Noah Review

A lightweight little card game that I was able to play recently is Noah.

In Noah, you are attempting to help Noah load animals onto ferries - which are then shipped out to the main ark.  To do this, each turn consists of loading an animal on a ferry, and then moving Noah.  When loading an animal onto a ferry, you must be careful not to overload the ferry (because it would be a bad thing if they sank - and so they game doesn't let you).  What this means is that each ferry can hold a total weight of 21. (21 what you ask?  Pounds?  Kilograms?  Tons?  I have no idea.)  Each animal weighs a certain amount, and will contribute his weight to the total on the boat.  Also, when placing animals on the boat, the animals must either be placed in alternating gender, or a boat must consist only of one gender.  (Again, you may be asking - why?  Because it makes the game more interesting.  Why, thematically?  Because apparently Noah like arbitrary restrictions for his ferry owners.)  And, if you successfully play an animal that matches the previous animal (two pandas in a row, for example), then you get to take another turn.  If a player cannot legally play a card on the current ferry (the one where Noah is located), then they must pick up the entire stack of animals, and then play whichever one they want from their hand.  After playing an animal, the current player must move Noah.  There are five ferries laid out in a hexagonal pattern.  If a male animal is played, then Noah must move to either of the ferries that are not immediately adjacent; if a female is played, then Noah can only move to an adjacent ferry.  Once a player manages to play all of their animals, then all of the other players count the number of tears that they make Noah shed by allowing their animals to drown.  The game is played over three rounds, and the player that makes Noah cry the least is the winner.  (Seriously - I didn't make that up.)

Noah with the fat animals he dislikes

So, what is good about the game of Noah?  Honestly, my first pro is something that I didn't mention in the rule overview - some of the animals have different abilities.  For example, when you play a giraffe, you can look at an opponent's hand.  When you play a snail, it can be played as a male or a female.  More interestingly, a donkey prevents Noah from moving, and a woodpecker reduces the total weight limit on a ferry from 21 to 13 - because he can't help pecking at the ferry.  These different animal abilities allow you to have more options and strategic decisions when playing the game.  For example, if you use a giraffe to see what an opponent has, then you can make better decisions about where you should move Noah to prevent them from being able to play.  Or, if you hold onto a snail as one of your last animals, then you will have extra flexibility at the end of the round.

The next pro that I have for Noah is that it is light and easy to teach.  Anyone can understand the rules of Noah, regardless of how many "strategic" games they have played in the past.  Games like this are useful to have in your collection, as you never know who might wind up interested in a game.  Plus, with the theme of Noah's ark, many people will already be familiar with the subject material (though the theme doesn't make terribly much sense if you inspect it too closely).

So, with the pros about Noah, what are some of the cons?  Well, first, there are some things that make sense in game terms that make no sense thematically.  For example, different animals make Noah cry a different amount.  Specifically, Noah really loves pandas, but cares nothing about your fatter animals - giraffes, rhinos, and bears.  And, honestly, even in game terms I don't really love the fact that there are animals that aren't worth any tears.  If I successfully get rid of all of the cards from my hand, I feel like either I should get rewarded (for making Noah happy), or my opponent's should be punished (by making Noah cry).  But, since Noah doesn't care about fat animals, it's quite possible that you will be the first one to get rid of all of your cards, and yet at least one opponent may not get any points.

Noah with his beloved Panda

The other con that I have for Noah is that the game isn't engaging enough that I would want to play it repeatedly.  Now, I realize that each person has their own opinions on what makes a game engaging, but in Noah, I felt like my decisions were far too repetitive.  Which animal do I want to play?  What about gender?  Should I fill the boats up with fat animals that Noah hates, or get rid of my lightweight animals that can easily fit on most boats (but that Noah would cry over losing)?  Where do I want to move Noah?  These decisions are important in the game, and making the best decisions based on what you have is strategically crucial.  However, I still found the game to be missing the "it" factor that made it really engaging.

Overall, I give Noah a 7.0/10.  The game is fine as a filler, or as a lightweight game to play with either kids or non-gamers, but it isn't one that I will really look to bring to the table very often.

If you're looking for games that can be played by anybody, you might also check out Dixit, 7 Wonders, and Crokinole.

Ghost Stories Review

One of my friend's favorite co-operative games is Ghost Stories; so I took the opportunity to play it.

In Ghost Stories, you take on the role of a Taoist priest that is fighting (along with three other priests) to excise Wu Feng from the world.  Unfortunately, Wu Feng has legions of ghostly minions, which are terrorizing you and your village.  Each turn, the active player reveals a ghost from the deck and places it on the board.  Next, they can move one space and take that space's action (if it has not been haunted).  Some of the actions include reviving a dead priest, rolling dice to gain more tao tokens, setting up a universal tao token that can be used in every fight, pushing ghosts away from the village, unhaunting village tiles, etc.  Conversely, instead of utilizing a space's action, you may choose to attack any adjacent ghosts.  Each ghost has a color and a strength.  In order to excise him, you roll three dice (and potentially add tao tokens).  If between the dice and your tao tokens you have enough strength in the ghost's matching color, then he is discarded.  Eventually, Wu Feng will emerge from the deck (if you don't die first).  If you are able to successfully defeat him before you all die or your village becomes especially haunted (you know - that time in a village's life when even the wind seems like it is whispering ghastly ramblings into your ear; oh - I mean three village tiles are haunted), then you win!

My first pro for Ghost Stories is that it does an amazing job of providing a feeling of "optimistic doom."  By this, I mean that you feel like you're going to lose.  From round one.  Yet, as the game progresses and you continue holding off your loss, you start to get the impression that you have a chance.  I doubt that you will ever feel like you just dominated a game of Ghost Stories.  Instead, you will constantly be balancing how you're going to keep your team just barely alive.  This might be by sacrificing a team member periodically to destroy an especially strong ghost, or it might be in pushing ghosts back for one more turn so that one of your fellow priests will have a chance to attack before being haunted.  What you do will never be enough to completely defeat the ghosts - but it may allow you to survive long enough to defeat Wu Feng!

It never hurts that it looks awesome

The next thing that I enjoy about Ghost Stories is that it truly encourages you to take advantage of your priest's special powers (which I haven't told you about).  Each priest has a different power - you might be able to move twice, collect a tao token each turn, ignore curse dice, or several other insanely useful things.  And, if you want to have any chance at victory, you will desperately fight to abuse these powers whenever possible.  For example - is one of you able to ignore the curse die?  Then they should fight every ghost that gives you a curse.  Can your priest move another priest?  Then you should move them to your location so that they can contribute their tao tokens in an upcoming battle.  Can you both attack and activate a location?  Then you need to make sure that you place ghosts so that they are adjacent to good locations that you want to activate.

The third pro I have for Ghost Stories is that I like how the die rolling is implemented.  When attacking a ghost, you roll the dice to see if you defeat them.  Any die roll that matches their color (or is white, which is wild), counts as a hit.  However, many ghosts have three or four hitpoints - which is very hard to defeat when you're only rolling three dice.  This is when tao tokens come into play.  Your priest can collect tao tokens (and there can be a universal tao token), and these tao tokens can be contributed towards your battle, thus counting as additional hits on the adjacent ghost(s).  This means that there is a random element in the game, but you can still mitigate the chances of getting frustrated by the dice.  And, occasionally you will even roll exceedingly well, thus keeping all of your tao tokens (for next time - because there will definitely be a next time).

Since no game is perfect, Ghost Stories has a couple cons that I feel are worth mentioning.  First, I think that bad luck can really make the game too overwhelming.  I already mentioned how the die rolling works, and how luck is somewhat mitigated when attacking ghosts.  Yet, sometimes the dice will completely defy the odds and you will lose an attack that you would win 99 out of every 100 times.  Yet, that's not really what I mean.  Where I think that bad luck can be too powerful is when rolling the curse die and drawing ghosts.  The curse die has two blank faces, and four awful faces.  The different rolls can cause you to haunt a space, lose all of your tao tokens, lose a life point, or draw and place a new ghost.  Some of these things can instantly cost you the game (the others might make you lose, but more slowly).  Similarly, when drawing ghosts, some of the ghosts cause you to draw another ghost.  If several of these are drawn in a row, then you can instantly go from surviving fairly well to being slaughtered by the game.  With any game that has random elements to it, luck can help you or hurt you.  But, though Ghost Stories mitigated the luck of die rolling when attacking, I wish they had mitigated the curse die a bit more.  (The different things that can be rolled are why you really want the priest that can ignore the curse die to take as many of the curses as possible.)

Good luck with these icons.

My second con for Ghost Stories is that the icons are not as clear as I would like.  I realize that this is a matter of playing the game more frequently so that you will learn what they all are.  Yet, the entire point of icons is to make the game easier to play - both to teach new players, and to remind old players of different game elements.  But, even after having played Ghost Stories a few times, there are still symbols that I don't know the meaning of because they come up very infrequently (such as the symbols on the different versions of Wu Feng).  When you play the game (especially your first few times) be ready to either ask other players what things means, or have the rulebook handy to clarify.

One last thing that I will mention about Ghost Stories (not really a pro or a con) is that it is only a four player game.  The box says 1-4, and there are rules for playing with less than four, but, ultimately, the entire game was designed for four.  The very setup of the game is dependent on having four player boards, and if less than four people are playing, then you will have each board activate, just like in a four player game.  There's nothing wrong with a game that requires a specific number of players, and you even can play this with less.  But, if you have a choice, I would recommend playing this with four so that you can avoid extra rules that work around you having less players.

Overall, I give Ghost Stories an 8.5/10.  Though it isn't my favorite cooperative game, it is still a highly enjoyable experience.  If the theme doesn't bother you, then you should definitely try it out.  (And, as an added bonus, Ghost Stories has several promotional Wu Feng cards that are puns.  Like "Chuck No Rice" and "Steven Qi Gal".  And, puns are wonderful!)

If you are looking for more cooperative games, you should also check out Lord of the Rings, Shadows Over Camelot, and Forbidden Island.

Timeline Review

A deceptively simple game that I've been playing recently is Timeline.

The premise of Timeline is very simple - you are supposed to place events (or inventions, discoveries, etc, based on which set you are using) in their correct order in the timeline.  To start the game, each player is dealt a handful of cards, which they place in front of them on the table.  One other card is dealt into the center of the table, date showing, to seed the timeline.  (These cards each represent something that happened at a specific point in time.  One side of the card depicts the event, and the other side depicts the event and also has a year on it.)  Each turn, the active player attempts to play a card by placing it somewhere in the timeline and then flipping it over.  If they have placed the event in the proper location, then their turn is over; otherwise, they must draw a new card.  The first person to run out of cards is the winner.

The currently available versions of Timeline

Timeline is a bit of an enigma to me.  The game doesn't really sound very exciting.  And yet, my first pro for the game is that it is fun to play.  I am not typically a person that enjoys trivia games and, though it plays a bit differently than a "normal" trivia game, Timeline is still a trivia game at its core.  It's really amazing how something so simply can create an enjoyable experience.  And, as an added positive - Timeline is simple enough that you can teach it to anyone.  It could easily be taught to any of your friends, regardless of previous gaming experience, and they could pick it up quickly and enjoy it with you.

The next pro for Timeline is that there is, surprisingly, strategy about playing the game.  With a normal hand, you will generally have some cards that you know pretty well, some that you have a decent idea about, and some that you have no clue about.  But, with those, when should you play each card?  Should you play the ones that you have no idea about first, and hope that you're able to successfully play them since your odds are better of guessing correctly when the timeline is small?  If you do that, then the ones that you only have a vague idea about will become much harder to play later - after all, if you know that something happened in the 1800's, and there are several cards already played in the 1800's, then suddenly your card is much harder to play.  What's more - you know what cards your opponents have.  So, should you play some of your cards that happened around the same time as theirs in order to make their cards harder to play?  Like I said, the game itself is very simple, but forming a strategy about the order of playing your cards adds some depth to the game.

Is this where the Can Opener goes??

Yet, Timeline still has a few drawbacks.  First is that I think it lacks in replayability.  When I love a game, I really want to play it over and over again.  However, if you do this with Timeline, you're going to wind up learning the dates of the various events.  And, whereas learning is generally considered a good thing, and may help you feel better about yourself, it will also break the game of Timeline if one player knows when everything happened.  This issue can be mitigated in a couple of ways - first, there are four different Timeline sets that you can purchase (separately, of course), and this allows you to play the game with different cards.  And, secondly, if you are careful to leave a few weeks between your plays of Timeline, then you will likely not remember when everything happened.  Regardless, Timeline isn't something that you're going to be able to sit down and play all night.

The second con is that the enjoyment of the game is going to be highly dependent on the equality of the players.  Since Timeline is a trivia game (and not a game of highly obscure trivia game like Wits and Wagers), some people will know more answers than others.  And those people will win the most.  So, the ideal group for Timeline will be a group of people that have an approximately equal knowledge of history.

The last con that I have for Timeline is that the cards drawn can sometimes highly favor one player.  Why?  Because there are some cards that are really obvious about where they go in the timeline.  Cards like "The Earth is Formed."  Well, I may not know an exact date for that, and regardless of what you believe about creation versus evolution, you still are going to know that this card goes earlier than anything else on the timeline.  As long as a lot of these obvious cards aren't drawn, everything should be alright - but I had a game where I drew "The Earth is Formed," "Dinosaurs Appear," and "Dinosaurs Become Extinct" in my opening hand.  These three cards were all especially easy to play, and, un-surprisingly, I won that game.

Overall, I give Timeline an 8.0/10.  I'm glad to have it in my collection, and I intend to continue playing it for a long time, but the amount of time that I have to wait between plays keeps it from being one of my upper echelon games.

If Timeline sounds interesting, you might also check out Wits and Wagers, Biblios, and Code 777.

Hanabi Review

One of the most unique co-operative games that I've played recently is Hanabi.  (Sorry, no Amazon link. Also, my copy is actually of "Hanabi & Ikebana", but I'm yet to actually try Ikebana.  There are two sets available that I know of, the set that I own, and a set that only includes Hanabi and is in a nice tin box.)

In Hanabi, the players are working together to try to create the most amazing fireworks display that the world has ever seen.  To do this, obviously, the fireworks have to be shot off in order - this builds up to a nice crescendo.  Each player has a number of cards in their hand.  These cards face all of the other players, and the person holding them cannot see them.  On each turn, you have the option of doing one of three things: playing a card in your hand (each color must be played in order from 1-5; if the play is invalid, then you use one of your three strikes and lose your card), discard a card to gain a clue, or use a clue to tell one of the other players all of the information possible about either a number or color in your hand (such as "these *pointing to cards* are all of your red cards").  Once all three strikes are used, then the game is over, and the players count how many cards they successfully played.  Conversely, if the draw deck is exhausted, then each player gets one more turn, and then the game is over.  Scores run from 0-25, or 0-30, depending on if you are using the special "multicolored" fireworks (these are in my set, but not in the tin set, I believe).  If you get a perfect score - well, then you're much better at this game than I am, and you are free to leave a comment to gloat about your awesome Hanabi skills.

Whenever I talk to people about co-operative games, the response I inevitably get is, "yeah, but I could also just play that game by myself."  Either that, or they have played with that one jerk that is constantly telling everyone else what to do.  (Every group has one of these; it has been implied that I have even filled the role a few times.)  However, Hanabi addresses both of these issues.  Are you being bossy and telling everyone what to do?  Then you're probably cheating - because to tell someone what they should say (or play), you have to at least indicate something about someone else's card.  Plus, you have no idea what is in your hand!  You may have a hand full of critical cards, and if you'd just stop ordering people around for a minute, they'd tell you about what you have!  Also, you obviously can't play it by yourself.  That would just consist of not looking at any cards and blindly hoping you could play them in order.  That's not really much more fun than just counting how long you can keep your eyes shut without falling asleep.

Get used to staring at this.

The next pro that I have for Hanabi is that I like the social interactions that it invokes.  The game's strategy is as much about reading why people give you a certain clue as what the clue itself is.  If someone tells me that I have a single black card, what does that mean?  That's not especially helpful - after all, I don't know if it's legal to play or not.  I also don't know when it will be legal to play.  There's a good chance that they could have told me more than that.  However, if someone is pointing out a single card to me, that may be their way of saying, "this card can be legally played."  This gets tricky sometimes, though, especially when people communicate differently.  In the game, there is only one copy of each "5" card.  So, there could be a couple of different reasons someone might tell you that - it could be, "hey, you should play your 5," or "whatever you do, don't get rid of your 5!"  Do you see the important difference there?  Trying to work together to give clues that go beyond the clue itself is really what makes this game special and enjoyable.  (Of course, this is all dependent on who you play with.  There will be mis-communications.  More than other games, I think it's important to play to enjoy the game instead of to being hyper-competitive so that when these mis-communications occur, you are still able to enjoy spending time with each other.  Though, yes, I think that you should always be playing games to have fun.)

Now, though I think that Hanabi is a fabulous game (though I only listed two pros), there are a couple of cons.  First off, I feel like I'm always cheating in this game.  If you want to play by the strict rules of the game, then you really shouldn't be saying anything about what people might have except for what the clue allows.  You shouldn't be discussing with another player what to tell a third person, as you might let something slip.  You also have to be careful not to do things like "this card is a "3"... and so are these two."  (Which would be obviously telling them which one was the "3" that they were looking for.)  With this said - games are about having fun, so if you're willing to be a bit loose with some of these rules, then go for it.  It may make the game a bit too easy for you, though.

Putting on an amazing fireworks display!

The next con that I have for Hanabi is that the order in which you draw the cards is much more important than I would like.  Specifically, if everyone draws really high cards early in the game, then a perfect game may be impossible.  I have played at least one game where everyone had a bunch of 3's and 4's in their hand to start the game, with only a couple of 1's being drawn.  This forces everyone to discard cards in order to draw (hopefully) playable ones.  This really puts the game in a very perilous state, as it makes any single mistake much more costly.  (There are two copies of most cards in the deck.  But, if you've discarded one copy already, then discarding the second copy or attempting to play it unsuccessfully will prevent you from ever playing that card or any higher card in the same color.)

A third con, that I feel is somewhat minor, is that often during the game each player will settle into a role of clue giver, discarder, or player.  What I mean by this is that often the same people will be performing the same action repeatedly.  If I am never told anything about my hand, then I probably won't be playing anything.  I'll probably be giving clues.  Or, if I'm told nothing about my hand for long enough, then I may be just blindly discarding cards and assuming they're junk.  This can get somewhat boring and even a bit frustrating.  It's not an "oh my goodness, I hate this game" kind of frustration, but sometimes there will at least be a hint of "I sure wish I could play something."

Overall, I give Hanabi an 8.5/10.  It is an incredibly different take on the co-operative and social interaction genres that I think meshes together beautifully.  However, as I've played it more, I've realized how much the order that cards are drawn can affect the outcome of the game, and so it has knocked it slightly down from a more elite score.  It's still worth checking out, and I'd encourage all of the co-operative game naysayers to try it out!

If you are looking for interesting cooperative games you might also check out Space Alert, Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and Mousquetaires du Roy (which is actually semi-cooperative).

7 Wonders Review

A game that has been hyped to ridiculous proportions (and so I desperately needed to play it) was 7 Wonders.

In 7 Wonders, each player (very loosely) represents a civilization that is trying to build their trademark Wonder (such as the pyramids of Giza, Colossus of Rhodes, etc... though you're not penalized in the game if you choose not to build your wonder). The game actually plays out through 3 "ages". Each age consists of the players starting with 7 cards. From these cards, they must select a card to play and pass the rest to the person next to them. This continues until they only have 2 cards left, at which time they play one and discard the other. After each age the players compare military might against their neighbors (thus gaining or losing points). This continues until the end of the third age, at which time players count up points for military conquests and different kinds of buildings built, with the player having the highest score winning (I know you're shocked by this outcome).

The first (and most obvious) pro that I have for 7 Wonders is the draft mechanic. I have seen this mechanic before (in Magic booster drafts), but I have never seen it in an actual game. Therefore, I find it very innovative that 7 Wonders was able to take this mechanic and build a high quality, strategic game around it. I appreciate any time a game introduces a new mechanic, and this one worked especially well.

The next pro that 7 Wonders does better than most games on the market relates to flexibility with regard to number of players. 7 Wonders claims that it can be played with 2-7 players (though the 2 player game is a variant), so the main game can be played with 3-7. More importantly, the game can be played well with 3-7, without really feeling like it is too long (players make decisions at the same time) or unbalanced (you primarily interact with the people next to you) if you add or subtract players. This means that I can carry 7 Wonders around with me and play it without having to worry about whether that week 3 people will show up, or whether there will be 7 - definite pro!

The next pro that I will mention is in the different paths to victory that 7 Wonders allows. With that said, I don't believe that any player will be able to win by focusing only on one aspect of the game. However, between military conquest, science, religious buildings, and constructing your wonder, there are enough varying elements to the game that different strategies can be applied, each of which will have a legitimate chance at winning.

The final pro that I will mention here is how you are able to borrow resources from other players. To build certain cards, you must have certain resources available. Since no player will have all of the resources they need all of the time, the game has been designed so that you can trade with your immediate neighbors. Knowing that you may be fickle with whether you want to trade with your neighbors, the designers of the game didn't give you the option - you can't say no (though, as a good businessman, you do get paid when they use your resources). This and all of the other rules related to trading work very well and help the game to flow smoothly (as well as allowing for more strategic options such as whether you want to build resources or just rely on borrowing from the people next to you).  (Just as a note before moving on, I also liked the concept of a predecessor building - where you don't have to pay the resource cost for a building if you have built the correct "predecessor" building already.  This also added more options on how to pay for construction costs.)

Now with all of the glowing part of the review out of the way, it is time to mention some of the things that I didn't like as much. First, 7 Wonders takes us tons of space! Ignoring the fact that the cards are all oversized, each player will wind up with about 10-18 cards in front of him by the end of the game! Yes, several of the cards will be stacked on top of each other, or hidden under your wonder, but this still winds up being about 1-2 square feet of play area per player (maybe more). I have not been able to play a full 7 player game yet, but I am not entirely sure whether it would fit on a standard sized table - I'm almost completely positive that it will not fit on my dining room table.

The next, less cosmetic, con is the depth level of the game. After a few plays where I tried out several different strategies, I began realizing how few options are actually available in the game. Most of the decisions you are making are: 1) how am I going to pay for buildings? (through predecessor buildings which let you build later ones for free, through my own resources, or by using other people's resources), 2) do I care about science, or am I just trying to keep other people from getting it? and 3) how much military am I going to build? With this said, mixing up the number of players and the seating position will help with some of the replayability of 7 Wonders, but overall these are the basic decisions that will be made each game. After all the hype going into it, I was really hoping for more choices out of 7 Wonders.

One neutral aspect of 7 Wonders that I would be remiss for not mentioning is the amount of iconography in the game.  What each card does is depicted only in images.  Because of this, the game can take up less room (it doesn't actually take up less room, but it theoretically could).  More specifically, it means you can quickly see what you have in play.  This works very well once you know what all the images mean; however, you should expect to look up what different images mean repeatedly through your first play or two of the game.  On the bright side, since you know that you will be passing these cards to the next player, you can go ahead and hand them the cheat sheet on the back of the instructions to look it up when you pass the cards - because they'll have no idea what it means, either.

Overall, I give 7 Wonders an 8.5/10. It is a very good game, but it took a little while to grow on me (I think part of this is that it didn't live up to my heightened expectations). Whereas I think I will continue playing the game repeatedly, I don't see myself getting together with people for the sole purpose of playing it - it will probably serve more as a high-end filler game than a "main entre."

Want a second opinion? Check out Play Board Games' review of 7 Wonders or I Slay the Dragon's 7 Wonders review.  Or, to discover more games, check out Glory to Rome, Innovation, and Smash Up.

Dixit Review

A game that I recently played strictly based on the online reviews I had read was Dixit (honestly, when I looked at the game at the store, I thought it looked stupid; but I bought it anyway). In full disclosure, party games are not really my favorite genre. They can be fun occasionally, or in the right setting, but for the most part, I'd rather play a strategy game. However, when I went to visit some friends, Dixit seemed much more appropriate than a 2-3 hour mental workout game.

In Dixit, players each have 6 cards with weird pictures in their hand. They take turns being the "storyteller", who selects one of his cards and makes up a sentence about it - it can be a one word sentence, can be sung, or whatever else you can think of. Often we would have sentences like "All dressed up with nowhere to go", or "I'm thinking of fish for dinner", or "Lucky devil". After the storyteller states his sentence, everyone else picks one of their cards that they think matches the same sentence and throw it in the middle. The cards are shuffled up and flipped over and then everyone (but the storyteller) uses their numbered pieces to secretly vote on which picture belonged to the storyteller. From here, points are awarded based on who voted for what, and the storyteller gets points if some (but not all) of the other players got the picture correct. The game goes on like this until the entire pile of cards has been used, at which time the player with the most points wins.

Over the rainbow?

Here's what sets apart Dixit from any other party game that I can remember playing: the storyteller's goal is to get some of the people to guess correctly. If he is so ambiguous that nobody can figure out his card, he gets no points and all the other players do; if he is so direct that everybody is able to get it correct, then, again, he gets nothing but all the other players score. Therefore, it is very fun and interesting to try to think of something just ambiguous enough to trick some people (and then hope that other players throw down other good cards that go well with the story that was used). This mechanic works really well, and is really the heart of Dixit.

The next pro to Dixit is the ambiguity of the images themselves. The images are really just random fantasy pictures about nothing in particular. There are images of toys, cats, paintings, feasts, etc, but none of them are really about anything. On just about any of them you could say to yourself, "I have no idea what is going on there", and that's really the point. The art was very wonderfully created about... nothing. I can just imagine the designer of this game talking to the artist and saying, "Hey, I need you to create about 80 pictures of nothing in particular. Do you have a 5 year old kid around that we can use as a consultant? Maybe you can talk to him about what's going on in his mind and then draw it. Oh, he thinks that the sky is green and that it'd be neat to have raindrops that were filled with animals? Even better!"

I make music?

My final pro for Dixit is really that you don't have to know how people think in the game. Whereas in a game like Apples to Apples, how different people decide which card to pick is really important, in Dixit, you never know because the pictures are all so random. This prevents people from having a big advantage because they have known each other longer, or because they know that someone thinks certain things are funny - instead, it's all about how accurately you can adapt pictures about nothing to a story with no plot.

My only real concern about Dixit is that you go through all of the cards every time that you play the game. Because of this, you are going to be reusing the pictures with each play.  This means that it's up to you as the player to come up with creative new uses for the cards each time. Whereas this is something that will work wonderfully for artistic people, I think this might push the limits for my engineering friends' imaginations. Either way, this is really a neutral point more than a negative, because I think that part of the fun of the game may be in the challenge of seeing the same image over and over and making up new stories for it each time.

Overall, I give Dixit a 9.5/10. This game has jumped to the top of my party game list, as it is something that is creative and fun, but is also something that could be engaging to both extroverts and introverts (no standing up and singing, or acting, or anything like that.... unless you want to).  If you even mildly enjoy party games, I would definitely recommend trying Dixit out.

If you like Dixit, you might also enjoy Say Anything, Fictionaire, and Rory's Story Cubes, or the Board Game Family's Dixit: Odyssey Review.