Mars Attacks the Dice Game: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Push Your Luck, Set Collection, Dice Rolling
Player Age: 10+ Player Count: 3 - 6 PlayersTime to Play: 20 Minutes
Game Designer: Samuel Mitschke, Philip Reed
Player Age: 10+
Game Designer: Samuel Mitschke, Philip Reed
Objective:
Mars has invaded and as a part of the invading army your goal is to destroy the cities and monuments that these humans value so preciously. When one of the city/monument stacks is completed the player with the highest points will be the most successful martian.
Game Anatomy:
Difficulty:
This card will determine the difficulty for the game. For an easier game, turn to the side with two nukes facing up and for a harder game turn to the side with one nuke facing up.
Player tokens:
Each player will have four coloured tokens. These tokens will be used to track each players progress on each active city/monument.
Cities and Monuments:
Each city/monument will include; victory points on the top right of the card, the amount of matching die faces required to destroy the card, an amount of nukes to determine if your nukes on a turn and possibly a red or green ability at the bottom. Red abilities occur when the card is available to all players before destruction or will happen as a one-off effect once completed. The green abilities are ongoing abilities for the player that successfully destroys that card. 
Dice:
There are 10 dice that must be rolled each turn. There are three potential die faces; red ray guns, green martians and yellow/black nukes.
The majority of cities will require ray guns to complete whereas monuments will require martians. Martians have an additional benefit. They are able to be re-rolled if the player so chooses. There is no maximum number of re rolls, as long as there are Martian heads showing then they can be re-rolled. This benefit is only for the martians so ray guns and nukes remain static once rolled.
Nukes will end your turn if you have rolled too many. Whenever you have rolled a nuke you will place it on the allocated space on the difficulty card and the city/monument you are currently aiming for. If you have filled all the nuke spots on the two cards then you have been nuked and will immediately end your turn.
Setup:
- Give each player four matching colour tokens.
- Determine the difficulty of the game using the difficulty card.
- Deal four stacks of city/monument cards next to the difficulty card. Each stack will be equal to the player count.
- Flip the top card of each stack face up. Whenever a card is completed and removed during the game the card below will flip face up.
- Choose the first player and give them the first player token.
How to Play:
The game will continue with players taking turns until one stack of cards is empty. Once this occurs the remaining players will continue until each player has had equal turns.
On your turn, first check if you are effected by any special abilities on the city/monument cards. Then declare which face up card in the middle play area you are aiming to destroy. Once chosen, roll all the dice, remembering to re-roll martians if desired. If you have too many nukes, your turn ends and it will now be the next players turn. If that does not happen you will check how many dice you have of the matching symbol. You can choose to end your turn here and place your token on that value or increase your already existing token by that value. If you have successfully met the required symbols on a card then you can claim it and end your turn (activating any abilities available). Once a card stack is empty the game will end and the player with the most points is the best invader from mars.
Final Thoughts:
Pros:
- Abilities on cards help to change the game in interesting ways.
- There are numerous cards that are not used in every game.
Cons:
- Little control on your turn.
- There are times where you will fail on multiple turns in a row.
- There is no reason it couldn't be played at two players by increasing the stacks a little.
To be put simply, ‘Mars Attacks: The Dice Game' is downright fun. The game doesn't give you much control of your dice but as the game develops you gain abilities that help you on your turn. While this happens, you will find yourself laughing and enjoying just how much everyone constantly nukes themselves. Each martian can have a token on each stack, so while you are playing you are endlessly racing against the other players. Taunting them the whole time as you both work hard to try to gain the exciting ability or massive amount of points. This is the kind of game you play to laugh and enjoy your company, not the kind of game you play to pull off smart moves on your turn. This will be staying in the collection for a great filler that is sure to see much more play in the future.
Click...feed the addiction:
Steve Jackson Games
Mars Attacks the Dice Game on BGG
Expand Your Game Facebook page
Expand Your Game Instagram
Comments
Post a Comment