Dizzle! This is a family-friendly, lightweight* roll-and-write dice game. It has lots of luck, mixed with push-your-luck elements, set collection, and sometimes a bit of “take that.” And it scales well both for player counts and for complexity “weight,” which you can shift around by selecting from the various maps (player sheets) that come with the game.
We’ve also developed an original map for it (and more on the way)!
As much as I’ve recommended this game over the past couple years, it wasn’t until this spring when I realized we’d been playing it wrong this whole time. (For 50 plays!) And, fortunately or un-, we’d been playing it better.
Dizzle operates simply: a bunch of dice are rolled, and players each take a turn selecting a die and placing it on their sheet. Once all the dice are taken (you’ll usually have 3 on your sheet), you remove the dice and mark Xs over the spaces they occupied. You’ve now claimed those spaces and their prizes (gems, puzzle pieces, etc.), which score you points.
There’s one big restriction about where you can place dice. Not only does a die have to match the space on which you place it (a number, 1-6); you can only move outward from already claimed spaces on your sheet. So, the first die you take in a round has to go on a space next to an X. The next dice all must touch the physical dice currently on your sheet.
But what if the numbers in the spaces surrounding your dice don’t match any of the dice up for grabs? This is where I parted ways from the official rules....
Here’s the official stance. If you can’t place any of the available dice, you can choose to pass for the round. This lets you keep all your dice and turn them into Xs; it’s the steady and sure option. Or you can choose to reroll the dice on the table. If you do this and roll something you can use, you take it. But if you don’t, you must lose a die from your sheet.
So there’s an element of pushing your luck there. That sounds fun, right?
But there’s another rule. An edge case, if you will. (Pun intended.) If you can’t place any of the available dice because there are no spaces you could possibly place a die (like if you wind up on the edge of your map), you can jump. This means you can take a die and place it on any matching space next to any X on your sheet -- just like you do with your first die of a round.
When we learned Dizzle, we thought you could jump not when you were cornered but any time you didn’t have spaces with numbers matching the available dice.
That means you might still need to choose a reroll sometimes -- but only if there are no valid spaces to which you can “jump.” More often, you’re jumping to various parts of your sheet.
This is how we’ve been playing, and it comes with some pros and some cons.
The worst thing is that you don’t see very many rerolls this way. It’s fun to go for it and chuck all those remaining dice, knowing the pressure’s on and you better hope you roll something useful!
And yet, when you play the “right” way, luck is all you have going for you. Ever. You have very few strategic choices to make during the game. You choose a direction on your sheet to aim, sure. But if you actually want to get to that puzzle piece or fill out that row, your only choices will come with electing to reroll or not. Because that will hit you. So, so often. (In fact, it gets tiring. You can get into a roll-and-get-nothing loop all around the table. And it’s an incredible downer.)
Our “wrong” way adds no more complexity to the game. But it engages you. You have to plan ahead (like normal), but you can actually look forward to what’s coming. You have the ability to create power plays, by choosing dice that will create a must-jump scenario to places you want to go.
It also means you get more crossed off (claimed) on your player sheet. For some levels, this makes for a seemingly simpler experience (when the grid is smaller, like Level 3). But for the most part, it’s a welcome boon to actually finish some of the things you were trying for.
So we’ll always play (and teach) Dizzle this way. You can too, with the below write-up of this mini-variant. You can also download it here.
* Some of the expansion levels are more complex -- especially that Train level!
---
“Jumps Abound” mini-variant
As in the normal way to play Dizzle, you’ll choose from the available dice in the middle of the table, placing them on your player sheet. However, if on your turn you can’t make a legal play adjacent to any dice already on your player sheet, you must choose to “jump.” As with the normal rules, to jump you’ll place a die on a space adjacent to any X on your sheet.
You will have to choose to roll again or drop out of the round only when none of the available dice can be placed adjacent to your other dice or your Xs.
None of these dice can be played next to the dice on your sheet. But you can (so you must) play either a “3” or the “6” die by jumping to one of those spaces.
Note: This change to the rules can create situations where you have dice in multiple places across your player sheet. You must check all of them for placing one of the available dice. (This can come into play after someone has rerolled the dice.)
Comentarios