Why Roll and Move Doesn't Suck - Top 10 Roll & Move Games

0:01 What's your first reaction when I tell you let's play a roll and move game? I imagine it's not a very positive thought in your head. And that's because, you know, back when I was a kid, most of the games were roll and move games. And in fact, today, even if you go into the the big box stores and you look at the mass market games, a lot of them still are rolland move. And that's all we had. A lot of most of what we had when I was a kid, there were some little niche things here and there, but a lot of them were roll and move. And it's gotten a bad rap. you know, you you think of Monopoly has it, which I've done a separate video on that on why actually Monopoly is good if you play it with the real rules. You can check that on my channel. But also, you know, lots of roll and move games that are just like, well, these aren't very well thought out. And so, the mechanism of roll and move has gotten a bad rap in the hobby board game market and for mostly good reason.

0:46 However, I'm here to say that it's not necessarily the mechanic or mechanism of roll and move that is inherently bad. It's just that it's been a mechanism and has never been or often has not been surrounded by a good game. And so here I'm tell I'm here to say roll and move doesn't suck. In fact, it's the games around it that aren't that great and the the mechanisms itself can be used in interesting ways. So today I'm going to show you my top 10 roll and move games uh that I think are great games and that use roll and move. Some of these are very old. Some of these are newer. Some of them are older games that have been reprinted newer. Uh but overall there is a good way to use roll and moon and you can make interesting and good games with them. So that's what I'm here to sort of talk about. So let's uh start it with some honorable mentions and my top 10 as we go.

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2:24 Number 10.

2:25 Number 10. Number 10.

2:27 Now, before I get to my number 10, uh a few honorable mentions and a few little notes here. Um, you know, this was a tough list to make because there still are a lot of good games that have rolling move. And some really popular ones that just missed the list are things like Coliseum, an older Days of Wonder game that is getting reprinted and re re-uplemented by Johnny Pac. I've heard this version is a lot better. So, I haven't played it yet, but if so, it may have probably gotten on this list, but we'll have to see. Formula D is a popular one. I like Formula D quite a bit, but just missed the list. And Jamaica, another one that I really do enjoy a lot, but just missed the list. There's also one that I have not played that's highly rated from Stefan Feld uh Merlin. It's a game I've just I've never played. I know it has roll and move. I know a lot of people really love it. Uh but there are some sort of honorable mentions and one that I haven't played.

3:13 So, but I am going to put some Let's start with number 10. Number 10 is an older game. Again, a lot of these are going to be older. Uh called Escape from Coldit. Now, let me give you It came out in 1973. Osprey Games reprinted it and rebrought it out in 2016. That's the version I've played. They redeveloped it a little bit too as well. Uh, let me give you a one minute overview of how this plays. Escape from Cult is a two to six player dice rolling game where you're trying to get your people to escape and the other player is the security guard and they're trying to stop you. You'll be escaping by going to one of many places outside the compound. You'll be using things like wire cutters or ropes to get down or keys to get through doors and passes to get through different checkpoints. And you'll be doing that by rolling dice and splitting that number by any amount of people that you want, trying to get multiple people in a room to make those equipments. But watch out cuz as soon as you have equipment, well, you're suspicious and you could be arrested.

4:09 With bad rolls, you get cards that help you. Whether you're an escapee or a guard, the first to get two of their people out is the winner. Otherwise, the game ends when the clock runs out and the security guard is the winner. Yeah. Now, this game I, you know, it does feel aged. There are some things about it that you're just like, "Okay." But it's thematically fun. Uh it creates a good story, a good arc. I've played this game where just some crazy things have happened and it's come down to the last row literally with the catching the last person down the tunnels. Uh it it's it still holds up. Again, it does feel dated, but it's still a really good and fun game, and that's Escape from Cold.

4:46 Number nine. Number

4:50 the next one is one of the newer games. It's called Dandelions. This is from All Play. Now, this came out in 2022, but it was actually originally came out in 2013 as a game called Birth. Um, now in this game, it's it's a lot about roll and move. Now, what happens is the beginning game, everybody rolls all their dice and then essentially you're selecting one of your dice and you're moving your pawn clockwise around sort of like a a rondelle of tiles. And those tiles have values that are going to be used to score points at the end for area control and such. Um, but there's a lot of different ways that you can kind of use the dice. Like for example, if another pawn is in your final space, you move the same number of spaces again. So you can purposely land on someone to get to a different tile. Another interesting way to use the roll and move mechanism. Um the the when the die gets when you the one that you're using, it gets placed as sort of an area control piece on that tile. So it's not just the die that you roll and you move, you're actually placing it and using it for things. Um you can move uh matching dice to adjacent uh spaces. So sometimes you're trying to match dice and then move them. Sometimes move people out, sometimes move you somewhere else.

5:54 Another little mechanism that you can do with just the the rolling moving. Um you can also reroll dice. If you land on a specific tile, that first tile, you can reoll all all the dice you haven't rolled yet. Um but then each dice scores points equal to the value of the the tile it's in because each one has a certain amount of points value where in that case the pips don't matter. But then at each garden at the end, the player with the most dice scores equal to some of the pips on their dice. So there you sometimes you want, you know, the pips do something for you, but in some of the scoring they don't. It's just a really clever way of using pretty much just a roll and move game and it's fantastic. That's Danny Lions.

6:30 Number eight.

6:32 Number eight.

6:33 This next one is Thunder Road. Now this originally came out in 1986. I played a lot of the popular games back in the 80s like you know like uh you know Thunder Fireball Island and Crossbows and Catapults and things like that. I have not played the original Thunder Road. I just missed it. Uh but I have played the newer version Thunder Road Vendetta that came out in 2023 from Restoration Games. Uh and this is just a lot of fun. I mean in this game it's it is a lot of rolling. You're rolling a bunch of dice. You're trying to assign those to your different cars, small, medium, or large. And you're going to be moving them. You're going to be crashing into people and rolling other dice to see what happens. Sometimes cascading into other crashes that do things and these things just cascade and cascade and cascade and all these things happen. It's a wild zany race. You can't take it too seriously. But the newest version, you know, it has lots of expansions, too.

7:20 You have got all these special abilities. You can draft draft these abilities. You can draft characters that have abilities. Um there's there's a lot of different things going on. Essentially, you're trying to get to the end and win, but you're also trying to mess with other players. Put your helicopter there and blow it up. You're all again, all it's a very chaotic game, but when you roll the dice, you're deciding, huh, which one am I going to roll? Which one am I going to move? I can put this one here. Sometimes you're activating special abilities with the dice. Sometimes the pips matter. I don't know which special ability you're choosing. Sometimes you need to have certain levels of pips in order to activate a certain ability. and you're trying to decide which one do I want to go where knowing that depending on the size of the car it can do well or not as well when it's smashing into other cars depending on the size. So there is a lot of strategy actually even though given it's a roll and move game and Thunder Road Vendor is a great one.

8:08 Number seven.

8:12 So this next one is actually the newest game out of all of these on the list and it's called Rattle Bones but given that it's 12 years ago it came out. Um, and Rattle Bones is just really fun cuz essentially you're crafting dice. So, you have these dice and over the course of the game you're like building your dice up. You're literally taking little pieces of round pieces and sticking them on a die and then you're rolling these dice. And when you roll the dice, sometimes you're going to be able to reroll and add more dice, but you get to choose which of the different figures on the board you're going to be moving. Sometimes you're actually moving them in a clockwise order to a different spot. And depending on which one you move and which one you land on, that's the piece you're certainly going to you're going to upgrade your dice with. So, it's almost like a deck builder in a weird weird way, but like you're building your dice, not a deck. It's a dice crafter. Um, and dice thrown is a popular uh way of doing this, but Rattle Bones, I think, even came out before that. Um, this is just a lot of fun.

9:08 It's so clever, this dice crafting. A couple other games have used this since. I'm kind of surprised more haven't because it's like, yeah, you're taking a dice and you're rolling it and you're moving or you're rolling it and taking the ability that's on there and sometimes, hey, you roll this and it points, the arrow points and you flip the die to the way it points and that's going to give you some other ability or make you roll again and every time you roll, you add a dieice and it's just you're crafting your dice, but in the end, you're rolling and moving. It is a roll and move game at its heart, but it has all these [clears throat] things and and all these different abilities and different things you don't play with everyone every game, so each game feels a little bit different as well. Rattle Bones is a severely underrated game.

9:45 Number six.

9:48 This next one was really popular when I started doing reviews back uh you know 12 13 years ago. Uh Escape the Curse of the Temple. Um which is very interesting because the designer of this game is one of the co-designers of uh one of the best strategy games of the year so far, Time Span. That's coming out uh no relation to Wingspan. That's coming out of Essen. Go check that out. I did a review of it recently. Escape the curse of the temple. It's a cooperative real-time chaotic game where you're you are rolling and moving. You're rolling dice and you're using the symbol to move into a room that has that symbol next to it. But sometimes you're going to get some the some parts of the dice that you can't roll, but there's golden masks that allow you to then reroll them. Other people can come over and give you some golden mask so you can get unstuck. You're rolling and moving and rolling and moving, rolling, getting stuck, rolling, giving dice to other people, rolling to try to get gems and such in different rooms in order to you have need to sign a certain amount of dice there to get these gems. You need to have a certain amount of gems and you can all get out. It has like a very has a soundtrack that plays as you play the game. It's super tense and really fun.

10:51 Definitely one of the best role games, Escape the Curse of the Temple.

10:55 Number five.

10:58 The next one uh came out in 2010. Uh, it's from All Play called Mountain Goats. Now, this game uh for me has sort of replaced, how dare I say this, a Sid Saxon game, Can't Stop because I feel like this does everything Can't Stop did, but it's more fun, honestly. It flows a little better in Mountain Goats. It's rolling move because you're rolling some dice and then you're coming up with a combination of the dice. You're summing them, and you have some flexibility as to that. So, hey, I might want to take my five and two and make it a seven because I add them together, and I can move up the seven mountain. Uh, so you have a lot of flexibility as to how you use the dice after you roll them. And essentially, you're moving your mountain goat up. You're trying to get to the top because then you'll get a score scoring thing from there. But then as you're at the top, every time you have that number that you roll or sum up some of your dice to that, you get it too. So you're trying to get to the top of the mountain and then milk that mountain for points, continuing to make that craft that number with the dice that you roll. But other people are trying to knock you off by getting to the top of the mountain and knocking you down to the bottom. Recently, this year actually, Mountain Goats Legacy came out. I very favorably reviewed that where the game basically it's non you go through a cycle of a bunch of different games. And each time they're adding different things, new mechanisms, and the choices you make and influence the the future games. But Mountain Goats itself, such a clever little game that uses rolling move in a great way.

12:16 Clearly inspired by Sid Saxons can't stop.

12:20 Number four.

12:24 My number four is a deduction game. came out in 1988. In fact, it was the Spiel Dejarus winner in 1988. I've played the 2013 version right when I started doing videos and such. Uh, uh, Games came out with one. I love this game. This is a deduction game. It's a basic, it's three to five players, but it's really a four-player game where you're trying to figure out who is on my team because you're going to be paired secretly with one other player, but you don't know who your teammate is. So, in this game, you're rolling and moving, but the role and movingness is interesting. It's like this big black uh uh I forget the name of the the character, uh he's got a hood, the the ambassador, and you have this thing, and you shake it. It's got these different colored marbles in it. You shake it, shake it, shake it, and then you flip it up and and some marbles are going to poke through the holes, and depending on which marble that is, what color it is, sometimes you're moving yourself on water, sometimes on the blue marble, or sometimes on land, sometimes on either. Sometimes you're moving this some bastard around that will help you get some information. Sometimes you're moving somebody else because you're trying to figure out who your partner is and sort of move each other around. It's so clever. It's basically roll move because you're shaking it and doing it.

13:31 It's basically dice but it's colored marbles instead of dice. And that is telling you where which actions you can take, where you can move, and that gives you different strategies of like where you're moving. But in the end, this game is great because you're you're trying to figure out by asking deduction questions. Are you tall? Are you thin? Are you you these things? and you're trying to figure out who your partner is and you're secretly when when being asked a question giving them some secret cards to let them know, hey, wink wink, you and I are on the same team. Don't let the other people know and then you're trying to do a specific goal that you both have that you find out uh after your teammates is you figure out where it is and you try to do it. It is a such a clever game. It's amazing. And that rolling move is interesting because you are somewhat limited to what you roll, but then given what you've get got, you got to figure out the best way to get to your plans. Uh, it's grades incognito.

14:19 Number three.

14:23 Number three for me uh is I've got sort of an it's close to my heart. Uh it's an older game back gamon. Uh this game still holds up and it's still great. Now, it's said that this game originated, you know, about 5,000 years ago, you know, with its earliest ancestors known to be discovered in ancient Mesopotonia. Um, now the rules in the English version were standardized in 1743. And the reason why this is close to my heart is because playing lots of board games back in the when I was a kid, you know, in the 80s and such. Um, again, there was not a lot of things other than roll and move games. There's chess, there's back gaming, lots of roll and move games. There was little niche games here and there. Back gaming was one that I played a ton as a kid. I remember for my 10th birthday my grand we played it so much my grandmother bought me one of those nice leather sets that's like a briefcase and the latches and you you know you bring it over I and you know what I hadn't played man in a long time a handful of years ago I played it again and I was like wow this a friend of mine gave me his mother's set after she passed away and he's like this is she had it forever I know you like that game it here it is I still have it and I played it again I was like I was actually surprised after playing h thousands of games how good it still is now in this game, you're just you're there's a certain setup. You have these the these stones on the board and you're trying to move them in like sort of a clockwise or counterclockwise way around the board and get all your pieces off.

15:47 Uh but dice are thrown and you're basically trying to figure out, well, which piece am I going to move how much? But there's a lot of strategy in there. You're trying to decide which one to move when. When do you want to knock somebody out, but then you might leave yourself susceptible being knocked out yourself. you can make these blockades uh where if you have more than one piece of yours on there, you can't get knocked off. So, you're trying to figure out when's the right time to block, when's the right time to hit them off. What are the probabilities of you getting hit off if you do that? Because if you get hit off, you're going to have to come back on the board. You're trying to get all your pieces in like your home board and then you can kind of get them all off. You can't get any of your pieces off till they're all on the back board. And then it's a matter of strategies, which ones do you want to use and this and that. But it is, you know, it's a pretty simple game, but there's there's definitely a good mix of strategy and luck. Um, and it still holds up well today, and I have a, you know, affinity in my heart for this, and that's back in it.

16:38 Number two,

16:42 my number two is a spin-off of a ridiculously popular game, Clue. I played a ton of Clue as a kid. This is not Clue. This is a spin-off game called Clue: The Great Museum Caper. This came out in 1991. Uh, I bought a used copy off eBay maybe I don't know 15 years ago or so. Uh, and in this game it's it's got the clue theme. You're basically a thief is because you're in Mr. Bod's uh, museum and but one player is the thief and they're in a hidden movement way. I mean back in 1991 hidden movement like what? This was way ahead of its time is the thief and they're moving on a little scratch pad and they're moving around and trying to steal paintings. Everyone else are the detectives are basically the clues people you know Miss Scarlet Mr. green and they are rolling and moving. Now, one of the dice is going to help them move and the other dice is going to give them a possible action.

17:29 And so, they're trying to catch the thief and the thief is trying to steal things and they're trying to basically get in the thief's way. They're trying to get line of sight of the thief because then the thief needs to like appear. Uh there's cameras that they can turn that that are on that they can try to use. There's motion sensors they can try to use. Different ways to try to see or learn where they might be, but they're trying to basically get line of sight so they see them and then chase them. Uh, but the roller move is because you're trying to decide where to go, where where they been, all this sort of thing. The thief is doing things like snipping the wires of the camera, snipping the wires in the motion detector, cutting the power. So, neither of them works. But this thief is trying to steal at least three paintings and then get out. But some of the windows and locks, half of them are locked. They got to try to get out the window and then one's locked and I got to run and get the other one out. It's I mean, it does feel aged. It certainly does. But at the same time, it felt like it was way ahead of its time and it still today holds up really well. And that is Clue the Great Museum caper.

18:23 Number one.

18:27 Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to let you know that Game Toppers is known for their highquality game mats with over 38 styles and 12 sizes from some of the top artists in the industry like Vincent Dutra and Ryan Lockett. They have the perfect storage solutions for all your mats like mat bags and mat racks. They just launched the Matt's Game Bazaar crowdfunding campaign which highlights the greatest mats on earth, including the new Victorian steampunk Matt and many others. Visit gamet topperslc.com or search kickstarter for game toppers Matt bazaar to learn more. My number one is a game that came out originally in 2003, but last year a reprint was done. It was redeveloped by Richard Garfield, who did not design the original game. Richard Garfield, the one who did Magic the Gathering, the one that did, you know, King of Tokyo, Mindbug, and many others. This is Magical Athlete. U I had played the original version with Tom Bassel uh back in like 2013 when I first started doing videos. It was one of the first games I ever played with Tom actually. He has this like madeup set where he had his own his own uh abilities. And I just remember playing that with him and being like, "This game is so fun." It looked horrible. The production on that 2003 version was awful, but we had so much fun playing that game and I was just so glad to see it come back in print and have them redeveloped the the two and three player version, which actually works amazing in the new version. Magical Athlete literally is the I mean when you say roll and move literally you are just rolling and moving and you're just trying to at the the only decisions you make in this game are at the beginning really mostly because

19:58 you're deciding which you're drafting characters that have abilities and then you're trying and then you decide which character do I want to play this round because the rounds get more and more points each round so you're trying to figure out oh am I going to play my best guy last or is everyone going to do that so I'll play my best guy third instead of in the fourth and last round But once you've got it, you roll and move. Now, some abilities do have some choices to make with them. But most of them are just like, "Hey, if I land on somebody, I get to go two more." Or, "If this happens, that happens. If the if you this one's going to trip you, this one you battle." You know, all this crazy stuff all built around a rolling move mechanism that still works well today. Uh, so yeah, Magical Athletics, my number one. Well, I hope you enjoyed hearing about some of these older and some newer games. or redone games that use roll and move in a very interesting way. Uh, and I'd love to hear what games you love that use roll and move. And I would love to see more games use this because I think these games have proven it's not inherently a bad mechanism. It's just we have a bad taste in our mouth because most games that had this mechanisms that we remember and played as a kid were just bad games that happen to use roll and move as a lazy way to design a game.

21:08 Where these people have shown you can use it, you can use it in interesting and awesome ways. Roll and move is here to stay. Let's go. Roll and move. It's been the game boy geek breaking down barriers growing relationship board against by helping you on your love.