Tenzi Review - A Dice Rolling Game

Review – I received an interesting little game this year called Tenzi. Prior to receiving it I had never heard about the game which is rare as I like to try and keep up with any game that is out there.

The game itself comes nicely packaged in a tube with 40 dice (all D6's) in four different color combinations. The tube is a little odd as I think a bag would be better but for what it is it works. Also included in the game is a simple instruction sheet explaining how to play and the story of the creators. The story is nice as it's a simple garage packed game that caught on and got decent distribution. Two ad agency guys decided to make a game, came up with this and started selling it out of their garage is the short version.

To play you'll need to round up 2-4 players that are old enough to understand how to roll dice and match them. Each player gets ten dice and rolls them. From the initial roll each player picks one die and then trys to match the rest of his dice with that roll. First player that gets the same result on all ten dice wins. Simple right?

In practice the game is really fun (although a bit to random for some people) and I can see busting this out at gatherings and as a time killer. The basic game is easy and fast, just roll and roll until you get all ten. The extra rules include a variation where you can steal dice from your opponents if they match your chosen number. This variation gives a bit more player interaction and is my favorite.

For most hardcore gamers though you probably already have 40+ dice and can play this without buying the game. Although the dice are very nice and come in some interesting color combinations, so you might want to pick this up just for that.