Quick Takes: 
2-4 players 
30-60 minutes 
Ages 14+ 
Level 1 (easy to learn, easy to play, and FUN!)
Welcome to Cubitos! Just ignore that the cover looks like Sponge Bob dressed up in Alpine lederhosen. The somewhat goofy cover belies an amazing dice-rolling, push your luck game. Crazy puns abound. In addition to Mr. Square Pants, there are characters like a wizard dog, a rock-and-roll pineapple, and a baseball playing beaver. (I call the pineapple!).
In Cubitos, players compete in the annual Cube Cup, a race of luck and strategy to be named Cubitos Champion. The main board is a race track, and each player has a runner on the racetrack plus a pit crew. Each turn, roll dice and use the results to move along the track, buy new dice, and use abilities.
The game works like a deck building game, but with dice. You start with a basic pool of dice, and you buy better ones as the game progresses. Each player tries to upgrade the quality of the dice roll - and each turn, you roll at least nine dice. Not very lucky? I can see your hesitation with Cubitos. That's where some of the strategy elements come in. Green dice mitigate busting when pushing your luck (kind of like the flask in one of our favorite push-your-luck games, Quacks of Quedlinburg). Other dice have different abilities, so players can adopt different strategies to roll for.
Tired of Yahtzee? Try this for your next family game night. It's loud and fast and fun, just like Yahtzee, except Cubitos has a lot more packed into this box. The game features two double-sided boards with racetracks, so you have four tracks to choose from. The replayability is really high on this one, because in addition to the many racetracks, there are eight different colors of dice and each color comes with seven different cards that give that color different abilities. What's not to love?
- Because we are tired of Yahtzee.
- Because we really, really want to play as the rock-and-roll pineapple.
- Popular Mechanics Game and Toy Awards