Liar’s Dice is an old game. I knew that when it showed up in the Pirates of the Carribean movie but I didn’t know if it were one of those old games that meant “grandparents” old or “East India Company” old or “Crusades” old or even older than that. “Roman Empire” old.
I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought, really… I mean, I have a bunch of people with whom I play board games and D&D and whatnot but we never really got into Liar’s Dice. I mean, we don’t play *POKER* or anything involving money (even penny ante stuff) so Liar’s Dice never really showed up.
The game is effectively a bluffing game. You have a bunch of people sitting around the table, each of whom have five dice. Each rolls their dice and looks only at their own cup. Then the bidder goes first and makes a bid. “I think that there is one 1.” Then, the next person at the table has three choices:
- Make their own bid that must increment up one of those two numbers (so “I think that there are two 1s” and “I think that there is one 2” would both be acceptable bids)… they aren’t limited to only incrementing it up by one, though. They can go big. “I think that there is one 1” can be followed up with “I think that there are twelve 3s”.
- Challenge the bidder and say “You’re full of it” and everyone shows their hand and we see if there are *AT LEAST* as many dice as the bidder bid. If there are *AT LEAST* that many, the bidder wins and the challenger loses. If there are not at least that many, the challenger wins and the bidder loses.
- The new bidder can make an *EXACT* bid. “I think that there are exactly eight 3s” and then everyone shows their hand. The bidder has to be *EXACTLY* right. If they are right, the bidder wins and everyone else at the table loses. If they are wrong, they lose and everyone else at the table wins.
A fun betting game, I guess. But not really something that you’d want to play for a few hours for tick marks on a notepad.
OR SO I THOUGHT UNTIL LAST WEEK.
One of my friends brought over Lying Pirates, a game that recently came out from Kickstarter and, holy cow, *IT’S AWESOME*.
It turns the setting into a boardgame where you are in a race to become the Pirate King. You set up the racetrack by dealing out the various squares of the track you’ll be sailing on and hand them out to the players. The person with STOP/START goes first and places the starting line/finish line and then you go around the table until all 16 squares of the track have been placed (of 20ish potential squares). Then, the person who placed STOP/START makes the first bid.
The first bid *MUST* be “I think that there are (number of players) 1s” or higher. So if there are five players, the first bid can be “I think that there are five 1s” (or any bid where either of those numbers is *HIGHER*). Then the next player has a choice to make. Do they bid? Do they challenge? Do they assert an *EXACT* number of dice?
And so around the table.
The person who wins the round gets the “sail” dice and rolls it… it will either come up 1 or 2 and then all of the people who did not lose the previous hand will move their ship whatever the “sail” dice said.
If there happens to be more than one ship on the square, then there is combat to figure out who “wins” the square. Roll your *8* sided die that has 2 faces with two swords, 3 faces with one sword, and 3 faces with skulls. (Skulls are bad.) High roll wins, if there is a tie for high roll, the people who got the tie reroll until a winner is decided. The winner does the action on the square. Some of the squares are good, some of the squares are neutral or mixed, and some of the squares are bad… which means that, sometimes, you’ll be rolling to *LOSE*. Woe betide the man who keeps throwing two swords!
Then everybody who is allowed to participate in the next round does so. (The non-losers of the previous round.)
Now, the new and improved board game spices things up by giving everyone various action cards that they can play. Some cards allow you to recruit more dice for your cup so you’re rolling 6 dice instead of 5. Some allow you to steal dice from your opponents (so you’re rolling 6 and they’re rolling 4!). Some allow you to acquire special dice from the special dice collection… there is a die that has only 1s and 6s on it, for example. There is a die that has 1s and 4s. There is a “ghost” die. There is a “cursed” die. Add these dice to your cup if you get them and then make your wagers around the board until the ships reach the finish line… and then you battle until a winner is decided and then you crown the Pirate King.
And then everybody looks at the clock and guesses whether there is time for another game.
Seriously, this game is *FUN*.
I have a couple of criticisms but they’re minor. I played the game with five players. There were only a couple of times where the opening bid was the limpest bid of “five 1s”. The rest of the time, the bids were off and running. I’d say that we only went entirely around the table with bids a shop teacher’s handful of times and only exceeded five bids *ONCE*. The rest of the time, we hit someone saying “that’s BS” before we went entirely around the table. We only had three or four (out of three full games’s worth of bidding) times where someone bid an *EXACT* number of dice at the table… and, twice, the people who made that bid were right (I was the first one to go for it and, I’m thrilled to say, I happened to be correct).
Additionally, the beginning and the middle of the game is *SO MUCH FUN*. Compared to when you get at the very end and count up the people who make it to the finish line? Then you roll your eight-sided dice until you get a winner. After such a fun game, that ending seems… well. It’s anti-climactic.
But who cares? Play it again and get back to the good part!
It sells for somewhere around $100 American and, yes, that’s a tall order. That said, if you are looking for a great, not good but *GREAT*, board game for 4-6 players, this is one that has replayability off the charts. There’s dice-rolling, bluffing, smack talk, and an opportunity for the old folk at the table to tell the young-uns “hey, this game dates back to the 15th century. Spanish sailors picked it up from South America and brought it back to Europe.”
And then, once someone wins, everyone can check to see if there’s time for another game.
So… what are you playing?
(Featured image is what you get when you buy the game off the kickstarter. Image lifted off of the kickstarter page.)
Sentinels of the Multiverse put out a “Definitive Edition” earlier this year and I finally got to play it a couple of days ago. They’ve made a few game piece improvements and given you some new versions of old heroes and villains to play with, and all the old bits are compatible. It’s still a fantastic game.Report
“Cobalt Core” came out, another entry in the “pixel-art sci-fi roguelite” canon. It’s fun, it’s cute; gameplay is the same loop as the rest: fight a space battle, upgrade your ship, repeat until you die or see the end cutscene. It uses a “deckbuilder” mechanic, where your abilities are represented by cards; play one card to shoot a laser, play another card to move your ship out of the enemy’s line of fire, play a third to raise your shields. Adding more cards to your deck gives you more abilities; you can also remove cards from your deck so that you get to use your good ones more often.
It’s easier than “FTL” (because it’s not so stingy with upgrades) and it’s way easier than “Crying Suns” (because it lacks the punishingly-severe random events). There isn’t really a need for complicated planning; you can do pretty well just by grabbing cards that look fun and playing them, although the gameplay does reward a deeper approach to combo setups.
I’d say it’s good for people who want a light and enjoyable single-player experience. This would be good for younger players (I haven’t yet seen any questionable content or PG-13 situations, although obviously with spaceships blowing each other up so there’s implied death) and good for players new to deckbuilders or roguelites (it isn’t super complicated).
The setting is the same as the studio’s earlier “Sunshine Heavy Industries”, and some characters from that game have cameos, but the two aren’t otherwise connected.Report