Dice Forge

Dice building? Yep. You roll a pair of dice and accumulate 3 currencies. One is spent to improve the dice - you actually pop the faces off and you add new ones. The other two currencies are used to buy cards that give you one time or persistent bonuses.If you remember the game Quarriors, you may have some concerns about randomness. But this is addressed with the sheer frequency of die rolls. You roll the dice on everyone's turn, accumulating resources. and spend the resources on your turn. So, no waiting for your turn and then be kicked in the face with a poor roll.Rarely is a board game cheaper than I would expect it to be. But give then quality of the components, I am surprised at the price point for this game ~ $40. The dice are solidly made and the die faces are of a hard plastic(?). I have no fear of damaging either the dice or the faces when taking them on and off. Also, you won't need to stick stickers on dice, they come ready for action.The game plays in about 45-1 hour and is a fairly easy game to teach. There is a fair bit of replay-ability to the game with 2-3 different strategies. There is a degree of variety to each game in the cards: the cheap ones are fixed, but you have a choice of 2 for the more expensive ones. But the one weakness of the game is that for 1/2 the cards these differences do not add much to the game. There could be more variety here, and definitely scope for an expansion, or perhaps make your own cards! If you like deck builders or dice rolling, this will be a good addition to your collection.

This is a game that is going to be a part of our family games for a loooooong time. I thought about getting this for almost a year. I just wasn’t sure. Reviews were that it was good, but replayability was questionable. Well..... for playing with a six year old, this game is awesome. I put this up there with Quacks of Quedlinburg, which is another current favorite we play.I’m not going to go over gameplay, but I do want to point out a couple things. First, even with the basic setup, I find this amazing. There are multiple paths to victory, which lends itself to replayability (I count at least 4 different ways to focus your efforts in the introductory setup with multiple ways to achieve them). There really are different ways to create your deck building engine. It almost seems like a simpler Space Base in that regard (another favorite of mine - it is too difficult for my six year old right now though). The added cards are great - yes, more cards is always better, but you can easily play the introductory setup a dozen times and it will/can play out differently. Secondly, almost every card is different. That is amazing too. This just adds to the replayability. Gameplay is just astounding, and the fact that you can play in 30-45 minutes and feel like you really created an engine to produce is incredible.While I think the gameplay is 5 stars plus, I am going to nitpick a few things here. First, the player board could certainly be thicker cardboard. I am worried about durability when playing with my kids. Second, a few cardboard tokens could have been wooden to help with visibility, etc. Third, the sleeve for the additional die faces has cutout parts to grab the sleeve, and they are not cut on top of one another, but offset by quite a bit which I don’t understand. Lastly, the card stock isn’t great. We sleeves a lot of games, and I didn’t think I’d sleeves these but they are pretty cheap. Now you don’t handle them much, and it doesn’t matter if they get messed up as there is no hidden information, but this surprised me.While I have some minor complaints, I think that for a production price of under 30 dollars you won’t find much better. Most issues I have just require you to be a little careful, or just aware of. This game has great visual appeal - the art on everything is amazing and really stands out. The organizer is exceptional and seems pretty sturdy. The dice seem well made (I am using a lego tool to make changing die faces easy). This is one of the best games I have gotten for our family to play as it is intuitive, language independent, and icons are pretty easy to remember. The fun factor is of the charts, the design is on point, and you won’t be disappointed.

If you like dice games (I do) and light engine buillders (I do), this game is great. Doesn't leave anything completely to chance as it lets you manipulate the faces of the dies you roll for resources. Literally fixing the dice. It isn't really theme heavy, but I like the theme attached to this game. It assumes you are already a heroic warrior before you take turn one! How's that for an ego boost? The art is FANTASTIC. The designer/artists did a great job of putting subtle clues to understanding the cards/chits using symbology that is intuitive. For example, the cards get set into a frame and if they are placed correctly, they will complete an artistic landscape perfectly. If they are not set up correctly, something is wrong. I was going to knock this game down one start for the shear number of pieces and the set up time, BUT, the insert and instructions on how to store the pieces are so good, that it more than makes up for it. The idea of removing tiles from a die face and replacing them constantly may make you feel like you are going to wear and tear the tiles, but rest assured, the hard plastic pieces are very sturdy and I'm impressed with the quality of the entire game and thought given to asthetics, storage, and game play. I was able to get it on sale for 20 bucks and i felt like a thief when I opened up the box.Is it my favorite game? Nah. Is it good? It's great. I wouldn't recommend it as an initial gateway game for someone who has never played Ticket to Ride or Catan just because it can look daunting. But as a second game? Absolutely.