Clever Cubed

Clever Cubed is another roll and write in the ‘clever’ series of games. So, what’s new? What’s the same? And how does it compare to the other titles in the series? Let’s roll the dice and find out!

Rolling With My Homies

I’m a big fan of roll and write games in general. They generally have very quick set up time, are quick to play and easy to travel with. The games in the Clever series, whilst not trying to rely heavily on theme like many other roll and writes, get straight to it with the theme basically being dice!

Clever Cubed plays in much the same way as the other clever games. You have six dice to roll, three times. Each roll you choose a dice to take and use on you game sheet. Any unused dice end up on the silver tray (a cardboard insert) and once your turn is over the other players all get to choose one dice to use from the silver tray. I enjoy this part of the gameplay because you’re constantly involved and adding to your score sheet at the end of each player’s turn, rather than having to wait a whole round until it makes it back to you.

Mellow Yellow

Clever Cubed brings into the game all new areas to fill out. There’s the high scoring yellow area where you cross out fields that match the number rolled, but you can only fill out row 1 on a first roll of your turn, row 2 on a second go and row 3 on your third go. There’s also some greyed out numbers that give the added option that they can be crossed out when you’re the passive player. This is a great zone with a whopping 42 points per complete row available. There are bonuses in between rows too which definitely makes it an important one to focus on.

Totally Turquoise

Turquoise, I like the least of the new sections. The points for completing a row feel like they should be higher because it’s hard to do. The idea is to fill out multiple boxes in a turn because when you choose the turquoise dice you can also cross out extra boxes of that number for any dice already on your player sheet that match the number taken. The best use of this of course is to get 2 matching dice on your player sheet and then on the third turn roll the same number with the turquoise die (or white die as this is wild as always) so that you can mark off 3 boxes. This is easier said than done though!

Blue (Purple?)

The next section is the blue area (although on the player sheet this looks purple to me!). Here you start in the middle of the row and can work outwards in both directions. One side you are going upwards, always having to write a number that is one more than the last one in. The other side you are going down, always writing a number that is one less than the last in. There are bonuses along the way. 22 points are on offer per side you complete and there’s an extra 4 points available for every 2, 3, 4, 10, 11 and 12 you use along the way. It should be pointed out that this row can be reset at any point by using a 7.

Brown Sugar

This is a great little area. There are specific numbers in each box that must be crossed off and lots of bonuses along the way. A total of 90 points is available if you fill the whole line, but you can also skip boxes if you want to (although you can’t go back to them if you do).

Pink Ladies

Lastly there’s the pink area. Here you can write any number you like in any box along the way. You simply get the points of each number you write in. Each box you have a choice to make – write in half of the die roll and take the bonus below the box or take the multiplier above the box to gain more instant points. Getting a 6 on a 3x gives you 18 points in one go!

Feeling Dicey?

I really like Clever Cubed and enjoy the new challenges it brings. It is definitely the hardest of the clever series that I have played, so if you’ve never tried one before I’d start with one of the first two simply because they’re easier. If you’re up for a new challenge though this could be your next purchase!

What I don’t like about the game is on the back of the rules there’s a level points chart of ‘How Clever were you?’ and the scores that they expect you to reach just made us all feel like we were terrible at the game! How on Earth anyone is meant to hit into the 400’s of points is beyond me. We thought we’d had a pretty good game with scores in the 200’s so either we have a lot to learn or the chart is just too harsh!

Chart aside, we all agreed that the turquoise area just didn’t feel like it was worth enough points for the work it takes to complete it. I loved the yellow and brown areas and enjoyed being able to write any number into the pink zone.

I’ve laminated the game sheets so that the game play can go on forever. I’m going to keep trying different ways of playing to improve my score because darn it I want to be ‘clever’!