Board Game Arena - Winter of Games #8 - Review - Diceathlon

 

Diceathlon (2022)

Players - 2-99
Game Time - 15-20 Mins

Simple and basic Roll and Write Game

The first thing that worried me about Diceathlon when I discovered it was the latest game on the Board Game Arena Winter of Games 2023, was that this scores just a 4.8 on Board Game Geek, which is by far the lowest game on the series so far and indeed one of the lowest I have seen on BGG itself. But I have an open mind, I am willing to give anything a try once!

 

Diceathlon is a 2022 game designed by Chris Heaney and is described as a roll and write game where players compete across various sports to win the most gold medals. Now, as a fan of both board games and indeed sport, this game on paper should be very appealing to me indeed.

 

The game is a very simple set with each player getting a game board, to highlight the events that everyone is competing in, and a number of dice equal to one more than the player count. All the dice are rolled and the first player choses a dice to play in the game and so on until all the dice are gone….and then repeat. There are a number of lifelines you can use in the game (rerolling, adding on and flipping the dice, but essentially the duration of the game consists of you deciding where to play dice.

 

Each of the events (which include rowing, skateboarding, golf, triple jump etc) has different scoring parameters.  In some events, such as triple jump, your dice must be played in ascending order, whilst others are more simple such as the multiplication of two numbers of the rowing event in which you must have three matching pairs which are then added together.  Each of the 6 events earns you a ‘score’ and the highest score in each event earns you a medal. (Gold for the winner with Silver and Bronze for the larger games). The medals are worth set numbers of points and the most points wins!

 

Given what I said in the opening paragraph, I was expecting to dislike this game and move on quickly, but I can’t deny the fact that I have been really enjoying this simple and relaxing roll and write title. Yes, the luck element is heavy and the gameplay is simple but I found myself enjoying the Diceathlon, planning out my moves and deciding which events to strategize. The luck element comes into play more than I would normally like in a game, but that still didn’t detract from the enjoyment I had from the matches I had on Board Game Arena.

 

As I keep asking regarding these Board Game Arena Winter of Games Titles, the core question revolves around whether I would play Diceathlon again? I certainly intend to, and it’s a nice relaxing quick game that I can imagine myself logging onto when travelling.

 

In summary, don’t let the 4.9 rating on Board Game Geek prevent you from giving this game a try. You may be like me, and quite enjoy it!

 

 

7/10

Pros – Easy to learn, sport theme, nice and relaxing experience.

Cons – Simple gameplay that may not have a long term appeal, large luck element