This is Day 28 of my Game-and-Blog-Every-Day-in-November Challenge. Search my blog for “Daily Game Challenge” for previous entries.

Istanbul Dice

I’m a fan of the original Istanbul so when my buddy Mike brought Istanbul Dice to game night, I couldn’t resist. It’s a slimmed-down version of Istanbul, with the original’s pick-up-and-deliver mechanism replaced by dice and set collection.

In the two-player game I played tonight, the game is a race to six rubies. On your turn, you roll six-sided dice with symbols for resources, cards, and money. You get exactly two actions per turn and the player aid explains the actions you can do on your turn; basically, whatever you roll can be traded in for more resources, money, special action cards, ongoing ability cards, or those precious rubies. You can also turn in resources for gems that allow you to re-roll any dice.

There’s a bit of engine-building in Istanbul Dice, which I don’t remember in the original game. I liked the quick play of Istanbul Dice and it had me itching to play the original sometime soon. Fans of Istanbul should like the dice version; it retains some of the feel of Istanbul and delivers it in a smaller and quicker game.