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Nokosu (“to leave behind”) Dice is a trick-taking game by Yusuke Matsomoto, using both cards and dice, for three to five players.
How To Play
Cards are in five suits and numbered 0-7 (four suits and 0-6 for the three-player game). Each player is dealt a hand of cards and two dice, then a number of the dice are drawn and rolled, and players take it in turns to draft them. The dice work just like cards: you don’t re-roll them once you’ve got them, you display them openly in front of you, but a red 6 is still a red 6 whether it’s a card or a die.
The last un-claimed die defines the trump: both colour and number matter, and there’s a ranking system. So if a yellow 3 is the trump, any yellow 3 is the highest card of all; then any other 3 (all of the same value); then any other yellow (high to low). If two cards of the same rank are played to the same trick (and given the dice this can be the case even when there aren’t any trumps involved), the later one wins.
Almost all your cards and dice will be played. In each trick, you must follow suit if you can, high card/die wins as usual, and a trump is considered not to be in a suit any more: so with that yellow 3 trump, you can’t trump a lead of red 4 with a red 3 unless you don’t have any non-trump red
The other major change from a standard Whist-style game is that you won’t play all your dice: the last one left also becomes your declaration of the number of tricks you’ll win. (And yes, if you have more than one die left, you can be forced to play the one you’re trying to save as a declaration.) There are points for tricks, but they’re really just a tie-breaker; most of the points come from making your declaration exactly, when you score ten points per player who didn’t.
You can declare that you’ll win no tricks at all, by taking one of the blank black dice during the drafting phase—though this is usually a cue for all the other players to gang up and make sure you win at least one.
Play rounds equal to the number of players, rotating the deal and first play; highest score wins. No score pads are provided, but it’s just a column of numbers each, so scrap paper will do. Playing time depends largely on thinking time of the players, but even a five-player game should normally be done in less than an hour.
Components
Nokosu Dice has had two major editions: the original in 2016 which doesn’t seem to have got much outside Japan, and the newer in 2019 which got a limited Western release in 2023. I’m talking about that newer edition here.
The dice are light wood and pleasant to roll. While the cards have abstract suit symbols as well as colours, the dice do not, and players with colour vision deficits may have difficulty; however, careful choice of black and white dots helps, and nobody I’ve played with has complained.
The rulebooks and reference cards (in English and Japanese) cover the basics, but aren’t as clear as they might be, particularly in the matter of the trump losing its original suit. I suspect some of the problem here lies in the translation. There are third-party English-language rulebooks freely available on BoardGameGeek and elsewhere.
Each player gets a small cardboard mat to indicate the “trumpiness” of each die: fully matching, matching number only, matching colour only, or not a trump at all. It’s important to remind players to use these, because even if they can keep track of things easily, other players need to be able to glance across the table and see the state of each player’s dice.
Apart from that, there are two black dice to signify a zero bid, a stand so that the trump die can be made obvious, and an embroidered bag for drawing the dice. It’s all good quality material, and I’ve felt no need to sleeve the cards. Re-packing the box, as with many Japanese games, may require a bit of planning.
In Summary
This is a highly enjoyable game whether you’re new to trick-taking or an old hand. There’s no attempt to wedge in a theme or complex art, just a clean design that lets you get on with the game.