Page 31 - spielbox 03/21 - English

you‘re done with movement this round. However, you will then be able to move your second runner for- ward on a separate
fan track, which can unlocks bonuses. This will hardly be enough to win, how- ever. A good strategy is to buy expensive dice early, get rid of the gray ones and rush towards the goal. The starting player each round gets one extra die in the pool and there‘s also a neat little catch-up me- chanic where if you‘re behind the others
on the track, you get to roll more dice. The components are a bit annoying, though. The box, like so many games at the moment, is packed full of unneces- sary air. It‘s become customary that the box for a game in the 50-dollars-plus segment must be a certain size to avoid becoming dusty on store shelves. But why do gamers go along with that? Space on our home shelves is just as precious, and you wouldn‘t get less game for your mon- ey if the box was smaller. In this case, you have to assemble a separate, bulky box for each of the eight dice sets that are used for storage and presentation during the game. The only problem is that the cardboard boxes tend to hinder more than help during play because they block your view and some don‘t offer enough space in their hollow, which means things keep falling out. Plus, once assembled, the storage boxes don‘t easily fit back in the game box unless you throw away the card-
board insert.
The rules are
written in an un- necessarily com- plicated way that
still leaves some timing questions unanswered. Once
you understand the game, you can explain it easily enough, but you first need someone who‘s willing to suffer through reading the rule-
book. After that, the game plays extremely smoothly
and dynami- cally. Af- ter all, you can always see who‘s ahead and you never have to add
up complicated victory points from se- cret orders at the end. It‘s a race game. Whoever gets to the finish line first wins. Done. It is laudable that the rules sug- gest seven basic race layouts and three advanced ones, in which the respective sets of dice are finely tuned to each other and each die ability can be experienced once in a meaningful way. If you play through these set-ups, you‘ll get to know the game well and can then better design your own races.
Naturally, Cubitos is not super strate- gic. That is in the nature of things. Dice games are games of chance. If you buy expensive dice and then experience the bad luck that their powerful sides just
never come out on top, you won‘t win. But the special fields on which you can grab some advantages along the way, the push-your-luck element, and the variety of options make you feel like you‘re still somewhat in control of your own destiny. In fact, by casting the right net, you can catch some lucky coincidences. (sb)
Title: Designer: Illustration:
Publisher: Players: Age: Duration: Price:
Cubitos
John D. Clair
Banu Andaru, Felicia Cano, Jacqui Davis, Kali Fitzgerald, Ryan Iler Pegasus
2 – 4
about 10+ years
about 30 – 60 minutes about 50 Euros
Reviewer
Maren Hoffmann
Udo Bartsch
Playing appeal
7
6
In-game compensations for unlucky and lagging players prove that the designer recognized a problem, but didn‘t resolve it. Overproduced if you consider it a game and not a toy.
L.U. Dikus 7
Prolonged tinkering and deciphering of the instructions eats up too much time. An abundance of possibilities can make for exciting dice skirmishes.
Stefan Ducksch 6
A great game idea that was unfor- tunately screwed up in the editorial process. Too many dice with
too many functions
make for a terrifi-
cally confusing ru-
leset, which tries to
explain everything
at the same time.
Getting started on what‘s
actually a quite short game takes far too long. Less would have been more. Terrible box graphics, flimsy storage boxes.
Wieland Herold 7
Tedious to set up and read the rules, but the races are quite entertaining.
Alan How 9
Stephan Kessler 6
The game gets in its own way with the cumbersome treatment. Racing and building up your own cube supply is a lot of fun.
Marie Poenisch 9
The instructions are really bad, but the dice-filled race is just so much fun.
Unnecessarily difficult for the partici- pants and thus sells itself short.
Andreas Becker 6
Figuring things out is too complicated. Too bad, since the races are fun. In some rounds, however, due to card confusion and some brutal dice luck, it‘ll all fall apart.
Christwart Conrad 5
For fans of dice orgies. To be played as quickly as possible – as a multi- player solitaire with little interaction. You should choose cards according
to your own taste. Beginners will be overwhelmed at first, especially if
they follow recommendations in the (hard to understand) rulebook. There‘s nothing for racing game fans, either. Despite a wide range of tracks, they don‘t offer any exciting dynamics.
The randomness of the rolls is too high for a game that takes this
long. Frustrating when you lose.
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