A Scotsman, a Frenchwoman, an Englishman, and his wife sat down to play a board game. The Scotsman said, “Have you heard the one about the Scotsman, a Frenchwoman, an Englishman, and his wife who sat…” and the Frenchwoman interrupted, “Stop talking. You’re not funny. Just get on with it”.
A little context then. We, the aforementioned, meet regularly to play a board game or two and drink stuff. So we are not wet behind the ears when it comes to playing new titles. Last night we played 7 Wonders Dice. The following is based on a true story.
It’s nice to open and enjoy that ‘ooh, what’s in the box?’ moment (except if you’re Brad Pitt in Seven). Inside, we found attractive and sturdy bespoke dice, bright, colourful, laminated player boards, a mysterious dice box and some strangely chunky, stubby pencils. Looking good, we agreed.
Set up was no problem. Rule book, page 2, bish, bash, bosh. Then the teach! Oh boy. I decided not to look at the game in advance to see how we would react to learning the game from the rule book. It didn’t go well. All the rules are there to be read in a small, suitably illustrated 8-page booklet, and the author has attempted to be as concise as possible (reducing the word count in a rule book is a positive in my world), but in doing so we found that we had to work harder to connect all the dots. For example, gaining bonuses and end of game (p.4) requires players to tick off buildings. You’d be forgiven for thinking the rules are referring to the 5 buildings across the middle of the game boards. Tom Vasel (Dice Tower games guru) made this mistake, so you’d be in good company. Only when you refer back to page 1 are you ‘informed’ that there are 8 buildings.
There is a simple solution- don’t teach from the rulebook; scan the QR code and watch the Repos Production How to Play video. It’s rather good. Although- cheeky marketing ploy alert- they say it’s 7 minutes long, but it actually times in at 8 minutes 50 seconds. The sundial at the Repros Productions office must be out of whack.
There were other obstacles to the plain sailing we hoped for too. The iconography is somewhat challenging, even for seasoned 7 Wonders players like us. You will be spending time, player aid in hand and board in front, bobbing your head like you’re watching a tennis match. And why are there only 3 aids in the box? Aggggghhhh. They’re cheap! Just print one for each player. All this is to say that we found learning this game a bit of a ball ache. But once we knew what we were doing… ’butter’!
Now, 7 Wonders Dice is a ‘roll and write’ game. They are essentially multiplayer solo experiences, and theme is not a strong point. If you like those, then you’ll probably like this. In terms of complexity, it sits somewhere in between, say, ‘That’s So Clever’ and ‘Hadrian’s Wall’. The designer, Antoine Bauza, has a significant number of award-winning titles attached to his name (7 Wonders et al, Takenoko and Hanabi among others), so you are in good hands.
First big plus from us- the dice box. Dave read ‘make circular movements on the table’ with the dice box as ‘pretend you’re making a cocktail to the tune of Ace of Spades’. PUT…THE BOX…DOWN! We really liked that players use the same dice, mitigating the vagaries of outrageous fortune somewhat, and that straight away you are embroiled in a cost- efficiency puzzle. There is some asymmetry in that the player boards vary slightly, forcing players to find different ways to be efficient. This may also extend the game’s ‘off-the-shelf’ life since the 7 boards offer slightly different paths to success.
Second big plus: once everyone is up to speed, you can play simultaneously, vastly reducing downtime, although you’d be surprised at how quickly some individuals get irritable if others take ‘too long’. “Well, we only get one life”.
Third big plus: what you are actually doing is engaging and occasionally joyful. You are in a race to build your cities by ‘building’ er…buildings as efficiently as possible. And when you find those combos that allow you to build lots of stuff in a single turn, it’s almost like scoring a goal in a cup final. Nathalie curled her hands into fists, waist pumped, and said ‘Yessssss’. And she’s normally a cool French princess.
Our shared conclusion was that we enjoyed the experience, especially Nathalie because, quote: “My big army smashed yours”. The 25-minute play printed on the box might be a tad optimistic, but all four of us liked it and want to play again soon. I imagine, like its daddy, it scales well from 3-7. I don’t play solo, but it wouldn’t be difficult for one to enjoy. For me, I see myself bringing this to the table from time to time as a starter or indeed a finisher. With 6+, my go-to ‘short’ games are Frozen Horror or Magical Athlete, but when I have a group of 4 or 5, this might fit the bill nicely. 7 Wonders Dice retails for under £29 on Zatu at the moment. I’d say that’s reasonable value for what you get.
Finally, those chunky crayon/pencils? They may be a bit of a liability. By the end of the evening, our hands were covered in black wax, as was the tablecloth. Sarah was not best pleased and advocated ditching them for marker pens. No matter. Dave and I have found an alternative use for them…
