AnSR-entertainments

Saint Malo is a great game. My wife and I read the rules, started playing, and had very few questions during it. It reminded us a lot of another dice game we loved, Catan Dice, only more strategic and in-depth.

Components
The game comes with dry-erase markers and a game board that you mark on. The game board has EVERYTHING you need to play once you read the rules. It has how to score during the game, after the game, and a scoring pad that provides a border. PLus… the art is great on it. Also included are dice with fancy symbols.

Playing the Game
On your turn, you roll dice up to 3 times, and after your final roll, you decide which symbol you want to score. Got 3 Walls? choose walls. Got 2 people? Choose people. Once you choose your symbol, you use that symbol to fill in the spaces in your city. If you have 1 person, you draw a “C” with a circle to put a citizen in the game. More people,? Maybe you can put a priest or architect, or noble in there. Got Walls? Put them around the border of your town. Got cargo? Put it inside your city.

The only thing you have to watch out for are pirate symbols. Every time someone has a pirate symbol on a die after their 3rd roll, players put a mark in the pirate tracker. Once the pirate tracker reaches a certain thrshhold, pirates attack, and anyone that does not have enough defenses (Walls and Soldiers), lose things.

Once one player has filled in all the spaces on their board, the game ends, and everyone counts the end-game victory points and marks it on their border. Whoever has the most victory points wins the game.

Final Thoughts
Saint Malo is a medium weight dice game with strategy, luck, a “tech tree”, ways to cleverly score points by placement of certain items/people, and some pirate-based player interaction. If you like Catan Dice and want something more, try this one for a meatier dice game. Plus, it has markers and you get to draw things. That’s pretty cool.

For some reason, the whole Zombie thing somewhat escapes me. I don’t know why, it just does. I am probably not geek enough. When Steve Jackson Games said they had a Zombie dice game, I was “meh”. Then I played it. This is a great game, and one that belongs in just about anyone’s collection (regardless if you like Zombies or not).

Zombie Dice is a classic “Press Your Luck” dice game where all the tension rests in whether or not you should roll one more time for more brains (you need 13 of those to win) or not. Dice are color-coded in level of “difficulty” to get brains (red for difficult, yellow for moderate, green for easy), and the cup the whole game comes in makes for a nice holder for the game.

The only flaw I have found in the game is that if you are on a roll (forgive the pun) during your turn and you run out of dice, you have to remember the score you have, and add the dice back in the cup to continue. It hasn’t happened that many times with my family and friends, but it has happened enough that we found it annoying. Ironically, they fixed this problem with Zombie Dice’s younger cousin, Dino Hunt Dice game, which we all love even more.

Add this game (or the Dino Hunt dice game) to your collection today. No. Seriously. It is great for parties, a filler, or even as a feature game for the night with the right people.

-Aaron from A’n’SR