Space Cadets: Dice Duel
4-8
15+
20
Space Cadets: Dice Duel pits two starships against each other in quick-paced combat. The players are divided into two teams, each team playing the crew of their ship. The team will win or lose together. The game ends when one side destroys their opponent by causing four points of damage through torpedoes or mines.
Each ship has six Bridge Stations:- Engineering generates power for the other stations.
- Helm maneuvers the ship on the map.
- Weapons loads the torpedo tubes to attack the enemy.
- Sensors locks onto the enemy so torpedoes can hit, and uses jammers to stop the enemy from locking on.
- Shields helps protect the ship from enemy torpedoes.
- Tractor Beams can grab the powerful crystals, move the enemy ship on the map, and launch Mines.
There are no game turns in Space Cadets: Dice Duel. The game continues with players acting as quickly as possible until one side wins.
Each player will be in charge of one or more of these stations, or have the overall roll of Captain to coordinate everything.
User Reviews (2)
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Overview
Space Cadets: Dice Duel is a frantic die-rolling space combat game of teamwork and intensity. This game is the little brother of Space Cadets the co-op game, but plays fast and furious. Teams pit each others skills at manning space ship stations while attempting to pulverize their opponents space ship.
Pros
Plays in about 20-30 minutes.
Good components
Rules laid out well.
Strong theme
Cons
Sometimes need a break after a game to calm down:-)
Really need at least six people to play (harder at the minimum)
Gameplay
In Space Cadets: Dice Duel, players break up into teams to go head-to-head as they commandeer space ships to take each other out. The goal is to damage the other teams ship at least four times to attain victory. This is all accomplished simultaneously in “real-time”, because there are no turns in Dice Duel. On each team, each player will get a set of “stations” to man just like the game “Space Cadets”. However, the stations in “SS:Dice Duel” are different from “Space Cadets”, in that they require dice to activate certain functions. The most important station is the “Engineering” station which powers the other stations. The engineers job is to roll the dice that activate other people’s station, by handing off to the people manning the other stations. The people receiving the engineering die will begin rolling their own set of colored dice to activate certain functions of the ship whether that is “shields”, “weapons”, “helm”, “tractor beams”, or “sensors”. Once a station has placed it die, the engineering die is returned to the engineering station. Now keep in mind, that rolling dice in this game is NOT like Yahtzee or King of Tokyo. Players can roll as many times as they want until they get their desired result. The only limitation is that stations can only roll as many of their dice as they have engineering dice from the engineering station. The engineering station only has limitation on the number of dice based on the amount of ship damage they have taken.
Now the game doesn’t just do die rolling. Each team’s ship is on a grid map that has randomly placed asteroids and nebulas which affect shields and sensors respectively, and there are power crystals which can add special abilities to your ship once you capture them in a tractor beam. Each ship is jockeying for position on the board to attack the opposing ship, so careful attention must also be paid to obstacles on the board.
The only time action stops in the game is when some yells “Fire One” or “Fire Two” or “Tractor Enemy”. Here firing solutions are resolved and damage potentially taken, then the game resumes again.
Conclusion
Overall, I really really enjoy this game. It is fast-paced action in a box of frantic rolling of die while trying to accomplish your objectives. This game can play very quickly. Time really flies, because everyone is so engrossed into the game. The rules are very easy to learn and are somewhat intuitive if you’re familiar with sci-fi shows like Star Trek. It’s definitely a change of pace compared to other games I have that are deep and analytical. I introduced this game to some co-workers during lunch, and everyone had fun, but felt like they needed break. The game is that intense!
So, if you’re into deep and dry games, this may not be the game for you. However, if you’re looking to “liven up” your game night, this game should really be on your table.
Gamer Recommendations
Family Gamer – YES
Social Gamer – YES
Casual Gamer – Maybe
Strategy Gamer – NO
Avid Gamer – YES
Power Gamer – NO
Who hasn’t watched the Wrath Of Kahn and secretly wanted to be on the bridge of the Enterprise barking orders and dodging photon torpedo’s whilst trying to outwit a deranged captain and his crew as you slug it out in a battle of interstellar battleships. Of course you do, well now you can.
Space Cadets Dice Duel is the sibling to 2012′s Space Cadets, its a lot easier to set up and get playing and is essentially the same game but with less faffing, and more dice. In Dice Duel you and your team pilot a ship taking the roles of the officers required to keep the ship moving and fighting.
It works like this, every station has specific custom dice rolled and placed on that panel to activate its functions. So the weapons officer is frantically rolling dice to load torpedo’s whilst simultaneously rolling other dice to also get a lock on the target whilst also making sure that they have even more dice on the jamming sensors. Somebody else is going to be doing the same but with the dice that allows them to pilot the ship, and also placing shields around the ship. And whilst all of that is happening some poor sod is running the engineering station who is tasked with rolling the correct dice to supply the power to the guys above, as they scream at you to “Give them more power!”. Not forgetting while you are doing all of that, you also A have to actually have a plan, which involves steering the ship whilst avoiding mines and asteroid fields. And B there is another ship out there doing the same thing and they are trying to kill you.
Most games I’ve played have gone a very similar way. Everyone rolls like mad, head down desperately getting shields up and loading weapons. We then try and position ourselves somewhere near the enemy ship, which has been usually doing the same thing. An overzealous weapons officer screams fire torpedoes and then notices that the enemy captain has somehow got his full shields up and is jamming us and that we loaded the torpedoes in the rear ports so we’ve effectively just blown up the small M class planet behind us. hmmm.
This is not a serene game, definitely not something to be savored like a warm mug of chamomile tea, no this is more an rowdy energy drink that comes with a small shouty man charged with punching you in the face every 5 minutes just to remind you he is there. This is a boardgame for adrenaline junkies, every moment is a mad dash to balance the constantly shifting parameters of what you are trying to do. But **** its fun.
There is a bunch of other stuff, like a tractor beam that you can use to wang your opponents into mines and nebula’s and some spiffy crystals that you can ****** to boost powers and repair stuff. Oh yes should have said that, once you’ve been shot four times its game over and every time you do take a hit you lose one of your energy dice to signify your slowly disintegrating spaceship. “She canae take nah more captain!”
This is a quick game and for once the estimated 30mins play time is accurate and makes this an excellent mid way game night refresher, it’ll certainly wake everyone up. If you are looking for a tactical recreation of starship combat then you’d probably best look elsewhere, if you love Escape or Space Alert then this is their ADHD suffering teenage love child.
All the bits in the box are great with some suitably chunky custom dice that roll very well (we tested them all) and simple but effective player boards. The rules must be applauded for being written in sensible English without the requirement of a mathematics degree or needing to cross reference them every five minutes. (trust me you won’t have time if you wanted to). And as my home group consists mostly of the mildly confused it was a relief to find something easy to set up and explain.
This is a light filler and works best with bigger groups and is an excellent party game, as long as you are aware of the frantic nature of whats about to come and don’t mind laughing at yourselves when you do something incredibly stupid then you’ll get a lot of joy from this. If your group consists of po-faced armchair strategists then you’d probably be better of with a nice game of Risk.