This review continues my series of detailed reviews that attempt to be part review, part resource for anyone not totally familiar with the game. For this reason I expect readers to skip to the sections that are of most interest.
Image Courtesy of Dottor_Destino
Summary
Game Type - Card/Party Game
Play Time: 20-30 minutes
Number of Players: 3-6 (Best 4+)
Mechanics - Deduction, Bluffing, Humour
Difficulty - Pick-up & Play (Can be learned in under 10 minutes)
Components - Excellent
Release - 2008
Designer - <PERSON> (<PERSON>)
Overview and Theme
Some people know me to be a little slow...and so it is no surprise that I come to Dixit some 5-6 years after its initial release.
Released in 2008 and a winner of the Spiel des Jahres in 2010 (along with many other awards), Dixit is a game by <PERSON>, and the artwork (so central to the game) is by <PERSON>.
The game is all about telling a story through the use of a visual medium...in this case artworks that feature on the 84 over-sized cards that are central to the game. Storytelling appears to be something of importance to the designer as I see he also has a design credit against the game Fabula...which also uses story telling (although I have not played this game).
The title 'Dixit' is Latin for, 'she/he said', which was a frequent way to begin a sentence in old narrations. So the title fits perfectly with the core action of the game.
Educators have long used visual images to assist reluctant writers, particularly boys, to interpret and to write in a variety of forms. Dixit essentially requires the interpretation of images as its central mechanic but what different people see within an image is what makes Dixit so much fun to play. All of this reminds me of the old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Of course I now just noticed that this is printed all over the box...genius!
I promise to write only a few thousand words here though as I look to identify what makes Dixit such an engaging experience. I can't promise it will live up to the artwork found in the game.
The Components
Dixit needs very few components to work, but everything that is included offers great consideration to the production values of the game.
Scoring Board – Since the 2012 reprint, Dixit comes with a score board and a more traditional plastic insert.
The board is a long affair that folds in half to fit into the box and features three distinct areas. One half simply has a horseshoe score track that runs to 30. The other half features the scoring rules, which is excellent as it reduces the need to resort to the rulebook.
The final element runs the length of the board, down one side, and features the numbers 1-6. 299
These areas are wide enough for a card to be placed against them. This feature allows the active player to place the cards that must be voted on each round. Having the numbers 1-6 allows for up to 6-players to play the game.
The board also features artwork from several cards in the background. It is all very nice.
Image Courtesy of Kesaru
Original Edition – For completion's sake I thought I'd mention the original release. It really is gorgeous as the box insert featured a central well and around that the score track was illustrated on the insert itself. There appeared to be two artistic styles; either lily pads on a pond or stone pavers in a garden.
They looked gorgeous and would have certainly added to the game's artistic flair and appeal. But the newer design is certainly more functional.
Image Courtesy of diddle74
Cards – But it is really the 84 cards that feature in the game that are the stars. The cards in Dixit are really large and this format allows the artwork to be fully realised.
The art itself will usually feature several elements and it sits somewhere between abstract at times through to highly evocative or set in a traditional theme.
Essentially the artwork (as well as being beautiful to look at) manages to be many things to many people and I guess that's what art is meant to do.
Some of our (my partner's and mine) favourite cards will feature as images throughout the review.
Image Courtesy of diddle74
Rabbits – The game could easily have offered up simple tokens for scoring...meeple or simply a disc. Instead bunny rabbits are used and as well as being unique they kind of remind me of the matrix reference of 'down the rabbit hole' - this is not gaming as I've formerly known it.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Voting Tokens – These are the most straight forward of the components. 872