Everything You Need to Know About Roll For it!
As we keep rolling into September (see what I did there?), it’s time to enjoy another Cozy Classic: Roll For It! Designed by our very own Director of Fun™ Chris Leder, Roll For It! was first published in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, in which backers chose the classic, brightly-colored design we all know and love today.
Roll For It! began long before Chris’s day job was in board games. As a budding game designer with his gaming group, he wanted something lighter that he could play with his wife. He thought about a dice chucking game where you’re trying to match and collect groups of dogs (his wife’s favorite animal). He showed her the game and she sighed. “Your games are always so complicated.”
So he scrapped the dog idea, and Roll For It! emerged into existence. The perfect little dice matching game. And if it wasn’t for a fortuitous downsizing at his current job, Chris would never have had the chance to go to Gen Con for the first time in 2012, meet Ray Wehrs, and well, the rest is history.
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How to Play
Quick Start Guide
Setup
Each player chooses what color dice they want to use. Set out 3 cards in the middle of the table, and place the rest of the deck next to it. If you’re playing with 5 or more players (either by combining the Red and Purple editions, or playing with the Deluxe edition), set out 4 cards. Everyone rolls 2 dice, highest total goes first.
Roll It
Roll the dice in your hand. Easy!
Match It
See if the dice you rolled match any of the cards in play. Place your dice next to any card you choose with a matching face. Once you place a die, you can’t move it to another card or take it back to roll it.
(Tip: Just because your die matches a card doesn’t mean you have to match it, you might want to keep the die to reroll it on your next turn for something else)
Score It
If you match every die face on the card, you win the card and score that number of points! Take the card and the dice used into your hand. It can take you multiple rounds to win a card; you might need to roll and match a couple times, leaving dice behind each turn, until you roll all the die faces required.
The first person to 40 points wins!
Take Back Rule: At the beginning of your turn, you may choose to take back all of your dice that are matched to cards before rolling.
Frequently Asked Questions
When using the Take Back Rule, can I just take the dice from one specific card back?
If you’ve watched the episode of Tabletop featuring Wil Wheaton, you probably have this question too. But Rules as Written, you need to take all of your dice back. This adds to the strategy of which card to put your dice on.
The box says 8+, but my 6-year-old really wants to play. Can they?
Absolutely! Roll For It! is simple enough to learn that we have definitely seen kids younger than 8 enjoy the game. It’s a great game to help reinforce dice identification and addition. Just make sure nobody mistakes the dice for candy!
Is there an app?
There sure is! Now you can play Roll For It! with people who aren’t even in the same room as you! Check out Thunderbox Entertainment, or you can download it from the App Store or Google Play.
Why are there 3 editions of the game?
Roll For It! was conceived and pitched as a 2-4 player game. But Calliope Games is known for publishing not just 2-6 player games, but also affordable games. So this presented a unique opportunity to offer two versions of the game that play up to 4 players, and if you want to play with more people you can buy both copies! Eventually we had people complaining that they could only find one version and not the other, or that they needed both to complete their collection, and that’s how Roll For It! Deluxe was born. A one stop shop for all your dice chucking needs!
Reviews and Playthroughs
Tabletop– Playthrough featuring Wil Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation), John Ross Bowie (The Big Bang Theory), Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect), and Jason Ritter (Gravity Falls)
The Dice Tower- Review by Tom Vasel and his daughters
BoardGaming.Com- Written review discussing how various types of gamers (Strategy, Party, Family, Casual etc.) would enjoy the game