dV Giochi DVG 9105 Bang the Dice Game

Product Information

It’s a bluffing and player elimination game for groups of 3-8 players, set in the old American West. Much as with our review of Inis I have to confess here that I am fully aware I haven’t fully given Bang The Dice Game the opportunity to shine, purely as a result of player counts. Im afraid it boils down to bland dice rolling game where you just shoot people and then people go "oh im dead ok.

During the game this will lead to many heated debates and appeals to the Sheriff, whose role is always visible. It reminds me slightly of the game 'The Resistance' which features a similar secret role mechanic, although this game is a lot less stressful and probably a lot more fun. I’m not saying here it’s impossible to work out who has which roles, but rather it’s not fun to do it.

As such these are often emotional arguments rather than being marked by their level of analytical sophistication. The Renegades can either help or hinder this process but can only win if they're the last man standing ending in a showdown with the Sheriff. The game proceeds at a breathtaking pace, so there is little time to be coy or try to discern the identity of one’s opponents.

On a turn, a player can roll the five dice up to three times, using the results of the dice to shoot neighbouring players, increase the range of his shots, heal his (or anyone else's) life points, or put him in range of the Indians, which are represented by nine tokens in the center of the table. I would have liked to see a bit more iconography on the cards, but it's the dice that really make or break the game, and they're done well. You’re going to be deceiving your opponents and making sure you end up the last gunslinger on their feet. The intersection of some character powers with some dice rolls offers glimpses into this, but not reliably.It’s just a tricky number to have to get together, especially since at the three and four player counts it loses a lot of what makes it passably fun at the higher ends. Per ora l'ho provato al massimo in quattro, ma nonostante questo, c'era la voglia di rigiocarlo, anche da parte di chi è lontano da questo ambiente.

When the sheriff is killed or when all the outlaws and renegades are killed, then the game ends with victory going to outlaws, renegades, or the sheriff and deputies, as appropriate. I rather like the yahtzee mechanic employed here as well, it tends to keep the pace up and the added randomness helps the game feel lighthearted enough that no one can take it too seriously. The problem we had with the original card game is that after the first person or two is eliminated, the game got longer and longer for each person who was eliminated, until the last two people could slog it out for twenty minutes while everyone else was long gone from the table. You need to remember what players did, who they targeted, and on a higher level… what dice did they choose to reroll and which did they choose to keep?

The dice themselves are really nice, we’ve all been fairly spoiled with custom dice in games over the last few years but these still stand out. While not without some problems, the game is loads of fun and filled with great Old West atmosphere. The artwork is nice and the dice you use are of a decent size with clear labelling as to what each side does. The Sheriff and Deputies win if all opposition are dead otherwise the Outlaws win in any other situation.

Here are some of our more lighthearted things to show we're not all about the Serious Business of games.is the card game that started us on this journey of reviewing fun family board games and card games in the fist place. I believe that any dice game succeeds or fails largely on the basis of whether it's exciting to roll the dice, and here Bang! In good old fashioned yahtzee style, if you don’t like what you’ve got, you can reroll up to twice before settling on your decision. That’s a standard recipe for these kind of titles, used to great effect in games like the Resistance and One Night Ultimate Werewolf.