Ninja Dice

Players: 2-5

Age: 8+

Teaching Time: 2 mins

Playing Time: 5-10 mins

Setup Time: 0

Value For Money: High

Luck: High

Complexity: Low

Strategy: Low

Price: £11.95

Recommended: Yes

Website: www.greenbriergames.com

Ninja Dice is a push your luck game offering players the chance to take the part of Ninjas raiding a house, fighting, sneaking around and generally robbing the place. One player rolls challenge dice to set the building's challenges for the following player. The new player then rolls dice to score icons that overcome those challenges while other players roll dice to try to steal each other's riches.

The game is cheap, immensely portable, simple and a solid wedge of good fun. It's clearly a quick time filler rather than a massive evening long strategy fest. I'm picking it up for this review and attempting to tell more people about it because, unusually for a totally dice based filler game it actually needs to physically exist. The game scores at various points dependent on the relative positions of different dice, specifically indicated by lines and arrows marked on those dice. What this means is that even if I very clearly set out the game's rules and described the dice face distributions you could not recreate the game without creating your own version of the custom dice. So, as stated, the game needs to be physically made in order to work, it could not be achieved as a Print and Play or set of instructions with non-custom components. It is frankly depressing to me how may times filler or fun games could be replaced by a paragraph of type and the standard components found in the average gamer's home. Considering the simplicity and sheer fun therefore of Ninja Dice the fact that it has also solved a fundamental question of games design, the necessity of production, in such an elegant fashion makes me genuinely love it. The fact that the solution fits in in a seamless and enjoyable fashion makes me recommend it.

Ninja Dice is simple, silly fun made with immense intelligence that doesn't draw attention to that intelligence and comes at a price, size and playtime that makes not owning it inexcusable now that I've told you about it.