Cthulhu Dice

Cthulhu Dice is a quick dice and token game from Steve Jackson Games – makers of some of my favourite games! The game is for 2-6 players and most games last 5-10 minutes. The game comes with a big custom 12 side die, 18 glass tokens, and the rule sheet. At this point there are 6 colour variants on the cool Cthulhu die:

Black	Green	Glow in the dark die
Yellow	Purple	Glow in the dark ink

Like most games of this sort, the mechanics themselves are quite simple and straight forward. Each player starts with 3 sanity tokens. The attacking player (the Caster) chooses who to attack (the Victim) and rolls the die. Deal with the result (see below) and then the Victim gets to respond by rolling the die and dealing with the result. The die is then passed to the next player and the sequence repeats. The game ends when only 1 player has any sanity left at the end of a turn. If no one has any sanity left, then Cthulhu wins!

The die has 5 different symbols on it, each with a different effect:

	Yellow Sign – your target loses 1 Sanity to Cthulhu (put Sanity token in the middle of the table)
	Tentacle – Caster takes 1 Sanity from the Victim (no matter who rolled it)
	Elder Sign – you gain 1 Sanity from Cthulhu
	Cthulhu – everyone loses 1 Sanity to Cthulhu
	Eye – Choose any result above

This game (similar to Zombie Dice) is a great game to play when you have a few minutes to kill.

Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!!

Originally posted at Pretty Gamer

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Zombie Dice

Zombie Dice is a great dice game from Steve Jackson Games. According to the dice cup, the game is for 2 or more players, will take 10-20 minutes, and is recommended for ages 10 and up. Caution: it's not for children under 3. So what about the 4-9 year olds, eh? Should they be cheated of the glamour and honour of being a zombie?! I guess that's up to their parents to decide.

The game comes in a cool dice cup, and has 13 dice (6 green, 4 yellow, and 3 red) that represent your human victims. The goal is to eat 13 brains without getting shotgunned 3 times.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward:

- shake the dice in the attractive and functional dice cup
- choose 3 dice without looking (no cheating now, I'm watching you!)
- roll the aforementioned 3 dice
- move any dice that came up brains to your left (mmm...brains...) Brains are good.
- move any dice that come up shotguns to your right (BANG! owie...) Shotguns are bad.
- any footprints? Those are the ones that got away. That means you don't get to eat them this time. Leave these dice in front of you.

So, unless you rolled 3 shotguns you get to make a decision - stop and score, or play on. I recommend playing on, what are the chances you will roll shotgun? Besides, you are already undead, what do you have to lose!?

If you choose to stop and score, you get 1 point for each brain you rolled (write this down somewhere - I recommend using your opponent's forehead). Remember the goal is to consume 13 delicious squishy brains (say it with me: mmm...brains...) Put all the dice in the attractive and functional dice cup and pass to the next player.

If you decide to play on, well then you are pretty damn cool in my books! Did you roll any footprints last time? If so, you get to re-roll those dice and add additional dice from the cup to total 3 dice. So if you rolled 3 foot prints last time, then just re-roll those 3. If you rolled 2 footprints last time, pick another die from the cup so you are rolling 3 dice. Got it? Need me to explain further?

Lather, rinse, repeat as above - moving brains to the left, shotguns to the right, and footprints in the middle. But beware - if you are up to 3 shotguns then your turn is over and you score NO POINTS! That is bad - it means the humans won, and we can't let the damn humans win!

But wait, there's more! Remember the dice colours I mentioned above? Did you think those were just for aesthetic pleasantness?! Well, guess again bucko, it's way more nefarious than that! You see, there are a different number of each type of symbol on the different colour dice:

Green: 3 brains, 2 footprints, 1 shotgun
Yellow: 2 brains, 2 footprints, 2 shotguns
Red: 1 brain, 2 footprints, 3 shotguns

Pretty damn clever of you, Steve Jackson Games...

I recommend you pick yourself up a set of Zombie Dice, it's a fast and easy game you can play pretty much anywhere. Waiting for your dinner to arrive? Play some Zombie Dice! Waiting for your evening gaming session to start? Play some Zombie Dice! Waiting in a lineup at PAX? Play some Zombie Dice!

Originally published at Pretty Gamer.

It LIVES!!!!

I am bringing this blog back to life. I took a break and was writing for Pretty Gamer, but that has sadly petered out. I will be re-posting a number of my articles from Pretty Gamer here, as well as new things that catch my interest.