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A few UKGE’s ago, me and the family played a quirky little dice game called Asteroid Dice. It looked chunky and fun and after many laughs, a lot of shouting and some, what can only be described as convention-based parkour, we backed it on Kickstarter. Grab some foam dice, grab some adversaries, let’s Asteroid Dice!
Gameplay: The Setup
Setup in this one is a breeze. Put the foam dice in the middle of the table, give everyone a starting deck and you're off to the races. Clear some space, warm up your throwing arm and get your aim online, you are about to throw-down!
Points and Winning
As soon as a player has no cards left in hand, your score the game and the highest scorer goes home victorious. Your score is your captured cards minus any negatives your opponents may have gave you. Which let’s be honest, if you are winning, they probably did.
Cards and Battles and Brawling!
You have a deck of seven cards, one for each of the five squishy dice and two special cards. A round of Asteroid Dice is simple, energetic and amusing. Firstly you pick one of your cards and lay it face-down on the table. This card will either correspond to one of the dice in the centre of the table or one of the two special cards, which we will come to later.
Once everyone has a card face down, the fun really takes off! Everyone flips them over at once and grabs the die that it corresponds to, from the center of the table. If players have the same card revealed, they must BRAWL! Brawling players must grab the dice and throw it at any players they match with, with the last to be hit winning the brawl. It's very entertaining.
If two special cards match then those players can grab any dice not revealed on other cards and brawl away! Same rules apply and if you're lucky enough to catch a dice thrown at you, you're not out and can carry on throwing dice at your matched opponents. When there are multiple brawls at once, with multiple players it's hilarious watching everyone climb over stuff and try to avoid large foam dice whizzing about the place.
The winners of the brawls take the losers card into their score pile and the loser gets to pick a new dice last (which is normally the worst dice). There are further things to do if special cards are used but we will touch on those soon.
Once all those shenanigans have taken place it's time to roll your dice. If you did not match you will have the dice in hand from your card, special card players will then grab a dice of their choice and finally the losers of the brawl mop up the dregs. What you are trying to do with these dice is have the highest number showing on yours come round end. Each player rolls or throws their dice trying to lower other players' numbers and getting a high number on their dice in return.
Whoever rolls the highest after all players have rolled and collided their dice, collects all cards and adds them to their score pile, each dice card has a value and trying to get the higher value cards is what will win you the game.
Special Cards
Now we know the rough framework of Asteroid Dice, it's time to touch on the special cards. Each player has two, the ‘Losteroid’ card and the ‘I Can’t Decide’ card. The Losteroid card is purely for screwing over the other players. If you play this card you get to name a number. If that number is ever rolled during the rolling phase, all cards are lost in a black hole and the player who played the Losteroid gets to add it to any players score pile. These cards cancel out your highest scoring card come game end. Spicy!
The other card, the ‘I can’t decide’ card allows you to pick any dice that are left and also, more juicily, allows you to re-roll your dice in the rolling phase at the end, which could win you the round. Super.
Gameplay: Squishy
Asteroid Dice: Arcade Edition is a lovely little package. It's a small box, which is underrated these days and contains just a few cards and five squishy dice. The cards are well made, bright and sturdy, which is vital in a game like this where people, at times, get very enthusiastic. The foam dice are also very satisfying to throw, easy to read and are perfect for the job they are tasked with. I do find sliding it back in the box slightly irksome sometimes but that's nitpicking.
All in all, the components are super and very well produced.
Final Thoughts
With the right group, Asteroid Dice can be an absolute blast. A perfect end of the night game or a game to play while you're deciding what juicy stuff to get to the table. My kids love it, I love it and as long as you're not expecting something deeply strategic, it's a rip-roaring, asteroid-chucking good time.
