bring their pawn onto the board and into one of the Gathering Places, where they flip over the top card there (you can choose not to, but functionally, there’s little point in not). This card will be either a Treasure that you place on the Tent, or a Danger, in which case it blocks one of the open paths into that Gathering Place. If there are multiple open paths, you get to choose which one to block; this is no longer a viable route into or out of that space.
Finding yourself trapped? Don’t worry – the team has five Remedies that you can use to remove Dangers. This is done before you move, and both the Remedy and the Danger are set aside as out of the game. Be careful which Remedies you use, though, because they each only work on certain Dangers! There are also a few Dangers you don’t technically need Remedies to escape. These are the Door, the Tree, and the Boulder, which each have a gap you can squeeze through… at the expense of a Treasure already found.
Once you have all eight Treasures, have gotten all the Treasures minus those you sacrificed to escape, or have decided that collecting any more is too dangerous, all pawns exit the board through an unobstructed path off, and your rate of success is determined by how many Treasures you successfully recovered. Didn’t get them all? What can you do differently next time? On the flip side: was that too easy? Try playing with fewer Remedies! Or if you’re feeling really dangerous, no Remedies at all!
This game is great because it’s short, simple and adjustable in difficulty level… and who wouldn’t have fun scaring off monsters with Broccoli?
In Quetzal, you are an archaeologist with only five days to explore the great city — and you’ve got competition! Here’s how it works:
First, everyone rolls their meeples. No, I’m not kidding – this will determine your team for the round. Any meeples that land dark side up will be adventurers, light side up will be archaeologists, and on their side or standing means they can be either; for each meeple that’s standing, you also get one coin. Your character meeple (as opposed to your team meeples) will always be usable as either color, but you roll it anyways in case it lands upright.
Which type you roll matters because of step two: placing the meeples. You see, while there are several locations on the board, which pieces you can place there are limited by their type. While some places have no such restrictions, some, like the Black Market, will only take one of the two, and others like the Temple Surroundings will take either, but all pieces there have to be the same type. The Temple Surroundings are an example of a bidding location (orange), meaning you can one-up each other’s meeple placements, with the caveat that they all have to be the same type as the pieces first placed there. The other player gets their displaced meeples back to put somewhere else, too, so don’t push the bid too high! Non-bidding locations are either one meeple per space (yellow) or places where multiple players can coexist (green), and vary whether there’s a price in coins to explore there.
So what do these locations do? Coincidentally, that’s step three, activating the locations. The only location that gets activated before this step is the Camp, which activates as soon as you place a meeple there, allowing you to immediately gain 1 coin and reroll one of your unplaced meeples; if it lands standing, you get an additional coin. The rest of the locations activate once all meeples are placed, in the following order: The Stela of Knowledge, The Temple, The Temple Surroundings (a, b, and c), The Black Market, The Village, The Harbor Master’s Office, and finally, The Ships. Each of these has a different effect. For instance, the Temple and its Surroundings allow you to collect the Artifact cards associated with them, which you can later deliver to the Harbor Master’s Office or The Ships for victory points — a complete set is three of the same kind, but there are smaller rewards for two or one.
The other major collectors’ item is Upgrades, which are acquired in The Village. A couple of these activate immediately as one-time bonuses; the rest are equipped as continual benefits. You can see one of each in the photo above — the red X on the left Upgrade indicates that it’s a one-time use (gain 5 coins), and the one on the right allows you to exchange 3 coins for one Discovery point whenever you so choose. As you can see, each player has slots to equip up to two Upgrades at a time, plus a personal Upgrade discard – this is important because Upgrades grant you victory points at the end of the game, regardless of whether they’re equipped.
I mentioned Discovery points – these are signified by the bird symbol, and tracked along the top of the board. When you reach certain points on that path, you get additional bonuses, such as coins (the cross in a circle), victory points (the rising sun symbol), and Upgrades (the crate). Discovery points, victory points, and coins are also bonuses on some of the Artifact cards, redeemed when those cards are delivered.
There are a couple modifications made for a two player game. The most significant of these is the Automaton deck, which simulates a third player by dictating the placement of a third set of meeples. These can be kicked off of bidding spaces the same as any other piece (and won’t be re-placed, because there’s no player to choose its revised placement) but if it’s in a unique (yellow) location that you hoped to visit this round, tough luck. This is especially hampering if it takes one of the higher Temple spaces, because then it has first pick of the Artifacts there… and, of course, it takes the highest value ones first. If its choice is between multiple cards of the same type, it also has a hierarchy of bonuses, which I thought was quite thorough of the creators. Unfortunately, these cards go straight to the discard.
At the end of the round, all empty Artifact and Upgrade spots are refilled, the Plane token is moved one space on the turn track, and if you’re playing with the Automaton, you draw its next placement. If the Plane token is already on the 5th space, the game ends immediately, and scoring happens. Conveniently, most of the scoring has already been tracked over the course of the game, so there are only a few additional points to be doled out. First off, whoever has the First Player marker gains two victory points — this isn’t necessarily whoever went first, mind you, because The Stela of Knowledge location lets you steal the marker, as well as gain a Discovery point. Not bad, right? Especially if you go there on round five, so the other player has no chance to steal it back. Anyways, the other two additional point factors are remaining coins (one victory point per three) and, of course, Upgrades. Whoever has the most victory points wins, or in case of a tie, the most Discovery points!
This game is a lot of fun, and it does a great job of balancing its many mechanics in a way that’s not overwhelming. In the two-player version there are some spaces that don’t get used, and I love that they use covers to make those blend perfectly into the image. Which is just icing on the cake, really, because this board is gorgeous!
Have you ever thought maybe Connect Four needed a remix? Well someone definitely did, because they invented MixUp!
MixUp a little more complicated than regular Connect Four — instead of having two colors of pieces, one for each player, it has three colors (blue, green, and red) in a mix of three shapes (moon, lightning, and raindrop), which both players are free to use.
At the start of the game, the players choose their objectives – one will be aiming for four in a row of the same color, while the other will be trying to do the same with shapes. (For anyone not familiar with Connect Four, this is done by taking turns dropping one tile to the bottom of its column, wherever that may currently be, until one of you makes an unbroken line of four in any direction.) The result of this is that victory conditions are no longer in direct conflict, so something your opponent placed may become the key to your success, especially if you’d both forgotten that two-by-two squares are a valid victory condition in this version of the game. Whoops. On the flip side, it’s a lot easier to miss when someone’s getting close to winning. (I staged the above game for photo purposes by playing against myself; I was legitimately trying to strategize for both sides, and set up an amazing ‘whichever spot you block, I’ll win with the other’ situation… completely by accident. It was wild.)
All in all, I think the MixUp mechanics make Connect Four much more interesting; just be aware that it’s more challenging, too.
There aren’t a ton of games where you have to draw your own board, but in Doodle Dungeon, it’s not just setup — it’s part of the fun!
The concept of Doodle Dungeon is that you’re the proud new owner of your very own Dungeon, purchased at a surprisingly affordable price… because, as it turns out, it’s just a cave. Hero season is rapidly approaching, but before you can slay the foolish adventurers, you need to hire your monsters and lay out your traps!
This is the first phase of the game. Trading off the starting player token (pencil sharpener) each turn, players go around the table choosing one of the face-up cards; there will be one more than there are players. The bottom part of the card you pick will determine what you add to your dungeon this turn. Note that if it’s a trap, goblin, orc or dragon, it has to have at least one open space between it and any other trap/monsters. Don’t worry though, you can make sure the hero gets hit by ’em all anyway with… walls! Walls usually come first on the card, which you address from left to right, and also come with set configurations — for example, two adjacent spaces and then a diagonal — but you choose how to orient it. The only other rule of placement is that every non-wall space must be accessible and not completely blocked off. And don’t worry, there are stencils for all of these, so while the faces are at-your-own-risk, the shapes are uniformly recognizable.
There are two other additions during the drawing phase: treasure and improvements. When you get a treasure, you write down its location secretly, on a separate sheet — it doesn’t have to have a monster on those coordinates when you place it, but if by the time you’re scoring there either is no monster there, or the monster is dead, you don’t get the points for having it. How many points it’s worth is determined by improvements, and so are several other important factors. These are at the top of the page, in a series of checkboxes — each box is worth one improvement, and, checked off in order, each new row that you’ve marked is the next level of that stat. This determines the treasure’s value, the trap’s damage, how many cards you have in hand, and each monster’s strength — I’ll get to that part later. First, finish your drawing and place your card face-down next to you. Make sure you’re sure before you do, though! Once you’ve flipped it, all placements are final.
Once you’ve gotten through 14 rounds of drawing, it’s time to draw the hero’s path from entrance to exit. More accurately, time for your neighbor to draw your hero’s path — you didn’t think you got to choose your own, did you? This part is a strategic balancing act — on the one hand, the fastest route to the end will leave the hero with the most remaining hit points, which are -1 point deductions each for your opponent; on the other, they get points for each surviving monster, proportional to its damage level (goblins are 1, orcs are 2, dragons are 3). This is, of course, providing they left you multiple routes, and not a very stronglysuggested main path, with a few optional branches (probably where the treasure’s hiding, but is it worth the detour?). The hero can pass over each space a maximum of twice.
Now comes the actual adventure phase. If you’re thinking it took us a while to get here, you are absolutely right, but you’ll find you don’t mind when you get to watch the poor overconfident hero stumble into a dragon on space one, or get forced through that carefully unavoidable corridor of trap after trap. The way this works is simple — on your turn, your hero moves to the next encounter in your dungeon, and either takes the trap damage or fights the monster. How this works is pretty simple – you roll two dice, add that monster’s strength to the sum, and if it’s 20 or higher, the monster survives and the hero takes damage (meddling via cards notwithstanding). If it’s lower than that, the monster dies. This is the time to play Dungeon cards (blue), which mostly affect the outcome of combats.
Where did you get your Dungeon cards, you ask? Well, when you were picking earlier, of course! Those 14 cards that built your dungeon are now your deck, so I suggest you pay attention to all parts of the card when you’re choosing. (We didn’t, the first game, and I was bitterly surprised to discover Bomb cards and their habit of gravitating towards me.) Bombs are an example of Hero cards (red), which you play once your Dungeon phase is complete. These are cards that will help your opponents’ heroes win fights, regain health, and generally be greater nuisances. It is important to note that there is no out-of-turn play in this game, so all screwing over of other players must be done in advance. Once you’ve sabotaged to your heart’s content, you can choose to recycle any card in your hand by placing it at the bottom of your deck; afterwards (or if you didn’t recycle), draw back up to whatever number of cards your checkboxes indicate.
The game continues until everyone’s heroes are dead or have made it all the way through the dungeon, so if you’re already done, you’ll just have to watch and wait. You still technically have a turn, though, so if you have Hero cards you’d like to play, you can! At the end, everyone tallies up their successfully hidden treasure, surviving monsters, and deductions for hero HP (or +5 bonus for a dead one), and whoever has the highest score wins!
It’s a small detail, but I also appreciate how each page is double-sided for multiple uses, and they include both an eraser and a pencil sharpener along with the pencils. All in all, this game is a fun, well-executed balance between creative strategy and sheer dumb luck, and I highly recommend it.
Because November’s the perfect time to talk about that, right? Well, maybe not for an actual summer camp, but this is Summer Camp, the board game! Good for any season, Summer Camp is a competitive deck-building game where you race to be the model camper.
The first step is to choose which three activities you’re playing — the choices are Adventure, Arts & Crafts, Friendship, Games, and, the three recommended for first time players, Cooking, Outdoors, and Water Sports. Each of these is a separate deck within the larger box, so all you have to do is remove the four “Move 1” cards in the deck, shuffle it, and place it next to one of the three paths on the board, then rinse and repeat with the other two. Meanwhile, each player will get one “Move 1” card from each of the decks in play, as well as 7 “Lights Out” cards from the basic deck, and shuffle these into their own personal draw pile.
On your turn, you can play as many cards as you want, either for their actions or to use them as 1 Energy. For instance, Lights Out cards have no action, so they’re most useful as discards. Energy is in turn used to buy cards from the display — the two face up cards next to each activity deck, plus three piles from the basic deck: Smores (Gain 2 Energy), Free Time (Move 1 space on any path) and Scavenger Hunt, which lets you discard 1-3 cards and draw that many from your deck. Each of these has a red circle in the lower left corner with how much energy it costs to purchase. Any cards you buy will go in your discard pile until you next reshuffle.
I’ve already mentioned movement cards. Some of these, like Free Time, let you choose which path to move on, while others, like Washing Dishes (move 1 space on the Cooking path) are predetermined. Each player has 1 piece on each of the three paths, which correspond to activity decks. When a piece moves, there are a few special effects that may occur, should it land on or pass through a marked space. The effect is indicated by the sign next to the space: the card with a plus sign simply means “draw another card from your deck,” the walking sign indicates you can move any of your pieces forward one space, and the snack bar… well, means you get a snack bar. An important currency, snack bars can be used as 1 energy in a purchase; the difference is that excess energy is lost at the end of a turn, whereas snack bars hold over, with a maximum of six at a time.
At the end of your turn, a few things happen. First, you discard all remaining cards in your hand. In practicality, this means you should aim to play all your cards every turn, if at all possible. Then, you draw five cards to form your new hand, reshuffling your discards if your draw pile runs out. Once you have your hand (or, honestly, I skip to this step first and reshuffle/redraw while the next person’s taking their turn) flip up new activity cards to fill any empty spots on the display, and check for merit badges.
There are 3 types of merit badges: Participation badges are awarded once all three of your pawns have made it past the first bridge, Camp All-Star badges are awarded once they’re all past the second bridge, and Activity merit badges are achieved once that piece reaches the third and final bridge, regardless of where the other two are. In each case, badges are first come, first serve, so the sooner you get there, the greater the reward!
Once someone has reached the end of all three paths, play continues until everyone has had an equal amount of turns (there’s a Starting Camper token for exactly this reason), and the game ends. A player’s score is calculated by three factors: merit badges, points on cards you’ve purchased (in an orange star on the lower right corner) and, if any of your pieces were between the second and third bridges, the value assigned to their current space — the closer to the end, the higher the consolation points. Whoever has the highest sum wins!
A couple of notes: 1) the game starts off a little repetitive, and with a lot of reshuffling, because you start with a ten-card deck. As you buy cards, turns will get a lot more action-packed, but this progression can help ease new players into learning the mechanics. Aside from that… I think the theme’s a lot of fun, each deck has a clear emphasis on a particular function (ex: Water Sports is all about movement), and you can mix ‘n match your activities for something new and fresh every time!
Tenzi is a fun dice game, with flexible rules to be as simple or complicated as you’d like! In the base version, each player gets a set of 10 dice (hence the name). For the first roll, someone will count it down and everyone will roll at once; looking at their roll, they’ll pick a number to target, usually the one they rolled the most of, and set aside all the dice with that number rolled. Afterwards, they pick up all the remaining dice and roll again! This is a speed game, so you don’t have to wait for the other players. The first person to roll their chosen number on all of their dice shouts (or exclaims at a reasonable volume) “Tenzi!” and wins.
As I mentioned before, there are several variations on this. There’s Target Tenzi, where instead of picking your number after you roll, you declare it ahead of time (either individually, or you can have everyone go for the same number), Splitzi, where you instead of ten the same, you roll for five and five of two numbers, Mega Tenzi, where you each have twenty dice instead… though that only works for two-player or solo play. “Solo play?” you ask, “But it’s a competition! How do you do that with one player?” Well, the rules also have Timed Tenzi, with a guideline for your rank depending on how long it takes you to win!
I’ve never played these variants, but the rules also outline Team Tenzi – your team can all go for the same number, or different ones, your choice-, Tenzi Tower, where instead of just setting aside your successful rolls, you have to stack them, and the one I’m most intrigued by, Stealthzi. By Stealthzi rules, if you see another player roll the number you’re going for, you can steal those dice, giving them an equal number of yours in return. The only constraints on this are that you can’t steal on the first roll of the game, nor can you steal from someone going for the same number as you.
Of course, you can also come up with your own versions. We play one that the creators would probably have named Sumzi, where we choose a number, and only set aside dice that add up to it. So we might say 7, and then set aside a five and a two, or a six and a one, or a three and a four. I imagine you could also take out the speed factor, if you wanted to, having it so everyone always rolls together, and whoever hits the goal in the least amount of rolls wins.
Whatever you choose, there are plenty of options to keep gameplay fun and fresh. And if you really want to get crazy, there’s also Twisted Tenzi, aka ‘mix ‘n match your favorites for even more dice-borne chaos!’
