You have seen and heard of some of the biggest mountain ranges in the world-place like the Swiss Alps, Mt Everest and K2-but the best of the best pales in comparison to the summit along Dicey Peaks, where Yeti Mountain is over 29K feet tall. The mountains are full of treacherous storms, low temperatures and scariest of all-the Yetis that can strike you at any time! Will you make it to the top in time and beat your fellow explorers to the top of Dicey Peaks?
Overview
Dicey Peaks is a 3-6 player game published by Calliope Games and designed by Scott Almes. Art direction and design are done by Andy Hepworth. In Dicey Peaks, you are exploring the moutain and trying to make it to the top before a Yeti or your own lack of oxygen stops you!
Game components include:
-6 Climber pawns
-6 Oxygen tank markers
-6 Oxygen game boards
-26 Mountain tiles
-13 custom dice: (4 white, 4 dark blue, 5 light blue)
-Rules
Gameplay:
Each player begins with an Oxygen board, climber pawn and oxygen tank. Once you construct the mountain in order to the corresponding numbers on the back of the tile pieces, you will begin on the edge of the mountain and set you Oxygen board level to 9 indicating your full tank to begin this treacherous journey.
Each turn you will do the following:
1-Roll dice
2-Decide to Climb or Rest
When you Roll Dice, you will chose and roll 5 dice. The darker blue offer more rest while the lighter blue offer more climb. The white sit right in the middle. Once you roll, you must decide to either Climb or Rest. If you rest, you roll for more tents. If you climb, you roll for more pickaxes. Either way you keep your Yeti rolls and keep your Avalanche rolls if you climb. You can stop or continue to roll dice, rolling three more each time.
If you chose to Climb, count up your Pickaxes and move your Oxygen tank down once for each move. Move your character up the mountain, flipping the tile you land on and doing the action. If you chose to Rest, you may replenish your Oxygen supply one for each tent you have.
Going up the mountain is no easy task, so you must be careful not to bust. You will bust and lose your turn if any of the following happen:
-You roll more Pickaxes then you have Oxygen left in your tank
-You roll three or more Avalanche symbols
-You roll more Tents than you have space to fill your Oxygen tank meter
-You roll three or more Yeti symbols
The Yeti can be a threat whether you are resting or climbing. For each Yeti die you roll, your opponents that are behind you will advance one space if you roll any Yeti dice.
When you finally reach The Summit you can attempt to win if you can find the 1 tile in the turned over 3 that contains the flag. If you find it, congrats you are the winner! Otherwise you must remain and attempt again on your next turn. You can run out of Oxygen on the summit, and if you do there is no place or time for rest-you are just out. So you need to get there quickly with enough Oxygen and get it before someone else in your expedition does!
Impressions:
Things that could be better:
Variety. As much as I like the gameplay, it felt like it could use a little variety in the way the dice roll, or how you interact with other players. Some actions or effects that the indivdual players could use against each other might have been fun to add in as well.
Dice. Now I love custom dice, and these are very cool looking. But in the wrong light, the light and dark blue are very hard to differentiate between each other. We played at the dining room table in the middle of the day and I still think it was very hard to tell the difference at times.
Things we liked:
Gameplay. I love custom dice and being able to add some new ones to the collection is great. And when it comes to dice chucking games, I really like the detail but simplicity of this game. Similar to a press your luck style like Zombie Dice, this game lets you be in charge of how hard you want to push the envelope amazing movement or rest. The addition of the Yetis means you can fall a bit behind and still potentially catch up with multiple players.
Design. The tiles, the dice and the figures are all very well done. Calliope definitely puts a lot of thought and time into the presentation of these games-it is ready to go out of the box, punched and bagged and ready for setup. The idea that we can crack it open and go is refreshing and the layout is aesthetically pleasing. This is a game that looks good on the table and catches the eye of a player who wants to see what is going on.
Overall
Dicey Peaks is another great addition to my collection from Calliope Games and one that the family enjoyed playing. It take some very nice custom dice and components and builds a fun press your luck mechanic into the game, allowing you the chance to go for broke or take your time climbing the Peak. Make sure to pick this up for your next family game night and battle your way up the mountain!
