Rolling and Flipping to Write

Rolling to Victory

The mechanic of "roll and write" (as well as "flip and write") is not necessarily a difficult mechanic to understand. Players generally have a set of dice (or cards) that are rolled (or flipped) and then utilized to fill in various components on player mats. They can be most often found under the larger category, "Paper and Pencil", although not all games in that category fall under the "Roll and Write" category (I'll be using "R/F&W" to designate the mechanic). Games like Telestrations and Pictionary do have a drawing ("write") component to them, but fall more under the category of "Party Games" rather than a "Flip and Write" game.

R/F&W generally have each player utilizing their own personal board or pad of paper to compete with one another. There might be interaction with other players such as drafting cards, dice, or even exchanging boards briefly, but generally player boards tend to be very self contained and usually have end-game scoring once a set of objectives or rules have been met. These can sometimes fall into the "solo/solitaire game" category of mechanics, but not necessarily exclusive to that category.

R/F&W also can be extremely diverse in how they achieve the mechanics and end goal of the game, often resulting in games that feel very different, yet still utilizing the same idea of using dice or cards to determine what is being written on the player pad. There seem to be some notable games recently that have gotten updated versions that include a R/F&W option and I thought I would take some time to note some of my favorite R/F&W over the last year or so.

Where It All Began

The grandpappy of Roll and Write Games.

Until I began working on this entry, I believed that the originator of the R/F&W genre had been Yahtzee, but upon further research, I found that Yahtzee was actually an iteration of older dice games like Poker Dice and Yacht. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahtzee), the game of Yacht and Poker Dice were the original versions of the game that would be created and marketed as Yahtzee in 1956 by the ES Lowe Company (later Milton Bradley). This is the earliest instance of a R&W game that I could find in my research into the genre and while one could argue about the rudimentary nature of Yahtzee, it opened up a genre of games that continue to be popular nowadays.

I definitely found it interesting that Yahtzee was really the first mass-marketed game that utilized mechanics where players took down scores based on what was rolled on the dice. Dice games had been around for a very long time before Yahtzee, but this was the first recorded instance of someone utilizing a mechanic of having different goals to achieve with various dice rolls. Heck, there have even been games that we can date back to ancient times in Iran and Scotland, and multiple counts can be found in historical documents of dice being used to not only play games, but also as a way to wager or cast lots.

Dice rolling has been a mechanic almost as long as we have a recorded history and yet it took until the 1950's for a version of a roll and write to be developed and marketed. I have no doubt that there were games that predated Yahtzee that used this same mechanic, but due to history of those games not being recorded, we don't really have any way of confirming or denying the existence of something earlier. I apologize about the long diatribe about historical references to dice rolling as I tend to enjoy etymology of words and mechanics and digging into the deeper historical context of them.

Rolling Around The Board

As the originator of the genre, I thought that I would just quickly highlight a few roll and write games that I've enjoyed or have been interested in trying in the last year or so.

Dinosaur Island: Rawr 'N' Write - I'm going to come out and say it that the creators of this game missed an amazing opportunity to have the name of the game be Dinosaur Island: RAWR (Roll And WRite). It's an excellent pun and while it does leave the rolling and writing aspect in question, I think a subheading of "Roll And WRite" would have cleared up any further clarification questions. While I have not had the opportunity to play this game yet, it has been something that I've been wanting to play ever since I picked up Dinosaur World. Rawr 'N' Write takes the essence of Dinosaur World and distills it down into a R/F&W package. It retains much of the depth of the series, but also takes up far less table space and is much easier to set up than World. It also has some card flipping involved in the game too, so it neatly bridges the gap of R/F&W. While I do know that it is available to play on Tabletopia, I have yet to make that jump as I prefer to learn and play games physically and then make the jump to digital if it is available to play online.

Rolling Realms - Another game that I have yet to play myself but it is one that has been on my "want to play" list for some time now, especially after really enjoying both Apiary and Wyrmspan. The idea behind the game is that it utilizes general mechanics and themes from other Stonemeier games (such as Wingspan, Viticulture, and Between Two Cities) to build out a set of 9 separate cards that players choose 3 of and then score. The game is played over a series of rounds where two dice are rolled and each player is able to choose which dice they would like to use on their scorecard. It even has additional expansions that utilize some of their newer games as well as an added "Golf" solo mode. The community here on BGG has been extremely active and as of writing, there are over 100 realms that are available to play with this game. The combinations are endless and intriguing and while I may not pick up a copy of the game, I probably will end up printing and playing a few realms myself.

Super Skill Pinball: 4-Cade - I love pinball games. I'm not certain why, but I think that much of it might have to do with growing up playing the old pinball game that came preinstalled on older versions of Windows (did you know that there was more than one board in the full game? I certainly didn't). I also have enjoyed playing both physical and digital versions of pinball (I spent so many hours in high school playing the LOTR Pinball game at a friend's house) so when I found out that there were board game versions of pinball, I was all in. I had a chance to play a bit of the game briefly in February and while it doesn't fully capture the magic of pinball, the game does an excellent job of utilizing dice rolls to direct where the ball will be proceeding to on the dual, dry-erase player boards. It's not necessarily going to take the place of virtual and physical pinball for me, but if I'm looking for a board game version of my favorite dexterity game with a ball, I'll take what I can get here.

That's Pretty Clever! - While I have not personally played That's Pretty Clever (AKA Ganz Schön Clever), I do have a friend who owns the original game and the sequel, Twice as Clever!. He's attempted to get me to play them multiple times over, but having not previously been into roll and writes, I had turned down the opportunity. Now that I've been able to play a few more, I've found myself open to the idea of the games. From what I've read, the game takes the dice rolling of Yahtzee as well as some similar scoring, but also adds a component of allowing passive players (those who's turn it isn't) to use dice that are placed on the included silver tray for their own board. The game seems to be cleverly designed and even sits at the BGG ranking of 171, so it definitely seems worth a shot to me.

- Utopia Engine and Other Print and Play Games - I do also want to note that there are quite a few Print and Play games here on BGG that utilize the Roll and Write mechanic for how they are played. Games like Utopia Engine, Polyhedral Park Planner, and Paper Pinball: Wolf Hackers offer simple (and sometimes pretty deep) versions of roll and write objectives. They are often free, or extremely low cost, and allow players to print off multiple copies of the game to play and replay again and again. While the overall quality can vary, the games that I listed here are generally well designed and fun to play.

Flipping Out

While Roll-and-Write games utilize dice for their mechanic of filling in player boards, Flip-and-Write games use cards in place of dice. It's not a huge change to the games, but often results in games that feel extremely different than their rolling counterparts as they use cards in place of dice which can feel far less random (despite shuffling). I've noted a few of the more prominent F&W games below, as well as some of my thoughts on them and what they bring to the table.

Welcome To... - Wow. This game is so good. What astounds me about Welcome To... is how well it implements not only it's theme, but also takes the mechanic of card flipping and utilizes it in an extremely clever manner. The game itself tasks players with entering house numbers into the houses on the neighborhood of the street, taking actions that are associated with the numbers on the bottom row of cards that are flipped once a new set of cards is drawn. The caveat is that all numbers placed on the houses must be in ascending order (with one exception, but that's advanced rules). While numbers can skip increments, they do need to be in order from 0-17. This, paired with the potential for not getting the right combination of number/action makes the game far deeper than originally presented and with the added expansions (of which there are 6 that you can get without purchasing the "special edition") adds for a significant level of depth to the game.

Welcome to New Las Vegas - This is the direct sequel to Welcome To... and adds significant more complexity to the game than the original game did. While it did follow the same formula as the original game (pairing numbers with actions, requiring players to place numbers in ascending order from left to right), the added complexity turned many off to the game and despite the original doing fairly well here on BGG (#172), Welcome to New Las Vegas has not had the same universal appeal that the original game did, currently sitting at #2387 here on BGG. While I have not personally played the game, I have had the opportunity to review the rules and the original game seems to be superior in every way, despite the simplicity compared to this sequel. However, for those looking to complete a collection of Welcome To..., this is the next game in the series.

Welcome to the Moon - With the mixed success of the sequel, Benoit Turpin and Alexis Allard really took the third game in the Welcome To... series To The Moon (pun intended). They took the original design and mechanic of the game and utilized it to create not one, not two, not even three, but eight separate boards that players can play on with this game. What's even more impressive is that they take the game and pair it with a "Choose Your Own Adventure" style campaign that allows players to go through each of the boards to learn how to play them, and then go through two to three more times to learn some of the story of the game. With various endings and hidden secrets as well as unlockable cards, the game itself retains a high level of depth and replayability, and despite being 11-12 games in, I still find myself coming back for more.

Cartographers - Cartographers and it's sequel Cartographers Heroes take the Flip and Write genre and apply it to the utilization of tetrominoes on a map (a la Tetris (1984)). While that may not seem to make sense on paper, the inclusion of overall goals, as well as managing ambushes that get drawn in on your map by your opponents, results in a significantly deep game that changes from play to play. I have the base game and have played far too often the last few days because I feel like I can be better the next time and get a higher score. Plus the quick playtime of the game (1 player I average about 15-20 minutes; 30-45 minutes with 2-4) allows for it to be a nice filler game. I hope to add the sequel to the game as it is able to be paired with the game, as well as some of the various map packs that have been created to really change up how I play the game.

Blueprints of Mad King Ludwig - While I haven't yet gotten a chance to play this game yet, I have played the original version of Castles of Mad King Ludwig (the collector's edition no less) and absolutely loved the game. Blueprints takes the mechanic of building a crazy castle and adds in the twist of making it a Flip and Write. While the basic overall feel of the game is remarkably similar from what I can tell, the added bonus of not having a giant board to set up and being able to play the game with some colored pencils makes this a "Must Play" in my book. I would also be curious to see how the game itself plays compared to the original and what is retained versus the original game. Nonetheless, this is another excellent addition to the Flip and Write genre.

Writing It Up

One of the benefits of R/F&W games is the small nature of how they get laid out on the table as well as many adding the capacity to play with larger groups of people due to the mechanism of how the game is played. Generally, compared to their counterparts that utilize an actual board to play on, R/F&W games tend to have a smaller overall table presence and represent a game that is far easier to transport. Their nature of being smaller also lends the games to being shorter and quicker than some other games, which when looking for a quicker game, tends to be a big advantage.

Having spent quite a bit of time this last year playing R/F&W games, I can say that they represent some of my favorite mechanics to be included in board games. There is so much that can be done with the mechanic and I am curious to see how it will be developed and changed over the next decade or so, especially with more games tending to have a dry-erase component included in their games to allow further replayability. While some can be very light on how they are played, often there can be a depth that is belied by the simple nature of a R/F&W game.

Having delved into the world of R/F&W, I definitely will keep myself open to the option of them when they are offered at some of my game hangouts. There's so much left to explore and the idea of finding a new classic is very exciting.

Give your thoughts: What are some Roll/Flip and Writes that you have enjoyed playing? What specific mechanics/parts have you enjoyed in those games that sets them apart from their board-requiring counterparts? Are there any games on this list that you would recommend that I try in the Roll/Flip and Write genre?

Thank you so much for checking out my blog and remember that any interaction and comment on this blog is greatly appreciated. No matter how small your contribution, it matters to me and I appreciate it all. Y'all are such a great community and I'm so happy to post these updates so we can discuss deeper about our favorite past-time.

Keep it real everyone and keep playing those board games!

*Originally published on BoardGameGeek on 18/3/2024*