Each year as the mid-summer festival begins, the seven panda clans gather to celebrate their many years of peace and prosperity. After all the feasts, stories, and games, the Elders host the annual competition wherein the bravest of all pandas gather to battle for honor and glory. The panda clans each have their own powers and abilities, and the Elders consider those strengths carefully as they assemble their teams.
In the dice-drafting game Panda Royale, each player starts with a single yellow die, and over ten rounds builds a hand of ten dice to earn the most points, with each color of dice having its own scoring properties. Players vie for the best drafting order to pick from the allotted dice each round.
This quick-paced game can play up to ten players, and games play in 20–30 minutes.
—description from the publisher
- Satisfying progression arc in a dice-driven game
- Accessible and fun for groups
- Theme and weight may skew toward casual play
- Character progression through rolling and scoring
- Dice-drafting and rolling game with annual racing theme
- Light, party-friendly progression
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- dice drafting and rolling — Draft dice and roll to score across rounds with progression.
- Progression by die acquisition — Progressively better rolls as rounds advance.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Actions always succeed in Vantage; the challenge is how much time, morale, and health you lose along the way.
- the limited information of I can see something that you can't see and how that encourages communication and cooperation.
- one player is playing a card and that card has instructions that the other player must follow or you lose.
- if you roll seven bells on your turn, you just instantly win.
References (from this video)
- Fast play
- Low barrier to entry
- Limited depth
- Repetitive
- cute, dice-driven chaos
- Pandas in a quick, chaotic race
- lightweight
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Dice rolling — roll dice to take actions
- fast-paced play — short rounds with quick decisions
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it has all of the DNA of the big boy except for the dice
- We're pirates. You gotta raid.
- 24 hours. Y'all can play all night long.
- Omaha gaming convention
- Save yourself. Terascape 2 is now on Kickstarter.
References (from this video)
- Accessible dice drafting with quick rounds
- Engaging two-player dynamic with potential for variety
- Promotes strategic sequencing and adaptation
- Some elements depend on luck of dice
- Limited official support or expansion knowledge
- dice drafting and power management in a compact duel
- Animal kingdom competition between panda characters
- light-hearted, humorous, competitive
- Smash Up
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Deck/hand management — Players construct and modify a personal sequence of cards to execute actions.
- dice drafting — Players draft dice to generate actions/resources and score points.
- Simultaneous resolution — Card effects resolve in a shared, simultaneous phase each round.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Face/Off. Great movie.
- Two to 10 player. Whoa, it's like a rolling rider.
- It's a simple dice drafting point scoring game.
References (from this video)
- Fast, frenetic dice drafting with accessible rules
- High variability due to dice pool and strategies
- Rules can feel wonky at first glance
- Dice drafting and competition
- Midsummer Festival with panda clans
- cheery and humorous
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- dice drafting / dice pool — draft dice from a pool to build a hand over rounds
- dice rolling and scoring — round-by-round drafting and scoring by color-specific rules
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- card dancing. It's a thing that I didn't understand and then I saw it happen and now it makes sense to me.
- An odd little game where a bird lays gems and gold.
- pirates and their inability to share properly.
- All hail the mind bug.
- I am such a fan of Tableau engine building games.
- How can you make a great gateway game and make it better? Add golems.
- Ah gosh, I want this. This is I I want this game because you start off with a yellow die and it's just who scores you score the face.
References (from this video)
- colorful dice
- short, fast play
- accessible for casual players
- high luck element
- limited depth
- repetitive feel for some players
- panda race to collect points through dice-driven actions
- lighthearted panda-themed setting with dice mechanics
- humorous and breezy
- Gardens
- Stock Exchange
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Roll-and-draft / dice tossing — Players roll dice to determine actions and scoring opportunities; outcomes drive player choices.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- break breaking news I really do got breaking news
- it's a co-op family game this is it this is it
- the box art sold me the cards were cute and colorful