Shut the Box has a place in pubs and toy boxes

 I was surprised to see I’d never written about Shut the Box, even though it’s one of these games that I’ve played every once in a blue moon for years. 

Shut the Box is one of those pub games that can be played when you are blind drunk and the components can survive having drinks spilled all over them. There are different versions of the game but they all break down to rolling dice and flipping over numbered levers equal to the sum of the dice.

The classic version of the game has the levers in an actual box that you can close if you flip over all the levers. However, I have also seen instructions to just write the numbers on a sheet of paper and cover them with buttons. (That was in a book of kids games) 

I first came across it as a heritage edition-style game that was bigger than a Ticket to Ride box. The back, which also included the rules, said that the game originated on fishing boats where it could be played despite waves. Which is a delightful story but I haven’t actually found any evidence to back to up. It was a charming and pretty object but that couldn’t hide that there’s really not much to Shut the Box and it didn’t stay in my collection for long.

When you get past the novelty of flipping the levers, Shut the Box doesn’t offer very much. When you compare it to other pub-style dice games, like Farkle, it barely has a decision tree. The game makes more sense when you figure that its origins are in gambling. Money on the line always makes things more interesting. 

Despite that, I have gotten in the odd play, be it online or a simpler homemade copy since that heritage edition took up too much space on the game shelf. There is an odd fascination to Shut the Box for me, particularly as a historical item.

Recently, I made a set of Shut the Box cards because it amused me. More than anything else, it reminded why I don’t play it much. Yes, I play  brain fog games that I can play in a daze but Shut the Box is really too slight for even that. But a tiny handful of cards is something I can keep around.

Shut the Box is a game that will probably never be in my wheelhouse but it seems to have kept it’s home as a pub game and found one as a children’s game.

When Cinq-O was my hero

Cinq-O is a game that I picked up very early in my board gaming life. Like before I ever made an online board game order. Before I hauled a ton of games home from a convention. Back when my collection consisted of a bag that held a couple of Looney Lab card games and some Cheapass Hip Pocket games. I’m not ever sure I’d picked up the travel version of Settlers of Catan, which may have been my first ‘big’ purchase. 

I was going to say before I’d heard of Ticket to Ride but that was just because Ticket to Ride hadn’t been published yet lol

Cinq-O is a dice game where you are trying to get to a hundred points. It consists of five regular dice and one special Hi-Lo die, along with a cute little carrying case that also doubles as a playmat.

The elevator pitch is that, each turn, you are either trying to roll low or high. The key is the Hi-Lo die. The side that you lock in will determine both whether you going low or high AND what the multiplier will be. You can get up to ten points for either five ones or sixes and that can get multiplied up to three times.

A few more key points. You have to lock at least one die every roll but you can also bank dice. Put them to one side and lock them in for a later turn and keep rolling the rest of the dice. And a straight is also worth ten points, giving you another option other than low or high.

Back in the day, I played a lot of Cinq-O. And revisiting it now, I find that mechanically it holds up better than I expected too. With the generous amount of rerolling that you can do, the option of banking dice, and the option of going for a straight, I found that I had a lot more control than I expected. Yes, the decision tree was pretty obvious, but there was more than just roll dice and hope for the best.

Cinq-O has been out of print for at least fifteen years. And while I found that it was still fun, I don’t know if it will get reprinted.

Simply, the number of alternatives for this niche have really grown and there are just better little dice games to play. With options like Qwixx or the Rolling Japan family or the Pretty Clever family, there are just options in this game space that offer more engaging gameplay and more complex decision trees. Heck, I’ve seen Qwixx sold at gas stations so it’s hitting the same mass market audience Cinq-O was.

While it’s not mindless and I had fun playing it again, Cinq-0 feels simple and bland compared to games that either came later or I just found out about later.

Still, for a mass market game from 2003, Cinq-O was a solid gaming experience. And if you wanted to try it out now, making a homemade copy would be a few minutes work.

Bandada is so very bingeable

I have seen tne files for a few different versions of Bandada and now I’ve finally played the game. And, having played the game, have kept playing the game over and over :D  

You are trying to photograph exotic birds by attracting them with different kinds of food. You do this by drafting cards and manipulating dice. 

  

It’s a print-and-play game consisting of twelve bird cards, six secret bonus cards, twelve dice and three tokens. Each bird, in addition to pretty artwork, has a specific form of dice manipulation, scoring conditions and a score for the automata for the solitaire play.

Okay. Here’s the basic idea: you have four black dice (insects), four blue dice (berries) and four yellow dice (nuts) Actually, since you are putting them in three rows, you could actually use any twelve dice as long as you remember which row is which. At the start of the game, you roll them all and put them in rows.

You then deal out two or three bird cards for drafting. When you take the card, you then have to perform the dice manipulation immediately. You add or subtract value or reroll or flip dice. And the cards specify which color dice you manipulate. 

And every card has a specific scoring conditions. Like getting a point for every black die that is odd. You score those points.

Do that four times. And here’s the thing. The scoring is cumulative. That first card you take, you will end up scoring it four times.

If you are playing the game solitaire, the numbers on the cards you don’t take are the score you have to beat to win the game. Which I really like. I prefer solitaire games that have win/lose conditions more than beat your best score.

I’ve only played Bandada solitaire. And, even though I have made a copy, I’ve only played it on Board Game Arena.

And having BGA take care of all the housekeeping definitely helps me play Bandada over and over again. The game only lasts four turns. Set up and housekeeping could take longer than actual play.

What really makes Bandada actually worth more than couple plays is the initial dice roll.  The interesting part of the game isn’t how you manipulate the dice. It’s the dice you are stuck having to manipulate that create the real puzzle.

I’ve played a _lot_ of miicro games over the last few years for a variety of reasons. Bandada, lasting only four turns but containing some solid number crunching, still stands out.

My December Gaming

My December gaming was largely driven by Dicember, essentially the celebration of dice games.

I kept a geek list of what I played, along with some commentary about the games. Instead of rehashing the list, here’s the link:

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/308336/my-dicember-2022

With that said, Dicember was a fun excuse to revisit games I hadn’t played in a while and learn a bunch of new games. Here’s what I learned during December:

Timber & Fur

Bank or Bust

White Rabbit Dice Solitaire 

Palatial

The Blob That Ate the City

Lingo Land

Paper Pinball: Space Marines Vs Dragons

Grove the Nine Card Solitaire Game 

Pencils and Powers

Sabotage the Raj

Invasion: Solo Adventure 

Sack Stuffer

Daily Dungeon

Artisans is the Taj Mahal

BooGaloo

Beach Life

Bandada

Super Skill Pinball: Carniball

Yeah, there’s only one non-dice game in the lot, Invasion. And Dicember pushed me to get around to trying a number of games I’d been meaning to learn.

Heck, I achieved the baseline goal of playing fifteen different dice just with games that were new to me. Something I had specifically decided not to do lol. (Buying a bunch of Roll ans Writes at PnPArcade’s Black Friday sale helped)

The best game I learned out of the lot would be Grove. It built on the core concepts of Orchard to give us something with more elbow room. But Bandada is the game I’ve found most bingeable.

2022 was a busy, crazy year and Dicember was a heck of a way to close out my gaming portion of it.

Planning Dicember 2022

 Ah, Dicember.

Last year was the first time I officially observed Dicember. Unofficially, I’ve probably been observing it for years. I’d just never heard of it :)

Here’s the idea: in celebration of dice games, you play different dice games. There are three different levels of the challenge: play fifteen different dice games: play thirty-one different games, play a different dice game every day of the month. 

Last year, I did the third level, playing a different dice game every day. And it honestly ended up not always being fun. One day, when I was traveling, I played a solitaire game of Shut the Box to fulfill rhe challenge. And that was clearly playing just to play.

More than that, I found myself holding off playing games so they could serve as a slot in a later day. I suppose I could have just not counted plays before the designated day but that seemed dirty pool.

One idea I had contemplated last year was doing the fifteen dice game challenge but making them all new-to-me  games. I mean, I could theoretically do that with Roll and Write games alone. But I think that would just result in grinding through games and not really enjoying learning them. 

In other words, creating too many restrictions for myself stopped letting me have fun. And that’s a big reason why I game in the first place.

I will observe Dicember again but I’m not going to try to play a different dice game each day. I’ll just see how many different dice games I play. It’s safe to say it will be at least fifteen :)

Mach Nal/Encore keeps me calm

I have found that games involving patterns seem to be very decompressing for me.

Mind you, when I say patterns, I mean patterns being used blatantly. You can argue that every game is about patterns, just as you can argue that every game has some level of abstraction.

I have read that games revolving around pattern recognition (which is another catch all term) are used for medical therapy. Go, in particular, I remember being used to help ease issues with dementia. Or I’m misremembering and putting Go on a pedestal. It’s easy for me to do that.

With that in mind, I’ve noticed that I’ve been reaching for Noch Mal/Encore when I need to decompress. It’s short enough to serve as a mental coffee break but has a lot of pattern recognition to keep me engaged.

And when I am using MN/E as a mental coffee break, I always fall back on the starter sheet. I go through patterns I already know. It’s half decision-making and half zoning out.

On the other hand, when I actually want to use MN/E as a game, I go with one of the other six sheets. I wish that there was more color contrast (I’ve memorized the color locations on the starter sheet) but  having a variety of sheets keeps MN/E engaging. It lets it me a way to zone out or really think, depending on what sheet I pick.

(I play it electronically. Otherwise, I’d mark the sheets as a workaround for my color blindness)

I have liked MN/E since I first tried it and I can’t even remember how I first heard about or who recommended it to me. But, as time has gone on, it has become on constant rotation more and more.

I play a lot of mental coffee break games for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is they are some of the easiest to make as print and plays. But there are a lot of flash in the pans. Finding one that consistently delivers over months and years of play, though, that is good.

Dicember? What’s that?

 December 2021 is the seventh annual Dicember!

Never heard of it before now though.

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/291599/item/8612155#item8612155

Anyway, the idea is to challenge yourself to play dice games in the month of December. The normal challenge is to play fifteen different dice games during December. The harder challenge to 31 dice games. The really hard challenge is 31 dice games and play them on different days. You know, a different game every day of the month.

Okay, I decide to go in on the normal challenge. Over the last couple years, I’ve really gotten into dice games, particularly solitaire Roll and Write. 

The rules allow for solitaire play, as well as IOS and online play, as long as they actually, you know, follow the rules. If a game plays the same digitally as it does analog, it’s good. 

So I sat down and made a list of the dice games that I play, one way or another, on a regular basis. And, yeah, I hit fifteen different dice games without a problem. For me, Dicember is any given month at the moment. 

For a moment, I flirted with the idea of learning fifteen NEW TO ME dice games in December. But, since starting a new job, my time to game has shrunk and so has my drive to binge solitaire games. And I want to enjoy learning games, not blitz through them so fast that I don’t remember anything about them. 

Still, there are R&W games on the stack of games I want to learn. And there are plenty of R&W games I’ve already learned I could try again. I know that I don’t have the time to do the really hard challenge but I will _try_ the medium challenge.

Maybe every month can be Dicember but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth celebrating.

The Clever dice games are a system

 While I consider Clever Hoch Drei the first game I’ve taught myself this year (after 2020, I decided to start with a game I felt confident would be good), I have come to think of the Clever games as a system as opposed to a series of games.

Between That’s Pretty Clever, Twice As Clever, Clever Hoch Drei (which I’m sure will be published as Clever Cubed if it hasn’t already been), the bonus boards for Pretty and Twice, AND at least one fan-made board, there’s a bunch of distinct boards that still use the same dice-drafting core. Once you have the basic concept done, you can play any of the games. However, learning how to play each board well does take some work.

One of the things I look at when it comes to dice driven games is the idea that there are no intrinsically bad rolls. Oh, there can be situationally nightmarishly horrible rolls but I don’t want a game where you have to roll all sixes all the time. Castles of Burgundy is a great example of that but it is more complicated than most Roll and Writes. (I am planning on trying the roll and write version this year)

The Clever system  doesn’t quite hit the threshold of every roll can be good but it has taken stupid plays for me not to be able to use every roll. As a basic rule of thumb, I feel I can safely say that the Clever system makes every roll viable. 

When I first tried That’s Pretty Clever last year, I wrote that it killed Yahtzee for gamers. (Qwixx kills Yahtzee for everyone else) And that seems more true than ever. While I love abstract games, they have a bigger hurdle to be accessible and the Clever system makes that hurdle.

The worst thing I can say is that the Clever system can get to be formulaic, particularly if you are playing it solitaire the way I do. But that’s a sin most solitaire or roll and write games can have. And having so many variations helps keep it fresh.

This started out as a review of Clever Hoch Drei (I am having more fum with it than Twice but not as much as Pretty) but turned into an overview of the series. And the Clever games are ones that I can play over and over again.

Twice As Clever isn’t bad but it’s not that much more clever

 When I learned that I could play Twice As Clever as a solitaire online, I knew that I was going to be doing just that. (http://www.brettspielwelt.de/Other/Clever/) Yes, I had to actually find the rules but that wasn’t too hard.

Now, Twice As Clever is one of the sequels to That’s Pretty Clever, which has become one of my favorite Roll and Writes, as well as being a game that should fire Yahtzee for dedicated gamers. So I went in both with a predilection towards liking it but with the question ‘would I rather play this rather than That’s Pretty Clever?’

Like it’s parent game, Twice As Clever is a dice drafting game. There are five color-coded zones that you use color coded dice to score in, plus a white die that’s wild. The active player gets three rolls and three picks while everyone else gets to pick through their discards.

Okay, here’s the selling point. Twice As Clever is more intricate. In addition to previous bonuses, there’s an ability to put dice back into the pool before rerolling. And each scoring area is more complex than the older game. For instance, getting points in the green area requires two separate rolls and subtracting the second from the first, even if it’s a negative number.

So, while Twice As Clever has almost the exact same structure as That’s Pretty Clever, the puzzles are completely different.

I have a bunch of interlocking questions to unpack about Twice As Clever. Do I think it’s a better game than That’s Pretty Clever? Would I rather play it? Would I rather own and teach it?

After about a dozen plays, my preliminary answer is ‘probably not’. Especially for the last one.

Twice As Clever is really what you play after you get bored with That’s Pretty Clever. Yeah, I might very well get the app for variety in solitaire play. But for a gaming group, I think you’d move on to a completely different light dice game. I also think that the original game is more intuitive and less swingy and that’s what I’m looking for if I’m going to be teaching it, particularly to a broader audience. 

Twice As Clever is fun and I will play it some more. However, it doesn’t break enough new ground. The changes add more intricacy than depth. If you only play one Clever game, the original is still my recommendation.

And I will try out Clever hoch Drei at some point :D

Roll and Write games with just one die?

 Good grief but I have played a lot of Roll and Writes this year. 

There are a lot of solitaire options within the Roll and Write world. There are tons of print and play options and they are just about the easiest Print and Play game to make. Roll and Write games have the potential to have a high complexity to component ratio (sometimes depth as well but really not as often) And, related to that last bit, it can be more emotionally and mentally satisfying to spend fifteen minutes on a Roll and Write than a solitaire card game. I feel like I’m doing more.

But, at the moment, between time and space, I am more often playing Roll and Write games with a clipboard and a dice rolling app on my phone. Basically, games you can play on a crowded bus :D

That does limit me from games that use cards or color-based dice pools or a lot of dice manipulation. And it has me explore some games I might otherwise skip over.

I am currently examining Spellcraft Academy, which the crowded bus requirements and lets me get back to trying out the Legends of Dsyx, a series of games that I started looking at earlier this year. What is particularly striking about the game, which I will properly review at some point, is that you just use one six-sided die.

A Roll and Write (or really any game) that uses just a single die is a choice that honestly rings alarm bells for me. (Which is hysterical because I have played Dungeons and Dragons for decades. That said, I have often said your goal is to get enough modifiers that the actual die roll is the least important part) A single die both limits your choices and your ability to bank on the odds. Two dice create a bell-shaped curve. One die, if it’s fair, gives every number the same chance. Random chance takes over choices and control.

So every Roll and Write that I have seen that just uses one die struggles to give the player real choices. And, honestly, they often don’t very well. Not Another One and Blankout are two that fall short for me. I play them periodically because they work as crowded bus games (I just came up with that term but I am falling in love with it) 

Really, the one game that I’ve found that works with one die is 13 Sheep, largely because you have far more space than your potential fencing can handle.  That and the ability to rotate fence pieces creates bough choices that the game works as a game and not just a curiosity. It’s one that recommend, particularly for folks who don’t have a lot of PnP supplies or experience.

But it’s the exception that proves the rule. Dice pools and dice manipulation and the ability to work with the odds are where Roll and Write games find their meat.

Why That’s Pretty Clever works for me

 When I first played Qwixx, I decided that it was the game to fire Yahtzee for non-gamers. When I first played That’s Pretty Clever, I decided that it was the game to fire Yahtzee for gamers.

That’s Pretty Clever is a dice-drafting, roll-and-write game. There are five, color-coded sets of boxes on each player’s sheet and you roll six dice matching those colors, plus a white die that’s wild. Every set of boxes has a different criteria for checking one of those boxes.

Ah, but here’s the clever bit. When you achieve certain milestones, you get bonuses. They can be rerolls, extra die grabs, fox heads that actually score multipliers, and checking off boxes in other sections. With planning and luck, you can set off a cascade of bonuses.

That’s Pretty Clever offers a steady stream of interesting choices. Every die you take means there are other dice and opportunities you aren’t taking. And because these are dice we are taking about, there is enough randomness that you can’t map out the decision tree. You have to hedge your bets as best you can. All those factors help make the game engaging.

The biggest flaw that I have found is that there seem to be a couple of patterns or strategies that seem stronger. There is the potential for monotonous play.  But the dice make following an overarching strategy more of a pipe dream  than a plan. 

There is clearly a design space for abstract dice games. They have been around centuries and people are still clearly drawn to them. But, in my exploration of Roll and Writes, I have come to the conclusion that they have to be very good to have any staying power. A theme can add structure and narrative to a game that can help shore up mechanical weak spots.

Now, I don’t think that That’s Pretty Clever is the end all, be all of abstract dice games. And there are themed dice-centric games like Alea est Aecta or Kingsburg or Alien Frontiers that I like more. But it is one of the best abstract dice games that I have found. And, without a regular gaming group at the moment, this is the kind of game that sees more play for me. I am very happy to have tried it and I regularly go back to it.

Zero Kelvin falls short of classic

In what sometimes feels like a never-ending journey through Roll and Writes (Pretty sure I haven’t crossed the line into obsessive compulsion), I have found that some games whole point is to be an alternative to Yahtzee. In fact, I think Gaiko no Saikoro actually has that in its design statement.

Zero Kelvin certainly seems to fit that bill. Despite the name, it’s a themeless collection of dice games. The name only comes into play because you are ‘freezing’ die rolls.

As I mentioned before, it’s a collection of micro dice games. Five of them, in fact. Each one uses six dice and each one involves rolling those dice and freezing at least one of them after each roll. The games are (inhale): HiLo has you roll two sets of three dice and subtract the smaller one from the big one; Threes has you aiming for a low number with threes equaling zero; 1,4 requires you to freeze a one and four to score the other dice; Knockout has you roll each die one at a time but ones knock out the highest die; Odds has you just score odd but if you ever roll all evens you get zero points. (Whew!)

(I have to note that I found the rules annoyingly vague, which is bad such a simple game. They are formatted to fit on the back of the player sheet, which is the size of a two index cards. Still, they really could be better)

I’ve seen most of these ideas before in other games (Cinq-O, Fistful of Penguins, etc) And I’d have e to say that every game that is built around just one or two of these ideas usually does a better job of it. That said, I don’t dislike any of the micro games except Knockout (and that’s because you don’t actually make any decisions) On a whole, Zero Kelvin is a perfectly serviceable dice game.

Would I rather play Zero Kelvin than Yahtzee? Actually, yes.  But a better question is: would I rather play it  than Knizia’s Decathlon? No, I like the Decathlon a lot much more.  Comparing those two games is a much fairer comparison and Knizia’s little gem is the clear winner.

I think that making a game that is basically just bog standard dice is a noble goal and there are some genuinely brilliant games that do just that. I’ve already mentioned Knizia’s Decathlon and I’d also add in Qwixx and That’s Pretty Clever, just off the top of my head. The list can definitely keep going. Zero Kelvin is _far_ from the worst I’ve tried but it doesn’t reach those hights.

Bang the Dice Game: making Bang fun again

After years of hearing how much better Bang the Dice Game is that the original card game, I finally had a chance to play it. And, short version, it sure seems better than the original game.

My history with Bang goes back a ways, before I was really serious about board games. At most, it had only been out for a couple years. And, at the time, it was really cool. At least for the first few sessions.

But Bang has some definite issues. A lot of which comes down to being too busy for what you get out of it. The theme helps it out a lot but it doesn’t do enough, at least not for me.

Okay. Thumbnail of Bang the Dice Game: At the start of the game, everyone gets a hidden role. The Sheriff, who gets revealed at the start, has to kill the outlaws and the renegade. The Deputy wins if the Sheriff wins. The outlaws win if they kill the sheriff. The renegade wins if they kill everyone else. You also get a character card that gives you a special power.

On your turn, you roll five dice that let you shoot other people, heal up, and possibly blow up dynamite in your face. That sort of thing. You get two rerolls, although dynamite faces are locked. One element I really like are arrows. You draw an arrow token every time you rolls one. When the tokens run out, everyone takes damage equal to the number of their tokens and they turn their arrow tokens back in.

The obvious advantage that the dice game has it is that is a lot easier to teach. The card game, while simple once you know the cards, is surprisingly fiddle. Teaching Bang the Dice Game to non-gamers from scratch is clearly much easier.

However, I also think that, mechanically Bang the Dice Game is stronger. Yes, it uses dice but the game is juggling six different possible faces. There are a lot more than six card possibilities in the original Bang, before even adding in expansions. I think the dice flattens the luck out and makes the luck much more manageable.

I would definitely play Bang the Dice Game again, particularly to find out of it’s as good as it seems to be. It’s not the best dice game I’ve ever played but it does a good job making its theme work and being fun.

I poke at Katego

Okay. Since I bashed Katego in passing, I feel like I ought to actually write about it.

Basically, there are eleven point slots, two through twelve. Everyone takes turns rolling two dice and assigning wherever they roll to one of the slots. After everyone’s gotten eleven turns and the scoreboard is filled, whoever has the highest roll in each spot gets those points. But if there’s a tie for highest roll, no one gets the points. Most points wins.

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with Katego. It’s very simple but all the rules work. I would even go so far as to say that it has meaningful choices. However, it doesn’t have any zing and that’s coming from a guy who loves abstracts and dice games. It feels more like an exploration of probability theory than a game. (Which it may have well been)

Katego would be completely unknown if it hadn’t been designed by Reiner Knizia and free. It was originally published in his book Dice Games Properly Explained in 1999. Pulling it off the shelf (is anyone surprised I own the book?), he writes it was designed in 1990. Which is pretty much right at the start of him being a professional designer. 

So it might really have been an experiment more than a game and that might also be why it has more of a pub game feel. Judging it too harshly is like lambasting P. G. Wodehouse’s first book, The Pothunters. (On the other hand, the only way I can forgive Love Among the Chickens is that it gave us Ukridge)

I don’t hate Katego. Frankly, I just find it dull. It’s an interesting historical footnote but there are better little dice games out there to play. (Like Reiner Knizia’s Decathalon :D)

Do cute pigs make up for limited choices?

While going through the game closet with our four-year-old, I came across what I am pretty sure is the most mindless game I can enjoy, Pass the Pigs. 

Take the ancient pub game of Pig and replace the two dice with two rubbery toy pigs. Roll the pigs until you either decide to stop and bank your points or bust. Get to a hundred points and you win.

And since you’re rolling pigs, you’re not counting pips. Landing on their backs or feet or balanced on their nose and ears, that’s the sort of thing that earns you the points. However, if one pig lands on their left side and the other on its right (which has a dot on it), then you just and lose all the points you got it on that turn.

And let’s make no mistake. The whole reason that you play the game is play with the adorable little pigs. The toy factor is like 75% of the game. And, honestly, that’s enough for Pass the Pigs to stay in my collection.

However, with only two dice or pigs, the amount of control and decision making power you have is incredibly limited. On top of that, since they are pigs, it’s much harder to figure out the odds of busting, although landing on a side is the most common way for a pig to land.

Pass the Pigs’ day in my playing was so long ago, it was before I recorded plays. It spent some time as a super portable game I could take anywhere and teach anyone. Basically coffee shops.

However, other games quickly took its place. Farkle and Cosmic Wimpout and, in particular, Cinq-O all offered more interesting choices while taking up about the same pocket space and playing time. Until I decided to revisit Pass the Pigs, I hadn’t played it in years.

Frankly, despite the pigs, our son grew bored with the game more quickly than I did but he’s also not yet into push your luck games. Will he change his mind when he gets older or continue to pass on Pass the Pigs?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2593/pass-pigs

Creating my own solitaire binder

 Okay. I've finally done it. I've made a Solitaire Binder.

I missed it the first time round when Jim Parkin wrote about making one (https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/218563/my-big-book-solitaire-madness) and I doubt that he was the first. But he does seem to have inspired other folks so good on him.

The idea is so blitheringly simple I'm surprised I didn't do it years ago. Some games pretty much consist of one or two pieces of paper that you write on, plus some dice or such. Put them in a three-ring binder, add dry erase markers and voila! You can just wipe the sheet protectors clean when you're done.

That's a lot simpler than what I had been doing, laminating pages. To be fair, binder sheets aren't as durable as lamination and I was laminating multi-player games. Binders work better for one person sitting in front of the binder. Also switching out games is a lot easier.

One thing that I have been taking into consideration is how much actual writing each game requires. Because, let's face it, dry a race markers don't tend to be good for delicate drawing or writing. A lot of the games that I am looking at basically have you checking off boxes or drawing lines or just writing down numbers. 

Fortunately, there's a lot of games that fall under that description.

At the moment, the binder includes Delve, Utopian Engine, Reiner Knizia's Decathlon, and 30 Rails, as well as several games from the GenCan't Roll and Write Contest.

Frankly, at the moment, everything that I've put in the binder is a Roll and Write game. But if I put a set of dice together that will allow me to play both Jurassico in Washington D6 from the GenCan't library (three white, two blue, a red, a yellow and a green), I will be able to play just about any game I set my mind to.

I can already tell that this will very much be a living project. Pages will be taking out and pages will be added in. I will probably end up adding a lot of the games from Sid Sackson's Beyond Series at some point.

By no means does this mean that I am not going to continue to make larger projects that actually involve construction. However, this will let me explore solitaire games in a way that I never really have before.

Evaluating Roll and Write games

While I have had an interest in PnP Roll and Write games for years, the Spiel Press kicked my interest in them up a couple notches. Then GenCan't basically dropped a library of them in my lap :D 

So as someone who is currently interested in casual games and whose interest in PnP has just been increasing, I have a feeling that I will be exploring this particular medium for the next few months.

So I have asked myself what am I looking for in a PnP Roll and Write Game, other than fun? I decided that the three most important elements are interesting choices, interesting mechanics (innovative is too loaded a term) and interaction.

Interesting choices is the most important thing that I am looking for. Because, quite frankly, I have played some games like this that actually haven't had any choices. Just roll the dice and see what happens. I want to have some agency in the game and some control over what happens.

I realize that this is a really basic requirement. However, since I have seen it not met, it is definitely one that I think needs to be addressed.

Mechanics, that comes down to this. A lot of the Roll and Write games I've seen harken back to Yahtzee and Take It Easy. And that's not a knock. Yahtzee is a very strong engine and I adore Take It Easy. However, seeing the game that breaks out of those frameworks is really cool.

Interaction is related to that. Both Yahtzee and Take It Easy are literally multi-player solitaire, unless you're playing by yourself. In that case, they're literally solitaire. Again, that's not a knock. We are talking about games that I have really enjoyed and had an easy time getting other folks to enjoy. For instance, I've had a lot of success with Wurfel Bingo.

However, interaction and direct conflict would definitely add some spice. I already have a nice selection of Roll and Write Games that are multi-player solitaire. Having something that I can print out and then go head-to-head would add additional options and audiences to the PnP library.

I have started to go through the GenCan't library and I'll probably blog my thoughts about them. It will be interesting to see how far I go through the library and what I discover.

Okay, there is value in not thinking. Just not that much

I have often written about how there are a lot of games the take a half hour or less to play but are still rich, even deep, gaming experiences. That you can have a meaningful gaming life even with a small time budget. There are even games like the tiny auction game GEM that take about 15 minutes that for still feel like playing a middle of a game night game.

But, let's be fair, a lot of shorter games are honestly light with simple decision trees. I like games like HUE or Love Letter or Burgoo but I wouldn't choose playing them four or five times over a game of Carcassonne or Ingenious or Qwirkle. They are good games and have their place but they don't have that deep level of engagement. 

And then there are those games that really live up to the pejorative filler. Games that have super simple decision trees, sometimes practically not having a decision tree at all. Cthulhu Dice, whose sole virtue is having a neat die, or RLC, which doesn't even have that going for it, are examples of games with no decisions. Frankly, I'm not even sure if I can call them games.

But I guess those super light games do have their place. I recently read about how someone used Dragon Slayer for breaks during D&D.

Now, I found Dragon Slayer to be a meh dice game since your decisions were limited to choosing which dragon to fight since every fight was to the death. The challenge mechanic to force other players to fight one more dragon was the most interesting part. It stayed in my collection because the dice are neat and it is actually pretty thematic.

I can see how it would work well would you want something quick and, frankly, mindless. The fact that it has a fairly strong theme for such a thin game is also a plus.

That said, the game that has been my choice for quick, brainless dice game for the last few years is still Zombie Dice. More tension and, I'm not kidding, more actual decisions. It's more of a legitimate push-your-luck game. 

It's a shame that our toddler has scattered the dice all over the house :D

I will probably never stop looking for short but deeper games. Even lighter ones that  have interesting decisions are something that I will be keeping my eye out for. But I'm not really going to go looking for thought free games. But I will admit that there is value in having a few around.

Second try writing about Cosmic Wimpout

Okay, let's try this again.

Cosmic Wimpout. The last time I tried to write about Cosmic Wimpout, I ended up talking about how dice games have their own cultural spot in games but this time, I'm going to try and really focus on Cosmic Wimpout. 

Cosmic Wimpout is a game and experience that is bigger than its parts. Because, fundamentally, it's just a variant of the old dice game Ten Thousand. But the visually distinct dice, the tweaks in the rules and it's place in Grateful Dead culture has given Cosmic Wimpout a unique identity.

The game consists of five dice. Four white dice and one black did that has a wild face instead of a three. Two thirds of the numbers have been replaced with astrological symbols but they are still really just the numbers. You know, two moons for two and six stars for six, that sort of thing. You could easily play the game with regular dice, just marking up one of the threes. But why would you want to? The dice are neat looking and fun.

The game itself is basically a variant on Ten Thousand. You roll the dice and lock scoring combinations. Keep rolling until you can stop and keep the points or not have any dice you can work and lose all the points from your turn.

One of the major differences between Cosmic Wimpout and Ten Thousand is that there are multiple rules that force you to keep on rolling. This can lead do to really high scoring turns or really big blowouts.

Normally, the game playing me would be a big mark against it. But the roller coaster ride Cosmic Wimpout can take you wan and the speed that you play it is enough for me to somehow not mind. 

Another major difference is that one wild side. Just having one out of the thirty-six sides being wild is enough to make a real difference in how the probabilities crunch out. Even if you are just playing with your gut, which is how most of us would anyway, it makes a difference.

Cosmic Wimpout also has the Guiding Light, which is basically just permission to use House rules. Seriously, you don't need official permission to use house rules but the fact that the game gives you it indicates the kind of philosophy the designers had.

The last and possibly most interesting part of Cosmic Wimpout is its

place in Grateful Dead fandom and other counter cultures. The funny thing is that I've never actually seen it in that environment. I don't know how much it hype and how much is legitimate.

But it is definitely part of its identity and its reputation. That is going to affect who you are going to get to play and what the experience of the game is going to be like. And frankly, I can't think of another game with this identity. 

Cosmic Wimpout isn't one of my favorite games, not even among light dice games. But it was a very acquisition, before I really started collecting games. And, there is no denying that it is fun and it's own experience.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1302/cosmic-wimpout