Firefly: Shiny Dice lasts three rounds, and whoever has the most points after three rounds wins. In each round, each player takes one or more turns. On your first turn in a round, you roll all fifteen dice — seven crew dice (brown), three passenger dice (white), and five bad guy dice (black) — then place them in the appropriate places on your display. Crew members and passengers all have unique abilities, some of which involve the option of rerolling dice.
After any rerolls, you reveal your mission for the round. If you have dice on your board that match the numbers given at the top of the mission, then you're unaffected by the bold line — Bushwhacked, Gorram, etc. — immediately underneath. Otherwise, you might be forced to end your go after the current turn, forced to take an additional turn, or affected in some other way. After revealing and resolving the mission, the bad guys strike:
Each Badger die holds one supply die.
Each Saffron die moves a crew/passenger die of your choice to the cargo hold.
If Niska dice are present, KO a crew/passenger die of your choice.
After this, you then use any remaining crew and passenger dice to defeat the bad guys, which generally require one point of damage to defeat. Remove them all, and you score 1 VP for each type of bad guy defeated, with half-points for each supply delivered; fail to remove them, and you score no points for the defeated bad guys. If you clear the turn, you can opt to take another turn — rolling all the bad guy dice and all non-KOed crew and passenger dice — or end your turn. If you opt to continue, but then fail to defeat the bad guys, you lose all the VP that you earned previously on that turn.
After three rounds, whoever has the most VPs wins.
The WORST Board Game Ever?
- Firefly Universe
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Push Your Luck — An upcoming push your luck game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- there's not really going to be a lot of direct sales happening here I wouldn't say although there may be there may be some during the day of course there'll be also be seminars for retailers to attend as well including Premier presentations
- legendary one of their Premier games is going to be featured on tabletop and any game that is featured on tabletop sees an immediate boost in sales
- the Fantastic 4 one that one's being discontinued
- Secret Wars is the next big expansion announced for Marvel legendary
- the various universes of Marvel are colliding and when I say the various ones I mean like the traditional 313 Marvel Universe Ultimate Universe um the cartoon Universe like the X-Men cartoon so Wolverine from that cartoon be fighting The Wolverine from the 313 Universe plus the Wolverine from the Ultimate Universe
- upper deck which is really pushing and expanding their gaming line is going to be releasing a Euro right a traditional Euro although it has a rather unique theme it's called bring out your dead
- the legendary system has been quite popular for upper deck and they introduced the aliens world with an encounter set and this is uh a different style of play than maybe what you saw in our Marvel legendary series
- think of it like a living card game they can't call it that because that's fantasy flight's terminology but essentially that's the format that you're looking at here
- they also announced that they'll be releasing a crow board game now this is not within the legendary system or any of the other systems as far as I realized but a brand new board game property based on the crow intellectual property
- Firefly shiny dice an upcoming push your luck game in the Firefly Universe of course many people were excited about that
References (from this video)
- Well-organized packaging and inserts
- Quality dice and colorful components
- Thoughtful storage design and player mats/screens
- Clear Firefly thematic tie-in in description
- Visual/theme alignment with Firefly is not immediately cohesive (white aesthetic)
- Unboxing included an unpleasant packaging odor
- Some play mats appear to be mousepad-sized rather than full boards
- Rules depth and thematic explanation are not thoroughly explored in this unboxing
- crew-based space adventure with missions
- Firefly universe; space opera pirates
- unboxing commentary
- Strain (board game)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Component-driven setup and storage — Box includes roll-up mats and a structured storage layout for components
- Mission-based objectives — Players roll and complete as many challenges as possible to advance in the round
- Player screens with quick-turn references — Hidden information and quick reference icons are provided via player screens
- Push Your Luck — Roll dice to chase mission rewards; continue until you bust or decide to stop
- push-your-luck dice — Roll dice to chase mission rewards; continue until you bust or decide to stop
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this game is called Firefly shiny dice
- press your luck style dice game set in the Firefly universe roll up get a mission and complete as many challenges as you can before your luck runs out
- look at how neatly everything's packed up in a box here
- it's a pretty neato addition
- what the hell is going on
References (from this video)
- Quality components: dice with engravings, multi-colored, and a grippy play mat
- Play mats and stand-up player aids are polished; lots of mission cards
- Crew member abilities map well to Firefly characters and add thematic flavor
- Time length is short (~30 minutes) and doesn’t overstay its welcome
- Rulebook is hard to learn from and is consistently unclear; lacks diagrams
- No diagrams for gameplay or setup; jargon-heavy with insufficient explanations
- A designer-provided tutorial is almost mandatory to start playing
- Missions feel weak or inflexible and often rely on luck due to randomness
- Missions are not thematically consistent and can be illogical
- Push-your-luck is weak; the game leans toward solitaire and limited interaction
- Downtime is excessive; heavy downtime and little to think about when not your turn
- Only two player mats are included for up to five players; scalability suffers
- No meaningful tie-breaker rule
- Cargo and supply mechanics feel underdeveloped and underwhelming
- Array
- Firefly universe (space voyage)
- episodic
- Deep Sea Adventure
- Incan Gold
- Candy Land
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Asymmetric crew abilities — crew member dice grant special abilities aligned with Firefly characters
- Asymmetric Player Powers — crew member dice grant special abilities aligned with Firefly characters
- Dice Rolling — roll 15 dice per turn, organize them, and re-roll some to fulfill missions and defeat foes
- Low interaction / solitaire play — minimal interaction; players largely operate on their own turns
- Mission-based objectives — draw mission cards after rolling and fulfill them to gain points
- Push Your Luck — risk additional rolls for more points but risk losing dice or crew
- Resource Management — manage cargo and supply cards to gain points
- Resource management (cargo and supply cards) — manage cargo and supply cards to gain points
- Turn-based round structure — three rounds with passing dice between players
- Unique Player Powers — distinct abilities per crew member provide varied actions
- Variable player powers — distinct abilities per crew member provide varied actions
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is the worst published game i've ever played
- the game is solitaire
- it's solitaire and the random mission cards never grant you satisfying bonuses
- 2 out of 10
- the payout is nothing
- this is the definition of terrible downtime
- there's nowhere in this review that i mentioned player interaction
- the original intention was to never have these mission cards
- the rulebook is jam-packed with info and it's blocking your points
- the game really slows down when you have to constantly flip through the rulebook
- i rarely see completed (missions)