I’m posting about a game every day in September! Here’s a link to yesterday’s post.

Busy today so I only had time for a quick solo game: the roll-and-write puzzle, Rolling America. I’ve written about this game before so I won’t re-hash the game play here.

What I will talk about is how this is a game I always enjoy when it hits the table. It’s fast yet puzzly, simple yet full of tension. The dice determine your fate, but you have a few options to mitigate your rolls. Have I talked about how I think gamers complain about luck too much? While I understand the argument, I’m not always sympathetic to it. A little luck, properly used in a game, can be a lot of fun. Nothing like sweating those dice, hoping they fall your way.

It’s one reason why I think roll-and-writes have been all the rage lately. Crunchy Eurogames are fine, but sometimes I just want to chuck some dice and figure out a way to deal with the results. There’s something so satisfying in the tactile sensation of rolling dice; it just feels better physically than flipping a card, consulting a chart, or pushing cubes on a board.