Dice Tower West Recap

boardgamequest.com:

I hadn’t been to a gaming convention in years. Too many years. So when a friend started planning a trip late last year for Dice Tower West, I was very interested in joining him. While Gen Con and GAMA are all about releases, Dice Tower West is about playing the games. How was it? Read on to see what I thought.

Ready Set Bet – I’ve only been to horse races once and I’ve gambled in Vegas a few times over the years. Ready Set Bet looks to be a craps-like table of multipliers. I heard it was a ruckus experience, so I was interested in trying it. My biggest mistake was going to the half of the table with the old cardboard components while the other half had the blinged out High Roller Edition. This is a game where both the person running the race (or the app, which I haven’t tried) and the people around the table can make or break the experience. In my one play, there was plenty of laughing and friendly jeering as improbable things happened. This would be an easy yes to play again.

Dying Light – Ho-hum another zombie game, right? Well yes. And no. I really liked the interesting dice mechanic where you spend dice to take actions but the more you spend, the more exposed you are to bad things happening during the zombie phase. Additionally, you can fatigue dice for extra actions or defense, at the cost of having them for the next two turns. I also loved the dimensionality of the board as you parkour around the board. This is a game about making a plan, being able to pivot based on your dice rolls, and then Tigger your way around the board while shooting zombies as needed. My heart was pounding when I’d do something well or squirmed out of a crazy jam. I would love to play again.

Blood on the Clocktower – Outside of Spencer’s review I didn’t really know what I was walking into other than a social deduction game. In the end, I felt like it’s a game that could be thematic but is mostly just a meta-game puzzle trying to decipher clues from people who are probably lying to you.