Love roll-and-write games? Dice Cards lets you play 6 different mini games at once!
What Is Dice Cards?
Dice Cards is a roll-and-write game for 1 to 8* players, ages 8 and up, and takes about 20–30 minutes to play. It retails for $24.99 and is available in stores or directly from the publisher; there is also a $5 Print and Play version. The game comes with 8 dry erase markers, but if you provide your own you could theoretically play with up to 16 people; with the print and play version, you can have any number of players, though you may hit some practical limits based on who can see the dice values.
Dice Cards was designed by Tucker Smedes and published by CardLords, with art by Tristam Rossin.
Dice Cards components. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Dice Cards Components
Here’s what comes in the box:
— 100 Cards
— 8 Dry Erase markers
— 8 Roll Tracker cards
— 2 Dice (1 black, 1 red)
The back of each card shows an example of how it is filled out and scored. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The cards are standard sized and have a glossy surface that works with the dry erase markers. There are 50 unique games, with 2 copies of each (and some of those are the same games but not totally identical). Each card has a mini-game with the rules printed on it, and then the back side is a copy showing the game filled out as an example. It’s nice that each one shows how to fill out the card, though there were a few here and there that could have used some better rules clarifications.
The fine-tipped marker is great for filling out small boxes like on the Roll Tracker card. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
The roll tracker cards are pretty simple: just some columns of little boxes numbered 1 to 50 so that you can fill out what number you used each turn, and then at the bottom two rows of checkboxes for tracking your tickets. The back of the roll tracker is, like the mini-games, a copy of the front but filled in, which is a bit funny to me. It may have been more useful to have a scoring sheet on the back, because that’s one thing that isn’t included in the game.
The dry erase markers are fine-tipped, which is quite nice for being able to write numbers in the small spaces on the cards. The dice are standard sized, one black and one red.
How to Play Dice Cards
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to score the most points across your 6 mini-games after 50 dice rolls.
Here are my 6 starting cards — did I choose a good combination? Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Setup
Shuffle the game cards and deal 9 to each player. (Note: I keep the two sets of 50 separate from each other, just so nobody ends up with duplicates.) Each player chooses 6 to keep and returns the rest to the box. Give everyone a marker and a roll tracker card.
Gameplay
Each turn, choose a player to roll the dice. (It doesn’t matter who rolls them, but we usually pass the dice around the table clockwise each turn just so everyone gets a chance.)
I need the double 5 for my Doubles card, but the high total would be good for Touchdown, too. Which to choose? Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Everyone looks at the numbers rolled and chooses one number to record on one of their cards. You may use either die value by itself, or the sum. Some of the mini-games specifically require black or red numbers, in which case you may not use the sum for that card. Record the number you used on your roll tracker card — this is just to help make sure that everyone has taken the same number of turns and didn’t miss one.
Some, like “It All Adds Up,” reward tickets as soon as you fill in the appropriate spot; others, like “Number Search,” require you to fill out the whole card before you earn a ticket. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Some cards have tickets on them, which you earn either by filling in a space with a ticket or completing a scoring section that has a ticket next to the points star. When you gain a ticket, put a slash in a box in the tickets section of your roll tracker card. You may spend tickets to increase or decrease the value of a die, crossing out the slash when used. Multiple tickets may be spent on the same die value, but you can never go below 1 or above 6. Note that using tickets only changes the value for you, not for the other players.
Each game has its own scoring, but generally speaking you will score points for completing certain sections of the card, represented by the stars. Some cards have a warning icon at the top — these are “all or nothing” cards and tend to have larger point values, but you only get them if the card is completely filled.
I didn’t get far on the trivia but completed the other five cards for a total of 86 points. Not bad! Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Game End
The game ends after 50 dice rolls. Players add up the scores they got across their 6 cards, and also score 1 point for every 2 unused tickets. Highest score wins, with ties broken by number of unused tickets. (If still tied, you can share victory or have a dice roll-off.)
Why You Should Play Dice Cards
There are so many different roll-and-write games out there, along with flip-and-write, flip-and-draw, roll-and-stamp … sometimes I’ll just refer to them as “verb-and-verb” games. One of the things that makes many of them so popular is that everyone gets to play at once, and they’re usually not too difficult to learn (though there are exceptions!). The simultaneous play keeps everyone involved, and can also allow for much bigger player counts without bloating the length of the game.
In most of these games, everyone is doing the same thing, or at least something similar: you roll the dice, everyone gets the same number and decides what they’re going to do with it on their own sheet, but we’re all playing the same game. The genius of Dice Cards is that we all get to play different games. I’m trying to fill in numbers from low to high (kind of like Welcome To), the person to my right is trying to get numbers that answer a list of trivia questions, and the person to my left is filling in a Sudoku grid.
Some cards need to be marked in a specific order, but others can be marked anywhere. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
A lot of the mini-games are just about matching the numbers in the boxes, and there’s just a different skin on it. For instance “Music” has you filling in digits that represent a tune and “Grandma’s Muffins” has you filling in the numbers in an ingredients list — the specific numbers are different and “Music” has more spaces to fill in (for more points), but otherwise those two “games” are really the same thing. However, there are also a whole lot of really creative twists, particularly when you consider the ones that have specific color requirements, and even in the ones where you’re just collecting numbers have a wide variety of themes. There’s one game that is hidden pictures where you have to find the numbers from 1 to 9, and another one that’s a dot-to-dot picture. Some games have boxes that must be filled in a particular order, and others let you mark anywhere.
Hidden pictures, word-crafting, and a maze. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
It’s just a fun concept that makes for a great, easy introduction to the roll-and-write genre for people who haven’t played many of them before, and although it doesn’t feel like a very deep game, I’ve still enjoyed it and have it as one of my go-to games for bigger groups, particularly to kick off a game night. The one tricky part (helped by the roll tracker) is making sure everyone is on the same “turn.” I try to remind everyone before each roll which turn we’re on, and writing down what number you used each turn is mostly so you make sure that you haven’t missed a turn somewhere. Inevitably, we always have a couple turns throughout the game where somebody says “Oh, we’re on turn 24? My tracker says this is turn 23” but it’s not really a huge deal either way.
The game does have a lot of luck to it, of course, but there are a few ways to control it. The first is actually in setup — when you’re dealt 9 cards, choosing which 6 to keep actually becomes strategic once you know how the game works. You know that you’ll get 50 turns, but over 6 cards you’re likely to have more than 50 spaces to mark, which means you need to decide where to focus. You don’t want to take too many of the “all or nothing” cards, but they do have a higher points-per-mark ratio. The other important thing is to see which of your cards will award tickets, and how. Collecting tickets early on (rather than points) will help you manipulate the dice when needed, which is especially important later in the game as your number of possible spaces shrinks. Finally, you want to make sure that you don’t have too much of an imbalance in the numbers needed across all your cards. If you take the “Crazy Eights” card that awards points for marking a bunch of 8s, then you probably don’t want to take too many other cards that require 8s or even a lot of high numbers.
Some cards require you to use the correct colored die when filling them out. Photo: Jonathan H. Liu
Playing Dice Cards has a similar feeling to playing Bingo, particularly if you’re filling out multiple cards at once — you’re mostly just rooting for particular numbers to get called and crossing your fingers that they show up. However, in Dice Cards you do get to make some decisions, since you get to decide whether to use either individual die result or the sum, and you have to choose only one card for the result. That, plus the ability to use tickets to manipulate the dice, gives you just enough to think about to make it engaging but not too complex.
To order a copy of Dice Cards, visit the CardLords website.
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
