Dice Town
Howdy Drunk Dwarves Fans! Today I’m going to review an awesome little game called “Dice Town”. I happened to stumble upon this gem by complete accident while putting together an online board game purchase. I was initially attracted by it’s theme and amazing artwork, and was pleased to discover that those are just icing on a very entertaining cake.
At it’s core, Dice Town is a strategic game of chance. Players are presented with a set of five 6-sided dice, the faces of which depict standard playing cards - nine, ten, jack, queen, king, ace. The very basic goal each round is to put together the best poker hand possible.
Players begin each round by shaking their dice up in one of the provided dice cups, and slam it down on the table. You then secretly look at the result, and keep one of the dice, leaving it under the cup, taking the rest back into your hand. When everyone has decided what they’re keepin’, all players reveal at the same time. You are provided with a few dollars at the beginning of the game, which can be spent to help your rolls. You can spend one dollar to re-roll all of the dice in the case of a crap roll, or a dollar for each additional dice you want to keep in the case of a lucky one. So if you happened to roll 3 kings for example, you could keep them all for 2 bucks. Once one player has their entire hand set in stone - the remaining players get one more throw, keeping whatever result is rolled.
Now the fun part begins. There’s a map of dice town set off to the side, showing all of the places players can visit. You basically start at the gold mine on the left side of the board, and work your way to the right, stopping at each location to see who gets to visit based on their dice “hand”.
At the gold mine, the player with the most “9’s” gets to visit, and takes a gold nugget for each 9 they have in their hand. Next, the player with the most “10’s” gets to rob the bank, and takes all the dollar bills there. (When players spend money on dice rolls, their money ends up in the bank.) After the bank, the player with the most jacks goes to the general store, and draws a general store card for each jack they have, keeping one. (General store cards grant powerful abilities and sometimes victory points to the player who holds them.) Next up is the Saloon - the player with the most queens gets to hire the lovely gals working there to rob another player or players of their hard won cards. (For each queen rolled, the player visiting the Saloon can take a card, (general store or land) from another player. After looking at them, he can keep one, and returns the others to their rightful owners.) After the Saloon, the player with the most kings becomes the new sheriff of Dice Town. The Sheriff decides who wins ties, and can be bribed with anything - be it gold, land, items, even cold hard cash. Naturally, being the sheriff is pretty lucrative in Dice Town. Then you have the Town Hall. The town hall is where most of your victory points will come from, and thus is the most fought over. There’s a stack of land cards at the town hall, each with a value between one and five. Three land cards are placed face up next to the stack for all to see their worth. The player with the best poker hand gets to take the first face up card, and an additional face up card for each ace in their hand - to a maximum of all three face up cards. Cleaning out the Town Hall of all the land cards is a big deal most of the time. Last in line is Doc Badluck - his cart offers those unlucky players that didn’t win anything a single consolatory prize. If you have at least one 9 or 10, he’ll sell yah some razor wire. Razor wire allows you to turn 2 land cards you own face up, and from then on they cannot be stolen by the Saloon girls. A jack or queen will get you a single general store card, drawn randomly from the general store deck. A king will allow you to rob all the other players of 2 dollars each, and an ace will allow you to rob every player of a single gold nugget.
After a trip through the town is complete, a new round begins. If at any time all 30 of the starting gold nuggets are taken, or all of the land cards are snatched up, the game ends, and points are counted. Players gain 1 point for each nugget they have, 1 point for every 2 bucks they have, 5 points if they are the sheriff, and various points for all the land and general store cards they possess. The highest point value wins the game.
Dice Town is for between 2 and 5 players, and plays in about an hour. I’ve played with a group of just two, and a group of five. In my opinion, the more players that are involved, the more the game becomes about pure dumb luck, whereas smaller games are more strategy based. The number of players really changes the feel of the game, and I’d personally recommend games between 2 or 3 players if you want the most out of Dice Town.
After five games, I’m hooked, and would recommend this game to just about anyone who doesn’t have a hatred of dice. The theme is strong, the art is awesome, and the mechanics are just plain solid, a great value in my book that has won its place on my game shelf.
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DEACON
I found this little gem at the local renaissance fair last year. Trying to research the history of this game reveals little, though it is stated by the manufacturer of my copy that it is an old seamen’s game, and that “Thaxx” is sailor slang for a cursed ship.
