Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
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.
If you liked the review please thumb the top of the article so others have a better chance of seeing it and I know you stopped by. If you thumb the bottom as well, I consider that a bonus. Thanks for reading.
Summary
Game Type – Roll and Write (Dice) Game
Play Time: 30-50 minutes
Number of Players: 1-4
Mechanics – Dice Rolling, Paper and Pencil
Difficulty – Pick-Up & Play (Can be learned in under 10 minutes)
Components – Very Good
Release – 2018
Designer – <PERSON> -( Brikks, Fuji, The Mind, The Quacks of Quedlinburg)
Overview and Theme
2018 was a big year for Roll and Write game designs with this title nominated for the Kennerspiel des Jahres, Welcome To...was also released and two Kickstarted titles in Roll to the Topand On Tourlaunched. And I have left off a few more that spring to mind immediately.
For those not aware of the genre, Roll ‘n’ WriteGames have been around for decades because Yahtzeewas perhaps the first of its kind. It simply means that you must roll some dice and record one or more results on a scoring sheet of some kind. Now don't be turned off by the Yahtzee reference because this is the 21st century and the genre is getting a little more gamer-fied. I should also probably mention that the genre is being pushed in some diverse directions and the popular Welcome To... is actually a draw and write (as in you draw cards as opposed to rolling dice).
So is Ganz schon clever as good as all the cool kids are making it out to be? Where does it sit among the numerous titles that this genre has spawned over the last 3-5 years?
Let's go into the sitting room to find out. Oh grab that silver platter will you...we will be needing that.
The Components
Two elements that define a Roll ‘n’ Write game are the fact that they tend to be fairly small in terms of their footprint and the game play is usually directed by the options on the scoresheet itself. 470
This is certainly the case for Ganz shon clever.
Score Sheets – The scoresheet that each player receives consists of 5 scoring areas in the colours yellow, blue, green, orange and purple. I will outline the function of these in the body of the review.
Above those 5 scoring areas is a round track, 2 horizontal rows to record some additional bonuses that can be earned and 3 vertical white spaces, which serve as locations to assign taken dice.
Before learning the game it might look a little confusing with all the various icons, arrows and values all over the place. But once you learn the game it all makes total sense and is highly functional.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON>
Dice – The game comes with 6 wooden dice that are standard six-sided affairs (values 1-6). Five of these dice come in the colours of the 5 scoring areas - I'll let you make your own assumptions as to the connection for now. The last dice comes in white.
These are about as standard as they come. I don't know how random the assortment of dice is in the various editions around the world but I have a copy (German Language Edition) that features pips in black and another with pips in gold. I can't see any logical purpose for this as the dice colours with gold pips do not have any special connection to one another (they are the purple, green and blue dice in my copy). I would imagine they were just randomly grabbed at production.
Image Courtesy of <PERSON> & Rules – The game comes with 4 small black markers that can also work on dry erase boards in other games.
Of course they only last so long before you need to get some better quality ones.
The rules are where the production errs a little. The English translation (from the original German release) is a bit confusing in places but I've even seen some German gamers comment on the forum pages that the English translations weren't where the problems started...that some of the rules written in German are a little ambiguous also.
Thankfully we are Geeks and can find the solutions we need. Hopefully the English edition\later printings can spell things out more clearly.
Image Courtesy of Alice87
Packaging – I really like the small packaging that most Roll ‘n’ Writes allow. But I'm really mentioning this point because inside the box is artwork that represents a Silver Platter. 872