Friday Filler: 7 Wonders Dice

It is surprising to realise that 7 Wonders is over fifteen years old. Published by Repos Production, it was the 2011 winner and the very first winner of the Spiel des Jahres Kenner spiel des Jahres, the award for the Connoisseur’s Game of the Year. This is not the only award it would win, though its is the most prestigious. It is a civilisation-themed, card-drafting, card development, and hand management game in which each player controls the fate of one the great cities of the Ancient World. Their aim, over the course of three acts, is to create a high scoring city, including building the Ancient Wonder that the city is famous for. The seven are, of course, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, each stage of which provides a mix of bonuses in game and points at the end of the game. 7 Wonders offered multiple ways to score and thus win. Defeat your neighbours with the largest military, being the richest city with the most gold, develop the most advanced science, spread the most culture, and so on. What is particularly notable about 7 Wonders is that because it concerns the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it supports seven players, which is a rarity for most board games. Unlike most civilisation board games, it also plays without a map, and it can be played in thirty minutes—even less with some familiarity. It is also played simultaneously. Lastly, when you play, it feels like you are telling the story of the city; whether you were invaded by a neighbour or retaliated later on, if you built a temple, developed a market, established important and powerful guilds, and so on. Of course, since its original publication, 7 Wonders has had numerous expansions and even a two-player version, but now it has a dice game.

7 Wonders Dice plays both exactly like 7 Wonders and exactly unlike 7 Wonders. Like 7 Wonders, it is designed to played by up to seven players, is played simultaneously, can be played in thirty minutes or less, and player controls the fate of a city home to one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. Unlike 7 Wonders, the game play of 7 Wonders Dice revolves around dice—as the game’s title suggests—and the results are not tracked by cards drafted and played, but by results of dice shaken that are recorded on player city boards. 7 Wonders Dice is actually a ‘Roll & Write’ rather than a straight dice game.

The game consists of ten dice, seven boards, seven dry-erase pencils, seven cloths, one box, scoreboard, three player aids, and a rulebook. All ten dice have different symbols on their faces, matching resources in the game. Seven of the dice—three grey and one each of blue, red, yellow, and green—are the starter dice. The colours match the colour of the cards in 7 Wonders. Thus, blue for culture, red for military, yellow for merchants, and green for science, whilst the grey cards are basic resource cards like the brown cards in 7 Wonders. The black, white, and purple dice are special dice. These only come into play when tracks on the University are completed and actually replace the base dice. The black die is the Spy and enables a player to cross off spaces in the buildings on his board; the white die grants access to the Gallery of Leaders and will help speed up construction; and the purple die allows access to Guild Court.

Each board is divided into two parts. The bottom part represents the city’s economy and is where a player tracks what resources he has access to in the city’s Warehouse and how much money he has in the Gold Reserve. The upper part is the city itself and here there are seven areas. These are the city’s blue-coloured Agora where culture is tracked; yellow-coloured Market where gold is generated; red-coloured Eastern Barracks and Western Barracks from where a player launch attacks against his neighbours and defend against attacks from his neighbours; green University where the special dice are unlocked; and purple Guild Court where a player can gain Victory Points from progress made by his neighbours. In addition, each board for its city’s Wonder and a set of three bonuses that can be gained by completing buildings.

At the start of the game, each player receives a board and a dry-erase pencil. A random player places the starting seven dice in the box. This box is the cleverest part of the game. It comes with a lid and when the lid is on, it looks like, and is called, the Forum. The bottom of the box is divided into four quadrants. These are priced from zero to three and separated by raised ridges. The Forum is shaken in a circular direction and the lid removed. The dice will now be distributed between the four quadrants. The face up symbols on the dice are what is available to buy at the Forum that turn and the value of the quadrant they are in determines how much they will cost to purchase that turn. A player can purchase only one die per turn and more than one player can purchase the same die.

Once each player has decided on the die he wants to purchase, he can one of three things with it. First, he can use it construct a building. Each building has one more or tracks showing what can be built next as well as the cost that has to be paid in addition to the price at the Forum. Construction cost can be offset by resources, but these need to be purchased and marked off in the Warehouse. Once done though, they are permanent and a player will not need to keep purchasing their resource over and over. Second, he can build a stage of his city’s Wonder and gain its benefits. This does not require a die to do so, but simply resources and gold. Third and last, a player can pass instead of selecting a die and receive three coins.

When a player completely fills in a single building and gained its benefits, there is an extra bonus to be gained. Once a player has filled in a total of three buildings and gained all three bonuses, the players are allowed one more turn before the game ends. At the end of the game, each player totals up the number of Victory Points earned from filled in spaces in the buildings across his city. The player with the most Victory Points is the winner. In comparison to 7 Wonders, determining which neighbouring cities defeated each other is slightly more complex, but otherwise scoring is a lot simpler in 7 Wonders Dice.

7 Wonders Dice faces the same problems as 7 Wonders in that it is not easy to teach or learn its nuances. The basics are fine—shake the dice, spend a die, and so on, but initially there is likely to be a lot of hand holding. Further, , the adaptation of 7 Wonders into the ‘Roll & Write’ 7 Wonders Dice has come at a cost. Gone is the interaction between neighbouring players in terms of purchasing resources, and instead, there is the ability of neighbouring players to invest in military defence that reduces the Victory Points gained by neighbour in his military offence. Gone is the ability to tell a story. There is no sense of a city being built, features being added, and it being developed along side the efforts to build the Wonder. This is not helped by the fact that the differences between one city and another are slight. They are there, but nowhere as distinctive as they are in 7 Wonders.

This is not to say that there is sense of progress to the game, more so when one or more of the special dice is purchased and they replace the base game, representing the city needing more sophisticated resources as they do in 7 Wonders. It is relatively slight though. On the plus side, 7 Wonders Dice is compact compared to 7 Wonders and has fewer components, making it easier to set up and play, as well as teach.

Physically, 7 Wonders Dice is a well presented. Everything is of good quality and bright and breezy and the rulebook is well written. Care will be needed to ensure that the boards—both the city boards and the scoreboards—are wiped clean after each play lest they mark permanently.

7 Wonders Dice plays fast and it plays simultaneously, both great features it shares with 7 Wonders. Yet it lacks nuance and the differences between the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that made 7 Wonders so good in the first place, that of developing a civilisation, of attempting to win with different civilisations, of trying out their differing strategies, and ultimately telling a story. 7 Wonders Dice ultimately feels like 7 Wonders-themed game than an actual 7 Wonders game. 7 Wonders Dice is likeable, but not likeable enough to warrant coming back to too often.

Friday Filler: Railroad Ink: Blazing Red

‘Roll & Write’ games—the mechanic of rolling dice and writing down the results—go all the back to Yahtzee, but that design is over sixty years old and game design has come a long way since 1956. These days, ‘Roll & Write’ games involve ‘write-on, wipe off’ surfaces, so a game can be played, the playing surface written upon, then wiped clean, and played again. Railroad Ink is typical of this. Published by Horrible Guild, Railroad Ink is a family game which combines competition and puzzles for between one and six players, aged eight and above, that can be played in thirty minutes. Over the course of the game, players roll dice and draw the symbols on the dice on their maps to build networks. After seven rounds, they score points for the number of Exits they connect, their longest rail and road networks, and lose points for dead ends created. The player with the most points is the winner. Then, everyone cleans their board, ready to play again. The result is a game with simple mechanics, but thoughtful gameplay as each player tries to connect up the symbols on the dice, all using the same symbols as everyone else, but in a different mechanic.

Railroad Ink comes in different colours—Railroad Ink: Deep Blue and Railroad Ink: Blazing Red are the most commonly available. They differ primarily in their colour and in the expansions available in each. Railroad Ink: Deep Blue adds the Rivers and Lakes expansions, each River symbol making connecting route that much more difficult, whilst Lakes can connect your networks by ferry. Railroad Ink: Blazing Red includes the Lava and Meteor expansions. The Lava comes pouring out of an erupting volcano and can expand to destroy routes, as can meteor strikes, but the craters can be for precious ore (or points). Apart from these expansions (and those in the other editions), the game play is the same between Railroad Ink: Deep Blue, Railroad Ink: Blazing Red, and other editions. Both Railroad Ink: Deep Blue and  Railroad Ink: Blazing Red can be combined to enable as many as twelve players to player—something that few games can do! Of the two, it is Railroad Ink: Blazing Red which is being reviewed here.

Railroad Ink: Blazing Red comes in a little box containing six player boards, six markers, four Route dice, two Lava dice, two Meteor dice, and the rulebook. Each player board consists of a grid, seven squares by seven squares, with three exits on each side. The nine central squares are of a different colour and if routes are built across them, a player will score more points. The back of the player board folds up and serves not as a shield to hide a player’s layout from his rivals, but includes a scoring track, a means to track the dice symbols used each turn, and presents six special symbols which can be used during play. These consist of crossroads of various types, a player being allowed to use one per turn, but can only use each symbol once and cannot use more than three special symbols per game.

The basic dice—all of which are white—consist of two types. One has type has sections of curved, straight, and tee-junction highways and railways. There are three of these. The other type, of which there is only one, shows an overpass and stations at which highways and railways can connect. These connections can be straight or curved. The full colour rulebook runs to sixteen pages and does a decent job of explaining how the game is played. It is not a large rulebook, so it does need a careful read-through to spot everything.

Game set-up is simple. Each player receives a player board and a pen. Game play is also simple. At the beginning of each turn, the four dice are rolled. The players then draw those route symbols onto their player boards, ensuring that the routes connect to either an exit or an existing network. It really is as simple as that. A player can also draw in a special symbol from those listed on the inside of his player board, up to a maximum of three per game. In total seven rounds are played before the game ends. Then a player will score points for the number of exits his networks connect, the longest highway, the longest railway, and the number of central squares he has drawn routes through. Points are deducted for dead ends.

However, the puzzle element of Railroad Ink: Blazing Red means that a player will be constantly working to make the efficient connections and wondering how he can best use the routes marked on the dice that turn. It means that there is a luck element to the game, but a player can work to try and mitigate the effects of what might be a bad roll for him, whilst that roll might be better for another player. In effect, a player is building a puzzle from turn to turn, but does not know what pieces of the puzzle he and his fellow players will receive each turn until the dice are rolled. The game is mechanically simple, but there really is a neat little challenge to it from start to finish, and it really feels satisfying when the dice are rolled and the right symbols come up to make connections and draw an efficient network.

The Meteor and Lava Expansions are optional and add complexity to the game. Both shorten game length to six rather than seven rounds. The Meteor dice are rolled along side the standard dice and indicate the direction and how many squares away a meteor will hit on a player’s board on the next turn. If this means it lands on a route—highway or railway, it is destroyed. A special route can be sacrificed to ignore the effects of a Meteor strike and Meteor craters can be built over. However, dead ends which connect to an existing crater will score a player points as he mines the crater. 

The Lava Expansion adds a volcano at the centre of each player’s board as well as the two Lave dice to the basic dice rolled at the start of each turn. The Lava dice depict the sides of a lava lake, some adjacent to a railway or highway, most not. When they are rolled with the basic dice, a player must use one of the Lava symbols shown to expand the Lava lake. If he cannot do that, he can either start another volcano else where on his board or the lava lake is forced to expand and erase a highway or a railway. Open Lava Lake sides will lose a player points at the end of the game, but a player will score points for each fully enclosed Lava Lake and for his largest Lava Lake.

Both expansions give more for a player to work with and draw, but also make the game play more involving and longer. The Meteor Expansion is the more complex one as there is slightly more to keep track of, but both make the game more challenging. So are probably better suited to older players.

Another way in which Railroad Ink: Blazing Red can be played and that is solo. This is playing the standard game without any competition to see how high a score you can get. However, it is not as much fun as competing with other players, and in some ways, it just highlights the fact that even with other players, Railroad Ink: Blazing Red still feels like a solo game since there is no interaction between them. This does not mean that Railroad Ink: Blazing Red is a bad game, but it is still quite light in terms of its puzzle and challenge factors, so ideally, it should be mixed in with other games or played as filler (as a ‘Friday Filler’ or otherwise). For a family audience this should be less of an issue, but for veteran players or fans of train games, it might be too light (in which case Railway Rivals is a good alternative).

Overall, Railroad Ink: Blazing Red is a very nicely done mix of puzzle and challenge which looks and feels good in play. A charming little filler worth bringing to the table amongst a mix of other fillers.