New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives to... Yahtzee

Were you ever a child? If so, were you ever subjected to the mindless tedium of Yahtzee? (The dice game, not the video game critic, that is.) The answer is that you probably were. But never fear. It gets better.

Yahtzee stands as one of the quintessential children's games of almost-pure-luck masquerading as strategy.

Picture by J Weintraub

At least such non-games as Snakes and Ladders or Candyland have the decency to be honest about their total lack of anything resembling strategy or real player agency, and so are appropriately restricted to children. Yahtzee, the game in which you roll dice, try to get whatever is most probable given your initial roll, and always take whichever result is clearly the least probable by the end of turn, is a game I have witnessed being played by teenagers and, shockingly enough, actual adults.

But still... there's something to be said for rolling a bunch of dice, choosing how and when to push your luck, cursing the dice gods, laughing at others' misfortune, and having the whole thing over with in a short period of time. So which modern dice-rollers can deliver more game with (if possible) even more dice rolling?

King of Tokyo

So successful it's verging on being a mainstream game itself, King of Tokyo is the game of giant creatures attacking Tokyo and each other through with the medium of giant, or at least overweight, dice. Designed by Richard Garfield (probably most famous for Magic: The Gathering), this is a game with huge and obvious advantages over its ancestor. For one thing, the game has more variety; rather than just trying to get specific combinations of numbers, the dice of King of Tokyo are number 1-3, with the other faces depicting a claw, a lightning bolt, and a heart. On their turn, players roll six dice, then reroll whichever they choose up to two

Picture by Gary James

times. The numbers have the more familiar dice mechanics - roll three of any kind and get the number of points on that triplet's faces, with further of the same kind adding an additional point. Where it gets interesting are the other faces. While the points system provides a method of racing your opponents to victory, claws smack your opponents about - this is a game of direct confrontation, not just abstract points accumulation. You can win the game by reaching 20 points first, or by eliminating all your rivals, and each outcome is as likely as the other. Meanwhile, hearts repair that damage, and thunderbolts provide "energy" - essentially the game's currency, which allows monsters to buy cards. Some of these cards provide immediate rewards; others provide special abilities, creating asymmetry between players as well as a measure of long-term planning. These simple mechanics provide much more of a game, with a variety of possible strategies (loosely falling into points or damage strategies, but with variety in both), and replayability facilitated by the subset of cards available in each game. Expansions have been released to give further variety, each retaining simple mechanics. While still a game with a high luck factor, it combines both meaningful push-your-luck mechanics and an amount of forward planning to provide players a decent amount of agency and strategy. Plus, giant monsters.

Elder Sign

Alternatively, maybe you're tired of competition anyway. Perhaps you view dice in a different way; since their result is ultimately arbitrary, it may make more sense to compete with the uncaring universe rather than the other players. In that case, you might want to look at the range of cooperative dice games available.

Picture by Leone Fenzi

Elder Sign is one of the most popular of these. Though sometimes referred to as "Arkham Horror Lite", it really has nothing in common with its cousin beyond theme and a reliance on chance. In this game, players are racing to acquire arcane knowledge before an ancient evil awakens; they do so by completing a number of tasks, each of which require certain specific dice results. As with King of Tokyo, the dice faces are unique, but have less intrinsic meaning (the Terror symbols have side effects in specific tasks, and magnifying glasses are cumulative, but otherwise differences are purely thematic). Players can acquire objects and spells to improve their dice rolls or gain additional dice, and even have certain special effects (such as eliminating monsters, or opening up high-risk high-reward otherwordly areas). 

Players who do not complete the task on the first roll may reroll, but sacrifice a die to do so, and may only hold over a single die from their first roll; in practice, this makes it difficult to complete the task if the player hasn't succeeded within the first couple of rolls. The game has some other issues; for example, as a fulfilled task gives additional resources, but failures use up resources without replacing them, there is a tendency to "snowball" and either keep winning or keep losing. This problem is not fully solved by the game's market mechanic to buy resources. Long-term strategy plays a fairly minor role, and overall the game suffers from too many rules for the degree of tactical thinking it provides. Nonetheless it's a fun light co-op with a theme that appeals to many, and digital versions exist to try it out for the price of a fancy coffee.

Escape: The Curse Of The Temple

But Elder Sign is far from the be-all and end-all of dice-rolling cooperative games. If you want a game with tighter mechanics, shorter playing time, and a hell of a lot more energy, try Escape: The Curse Of The Temple. Here, players each have their own handful of dice, and roll them to create combinations which open up new rooms of a temple, move between those rooms, and claim the gems therein. Each time a die face is used for an action, the die must be rerolled. The more gems claimed, the easier it is to leave the temple... and the game is only won if all players successfully leave.

Picture by the author

So what's the catch? Elder Sign has an ancient evil creeping closer to awakening turn-by-turn. "Escape" has no turns at all. Players roll their dice as fast as they can; the entire game is in real time, with a strict ten minute limit. If anyone is still left behind when that time is up, everybody loses. To make life even harder, dice have "black skull" faces - roll this result, and the die is locked, useless until a golden skull is used to release it. Players in the same room can combine dice for bigger rewards, which is essential to get enough gems at higher player numbers; crucially, other players can use their golden skulls to release the dice of other players. Since a handful of black skulls induces total paralysis, this is an essential manoeuvre. The result is a madcap game of players screaming things like "we just need two more keys" or "please will somebody give me just a single gold", desperately watching the gems stack up as the timer runs down, rolling their own dice as quickly as possible while cajoling their companions. It's like the Crystal Maze, only all the players are doing the challenge at the same time, and all are going to get locked in if any one of them fails the task.

This is probably the most stressful game you will ever play. But it's also a whole lot of fun. Simple mechanics and the ten-minute time limit keep it short and sweet, accessible to beginners, but stimulating for anyone. Definitely recommended.

New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives To... Pictionary

Last week, we considered a number of board games which I would recommend for the enjoyment of art lovers. As a sister post, this week we shall turn our attention to the other side of that coin - games for art producers. This particular market has long been dominated by one ubiquitous family game- Pictionary. Consequently I shall be proposing three games which supersede that hoary chestnut, improving on its (fairly evident) shortcomings.

1. Pictomania

Easily the most obvious problem with Pictionary is that, at any given time, only a very small number of people are having fun. Unless an "All Play" is in effect, everyone else sits around getting bored - and getting more bored the longer the playing team continues to win. Pictomania solves this problem with a simple twist - everyone is drawing and guessing, all the time.
Cards are drawn each round with related words on them; players then receive a symbol and a number,

telling them what they must draw. When play begins, everyone starts drawing their target word; but they are also keeping an eye out for what the other players are drawing, guessing the meaning of their drawings at the same time. This allows players to play to their strengths - if, like me, you excel at guessing but can't draw a straight line, you can adjust your priorities appropriately. Pressure is on to do both, as fast as possible; you get more points for finishing earlier, and also more points for guessing earlier. Lose points for bad guessing, and also for those failing to guess your own drawing. Put it all together, and you have a frantic family game, which elegantly solves Pictionary's biggest flaw in a single stroke.

2. Telestrations/Cranium Scribblish/Eat Poop You Cat

cc: daveoratox

While Pictomania unquestionably improves on the basic mechanism of Pictionary, it doesn't really venture outside the basic concept. The public domain game generally known as Eat Poop You Cat (commercialised in such games as Telestrations and Cranium Scribblish) steps outside that framework to provide a different experience.
I'm sure most people are familiar with the basics - each player writes a sentence at the top of the page. These are then passed, and players must try to draw the sentence they have received. They fold the page to conceal the original sentence, and pass again - now players must try to guess what the original sentence was from the drawing. This sentence is then represented artistically by the next player, and so on.
The concept is simple to grasp, and almost guarantees a good time - being worse at drawing can actually work in a player's favour, as hilarity ensues as guesses become increasingly bizzare and inappropriate. For a straightforward fun time, more likely to produce laughs and anecdotes than either Pictionary or Pictomania, EPYC and its commercial derivations are fine choices.

3. Identik

Then again, maybe you would prefer something that adds at least a little bit of intellectual challenge

to your artistic escapades. Identik's clever twist on the formula is to reverse the role of the guesser. In Identik, aach round's Art Director is given a picture which only they are allowed to see. They must describe it in as much detail as they can, while the other players attempt to draw it. The onus is on the director to be specific, and explain things in a way the players can understand. After the drawing phase, ten hidden criteria are revealed, and drawings scored on whether they fulfill these criteria.
Identik doesn't have the frantic, all-drawing-all-guessing fun of Pictomania, but it does capture the essence of having everyone focused on the same activity at once. EPYC is probably going to produce more laughs, but Identik has an even stronger pressure to get into players' heads and explain things such that they will understand. Identik is definitely a strong all-rounder in the Pictionary-beater competition.

New Games For Old: Modern Alternatives to... Monopoly

As the holiday season approaches, an insidious specter haunts the land, striking fear into the minds and hearts of all men and women of good cheer. I refer, of course, to the annual tradition of inflicting the game of Monopoly upon the family unit. I despair that a technology nearly a century old should be forced upon the young, thus turning another generation off the hobby of boardgaming. I fully understand why this happens - each generation of parents had Monopoly inflicted on them, and so do the same to their children, who then punish their children in the same way and so on, the curse carried unto the hundredth generation.

There are those who claim that Monopoly is a "good" game, and demand to play it at family gatherings. These people are wrong. Let's briefly look at the structure of a Monopoly session to understand why. Any game of Monopoly plays out in three overlapping phases:

1. The phase where properties are acquired. This involves a dreadfully tedious process of rolling the dice, and then perhaps landing on a space you can buy. Precisely zero strategy is to be found in this phase, and player interaction is slim to none. Theoretically, this phase could cause interesting moments if the rule is activated whereby a person who lands on a property they don't want has to auction it off. In practice, this rarely occurs, since players should always buy properties (even if they have to mortgage owned properties to do so), even if they don't want them, for the leverage they bring in the trading phase. While I'm here, I might as well provide a variant to greatly improve on this phase:

Picture by Detlef Dolling

• Remove one of each colour group from the properties cards.
• Shuffle and deal out all remaining properties evenly among the players (adding any remainder to the "removed" group).
• Players pay for these properties, exactly as if they had landed on them and bought them. Give each player 500 pounds/dollars to represent the money they would have gained/lost while circumnavigating the board. Optionally allow players to refuse properties, adding them to the "removed" pile.
• Auction off properties from the "removed" pile. Properties attracting no bids are unsold, and may be bought later during the normal course of the game.
• Start rolling dice and progressing the game as normal.

Voila, a variant which achieves exactly the same thing in a fraction of the time (and, due to auctioning off one of each colour group, is considerably more strategic and interesting).

2. The trading phase. This is the part where players make deals among one another, attempting to complete a colour group and thus commence building. This phase isn't actually that bad, as it tends to go reasonably fast, and involves strategy and player interaction. Nonetheless, there are plenty of other games which do a better job of delivering the same thing.

3. The end phase, where players circle the board endlessly, their cash slowly bleeding away, until one winner is left. This interminable horror is the main reason why Monopoly is a bad game. Of course, most people just get bored and call the game in favour of the obvious future winner - though there are some sadistic individuals (usually young, with more years of precious life to spare) who demand the game be played to its tedious conclusion. These individuals should be sent to the workhouse at the earliest possible opportunity.

Picture by Gerald McDaniel

Ultimately, then, Monopoly is a game with far too few strategic decisions, far too much aimless
roll-and-move, and just far too much time required. Happily, a great many games have since become available which achieve similar aims to this game (bar, arguably, its moral purpose in teaching the evils of rent-based economies) in much less time. Let's take a look at three of the most family-friendly and widely available.

1. Acquire

Sid Sackson's Acquire is one of the small group of games published before the 1990s which are still considered acceptable among modern boardgame connoisseurs. Acquire contains precisely none of the mechanics of the game Monopoly. What it does offer is a game which is actually about forming monopolies.

Picture by the author

Rather than aimlessly rolling dice, players place tiles from their rack, thus expanding corporations in which the players can invest. When they come into contact, a merger takes place, the larger company swallowing the smaller - thus producing something that feels a little like "a monopoly". These corporate mergers invite key decisions - whether to convert stock from the merged company into shares in the parent (which will probably then be frozen until the end of the game), liquidate stock for immediate cash, or keep the share certificates for when (and if) the company is reformed. This last move is risky, but key to winning - majority shareholders of merged companies enjoy big bonuses, so getting the most shares in startups is what separates winners from losers.
Overall, Acquire is a much more strategic game than Monopoly, with more of a feeling of corporate intrigue, while keeping a simple and easily learned ruleset. The only downsides are a somewhat dry theme which may be a hard sell to younger players.

2. For Sale

It may not be corporate espionage that attracts you to the theme of Monopoly - perhaps it's real estate
speculation that you find more compelling. In this case, For Sale is the game for you.

Picture by Gary James

It's split into two parts: in the first, a number of properties are auctioned off. Technically, only the most valuable is up for auction - the rest are taken, in order of value, as players drop out of the auction, in which case they pay only half of their bid. This creates a quandary for the player - not only do they have to judge how much they want the big-number property, but if they instead choose to bid up the other players, they will have to pay the piper eventually. Already players are trying to read each others' minds, switching instantly between bluffing and honest bidding.
The second phase is even nastier - this plays as a series of blind auctions. A number of cash amounts are laid out, and players secretly choose which property they will bid against these amounts. Then everyone reveals simultaneously. The property with the highest number takes the biggest cash prize, the next-best property takes the second-largest, and so forth. You may wish to deliberately lowball, taking a prize that's nearly as good and save your big cards for later - but your opponent may be thinking exactly the same thing...
For Sale combines the fun of quickfire speculation with a poker-like game of bluff and blind bidding, within the same real estate theme as Monopoly. Plus, it plays in under twenty minutes. Beats Monopoly in pretty much every way.

3. Bohnanza

Then again, maybe you don't care about property speculation either. Perhaps its the wheeling and dealing of the trading phase that appeals. In which case, there are so many better trading games in the world than Monopoly. The one I would recommend would be Bohnanza.

Picture by spearjr

Bohnanza has perhaps the least appealing theme in the canon of modern gaming - players are bean farmers, attempting to grow the largest possible crops of a given bean variety for harvesting. It would be hard to come up with a less attractive theme. But don't be put off - the game itself is pure gold.
The core of the game is the middle phase of each player's turn, where they turn over three new beans and then have to somehow dispose of them. Perhaps they already have those beans in their two fields, and just add them to their existing harvest. More likely, they don't want them at all, and would much rather trade them to the other players - and the game strongly encourages trading away unwanted cards, as if you don't trade them away, you must plant them, even if it ruins their current plan. You only have two fields, so if you have to plant, one of your existing crops will have to go - probably for much less value than you would like.
On top of this, players are constantly forced to plant cards from their own hands - if those cards don't fit with their plans, then they have some powerful motivation to trade out these cards too. All this positive motivation leads to a frenzy of trades; some players will enter bidding wars when they compete for the same card. Others play it cool, trying to act like they don't even want that bean, to try to make a favourable trade. "I'll take that green bean off your hands", you say, hoping to get something for nothing - "Two blue for a soy!" cries your sister, forcing you to either bid up and reveal your plans, or let her have it when you'd much rather be making money off it. Most players' turns will involve multiple trades - and a minute later, they whirlwind will start again with the next player.
Of all the games here, Bohnanza offers the most player interaction, and is one of the most active trading-based games available on the market. Absolutely, 100% recommended for families and pubs alike.