Dice Stars is a Roll and Write game.

Title: Dice Stars

Year Published: 2016

Designer: Bruno Cathala, Ludovic Maublanc

Publisher: Wizkids

Players: 1-4

Game Time: ~25 mins

Set-up Time: ~1 min

Ages: 10+

Theme: –

Mechanisms: Dice Rolling, Push your Luck

How to win: Score the most points by taking the best dice.

Game Description

In Dice Stars, the dice are shooting stars that never look the same! You can choose to end the game quickly or take your time, but all your choices will be crucial to multiplying your points and reaching an incredible total! You may need to risk it all if you want to succeed…

Set Up, Game Play & Game End

Dice Stars Round-Up

So first things first, the dice are lovely. They’re bright, easy to read and help to give the game a great overall look.

The game itself is very nice too.

Rolling

You draw up to 3 dice and it took me a few turns to figure out why I just don’t take 3 EVERY time. But you can’t…

The more dice you have available the more options you have but also, the more options you have! 🙂 Sometimes you’re forced to take too many dice. So if 3 ‘high value’ Blue dice are available you don’t want to draw more, roll 1’s, and lower the overall value of your pick.

Also, if you have too many dice of the same number/colour towards the end of the game you may struggle to make them fit and you’ll have to take a penalty.

Writing

When to take and not take Stars is a key decision. You need them to fill bonus boxes but once you start filling a line you need to be confident you can complete it or risk that line being worthless.

This means lining up your choice of dice you’re drafting with the bonus lines you fill in and this is where the number of dice you pick will come in. Lining up high-scoring rows with a full bonus line will score big, but don’t just focus on a single scoring opportunity.

I find explaining the X’s and ‘Skipping over’ spaces difficult but people get it. It only takes 1 or 2 times to write down your score and it all makes sense.

Also, the score sheet shows Yellow for the Orange dice. Very small issue but it’s a ‘rule’ you need to teach each game, it could have been easily avoided.

Dice Stars Rating

A quick, fun game.

I give it 6/10

Dice Stars Solo Play May 2017

This is a quick video overview of a solo game.

This is a brief overview of a solo game of Dice Stars. How do I do? Watch to find out!

1:48 – Overview
4.37 – Game Play
11:32 – Summary

You can also see my review of Qwixx here.

Jesta ThaRogue