4 Dice Games You Can Stuff in a Stocking

Continuing my quest to find small games you can actually stuff into a Christmas stocking, here are three dice games that fit the bill.

Roll For It! – A Roll and Match Dice Game

Roll For It! is a fun, family-friendly dice game with simple rules: Roll It! Match It! Score It! But watch out, one of your opponents may steal the card you’re shooting for!

In Roll For It!, players take turns rolling their dice in order to match combinations on the three face-up target cards. Each card whose combination you match, scores you points. Your goal: be the first to accumulate 40 points.

Each player starts the game with six dice of a single color. Three target cards are placed face-up on the table. On your turn, roll all of your available dice – those that haven’t already been assigned to target cards. (You can first choose to reclaim all of your dice already assigned to cards if you want to.) After rolling your dice, you can place any that match on the appropriate target cards. If your dice complete the combination on a target card, claim the card and take back your dice, returning any other dice on the card to their owners. Turn up a new target card to replace the one you just completed. Each roll presents new opportunities with fun decisions to make.

There are two sets of Roll For It! available — the red set comes with translucent dice and the purple set comes with pearl dice. There are no duplicate target cards between the two sets. Each set allows play for 2-4 players, but when they are combined, up to eight players can compete in the same game of Roll For It! Wil Wheaton and friends will be playing Roll For It! this season on TableTop.

Roll For It! supports 2 to 4 players (2 to 8 with both sets) ages 8 and up and plays in 20 to 40 minutes. The box is quite small and stuffs easily into a stocking.

Flash! – A Real-Time Yahtzee-Like Dice Game

Flash! is a real-time Yahtzee-like dice game the whole family can play in a flash! (pun intended)

In Flash!, players each take six dice and place the scoring chips in the center of the table. One player chooses a challenge: Six-of-a-Kind, Three Pairs, All Odds, All Evens, Four-of-a-Kind and a Pair, Two Three-of-a-Kind, Straight, or Flash! Then you all start rolling your dice… and rerolling… fast and furiously, setting aside needed dice between rolls. When you complete the challenge, yell “Flash!” and grab the highest valued scoring chip.

The remaining players continue rolling until they complete the challenge, each taking the highest scoring chip left until all are gone and the round is over. At the end of the round, record everyone’s scores for the challenge, return the scoring chips to the center, choose a new challenge, then “Ready, set, Roll!”

Play all 8 rounds and tally the scores. Highest score wins!

Flash! includes six sets of dice in six player colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. The dice are six-sided with two to six pips per side and a Flash symbol (lightning bolt) on the final side. Flashes are wild and can count as any number, making it a little easier to achieve each challenge in a flash! The scoring chips are numbered 1 to 6. During setup, you use the same number of scoring chips as there are players. For example, with 4 players, use the chips numbered 1 to 4.

Flash! comes with a handy storage bag to hold the dice, scoring chips, score pad and pencil, making it great for travel. Ditch the box and it makes a perfect stocking stuffer. Play time is 10 minutes for 2 to 6 players ages 7 and up. There’s a demo copy in Here Be Books & Games’ Demo Game Library, so we can teach you how to play!

Zombie Dice – A Push-Your-Luck Dice Game

Zombie Dice, a humorous game with a zombie theme consists of a colorful dice cup containing 13 special dice in 3 different colors: green, red and yellow.

Players take the part of zombies trying to get as many brains as they can while avoiding getting shotgunned: 3 blasts and you lose all the brains you accumulated that turn and play passes to the next player. You can, however, stop and bank your brains at any time instead of rolling again. The first player to acquire 13 brains wins the game.

There’s a catch, though. Not all of the dice are created equal. For example, the red dice have more shotgun blast symbols than brains or footprints, the green dice have more brains than blasts, and the yellow dice have an equal number of everything.

On your turn, draw 3 random dice from the dice cup and roll them. Set aside any shotgun blasts and brains. Footprints represent fleeing humans. If you get three shotgun blasts, your turn is over and you lose any brains you accumulated this turn. If you want to push your luck, pick up the footprint dice, pull more dice from the cup, if necessary, so you have a total of 3 dice to roll, then roll ’em. Again set aside any brains and blasts. You can continue to pull and roll dice (always 3 at a time, rerolling any footprints), hopefully accumulating more and more brains until you either decide to stop and bank your brains or get three shotgun blasts and lose all your brains. Play then passes to the next player.

Zombie Dice is small and portable, so it makes a great stocking stuffer. Two expansions, Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature and Zombie Dice 3: School Bus, a Zombie Dice Score Pad and the Zombie Dice Brain Case – a more durable, plastic dice cup with a twist-off lid – can also be easily stuffed into a stocking.

Zombie Dice 2: Double Feature, introduces three character dice: the Hunk, the Hottie, and – most apropos for the season – Santa Claus! It also adds three new ways to play. The Hunk has a double-shotgun icon, but if you eat his brain, you score double. The Hottie has two shotguns and three feet icons, making her fast AND dangerous. Santa Claus has three special gift icons on his die – a helmet, an energy drink, and a double brain – which makes for a very merry undead Christmas!

Zombie Dice 3: School Bus adds a 12-sided die to the game that’s rich with tasty teenage brains, jam-packed with nutritiousness from all their time at school — but those kids are packing shotguns, too, so you might find yourself chowing down on a brain bullet, chasing runners off the bus, getting run over by the bus, or finding yourself on the receiving end of multiple shotguns.

Zombie Dice is a light, fun dice game for 2 or more players ages 10 and up. You can learn and teach it in just a few minutes. Play time is a quick 10 to 20 minutes.  It’s good filler game when you’re waiting for other players to arrive or need a break after playing a brain bender. Lots of laughter and groans are sure to ensue.

Note: Chanting “Braains, braains” can sometimes turn the dice in your favor.

 

Nada – A Real-Time Dice Matching Game

Nada is a real-time dice-matching game that works for all ages. To play, take 6 orange dice and 6 white dice and roll them. Then everyone looks for a symbol that appears on both an orange die and a white die. If you’re the first to call it out, “Palm Tree!”, “Anchor”, etc. – or “Nada” if there are no matches – and you’re correct, you get to take all of the dice with that symbol – or all remaining dice in the case of Nada. Then whoever called it picks up the rest of the dice – or adds 6 more of each color if they’re all gone – rolls them and y’all hunt again. Continue until you run out of dice. Then count ’em up. The player with the most dice wins.

Nada stuffs easily into a stocking, particularly if you ditch the box and put everything in the handy mesh bag included. It’s fun for all ages, though the publishers rates it for 2 to 4 players ages 7 and up. I don’t see any reason why more people couldn’t play, since it’s realtime. Regardless, playtime is a quick 10 minutes.

 

And there you have it: 4 Dice Games you can stuff in stockings. Now go play them!

 

Copyright © 2014-2015 by Tina G. McDuffie. All rights reserved.
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