Anatomy of a Genre: Dice Games, Part Three — Mini-Reviews

Over the last few month, I’ve been talking about dice games: how they work, why they’re fun, and how their mechanics have evolved over time. In case you missed them, please check out Mechanical Evolution (part one) and Just the Stats, Ma’am (part two).

This week I’m going to put a capstone on my dice game series by offering some mini-reviews of all the games I’ve played in the genre. Within you’ll find discussions of Airships, Can’t Stop, the Catan Dice Game, Dancing Dice, Easy Come Easy Go, Kingsburg, Liar’s Dice, Pickomino, Stone Age, To Court the King, Wicked Witches Way, and Yahtzee. Continue reading

Anatomy of a Genre: Dice Games, Part One — Mechanical Evolution

I’m going to be the first one to officially call it: 2008 is the Year of the Dice (at least in the slightly delayed American market).  I think To Court the King (2006) really got the current trend going, but since its release we’ve seen several notables including Kingsburg (2007), Airships (2007), and The Catan Dice Game (2007).  Going by other publications like Alhambra: The Dice Game (2006) and the forthcoming Ra: The Dice Game (2008?) I’m starting to think that every board game is going to have a dice game too.

Thus, I’ve decided to start a multi-part look at dice games. This week I’m going to concentrate on the mechanics by looking at how dice games have been played over the last several decades and how those general mechanics have evolved over time. Then in future articles I’m going to look at how to control the randomness of dice and I’m going to review several of the most notable games.

As a final tease for this week’s article, let me say that if you keep on reading, there’s a neat diagram toward the end.

Evolving Dice Mechanics

Broadly, dice could be part of any game.  They act as a randomizing element in any number of war games and randomly affect production in German-classic The Settlers of Catan. I’m sure a hungred other games use them in a hungred other ways. However when looking at dice mechanics this week I want to move beyond those games where dice are a part of the design to those games where dice are the core of the game. Granted, the game could still have other emphasis. Liars Dice is really a bluffing game, Kingsburg is broadly a resource-management game, and Wicked Witches Way is actually a memory game. Still, the dice are a critically important element in each. Continue reading

The Multiplayer IGA Nominees: 2006

There are, over the gaming year, five different major awards. The first two are the German awards, the SdJ and the DSP. Then there’s the RPG industry award (the Origins) and finally the American mass-market award (the Games 100). It’s pretty easy to pigeon-hole each of these:

  • The SdJ is a German award for a casual or family game.
  • The DSP is likewise a German award for more serious games, though the results have been getting more casual as they’ve started to let the masses vote.
  • The Origins board & card game awards are, first of all, more beauty contests than anything else — where people vote on companies as much as products. In addition they tend to award American take-that style play. If you’re looking for a new Munchkin, look here. (Since splitting into the Origins award & Choice awards, Origins proper has gotten somewhat better, while the Choice awards continue to be about what you’d expect.)
  • The Games 100 are a very eclectic mix, centering on ultra-casual strategy-light games that’ll appeal to the (American) mass market, but extending somewhat to more gamist games, thanks primarily to the fact that they get to name 100 picks.

… and then there’s the IGA, the International Gamer Awards.

Continue reading