Rattlebones Board Game

Plays two to four players. Takes about 20 minutes to play.Here is how the game works. Each player is given three medium sized monkey meeple's and a rat token that is placed on the game board's scoring track. Each player has three over-sized plastic die of a different color, black, white and gray. At start of the game you will roll one die (doesn't matter which) and then move your character accordingly. All the spaces on the board will allow you to change one of the pips on your die. When you land on one of these spaces you will take whatever the designated piece is for that space and place it in your die. You need to use a little tool to pop out the pip. It is very easy and will not fly across the room if you do it right. All you have to do is hold the pip with your thumb while you use the little tool to pop it out. Sometimes you can just use your fingers to get them out. Now, when you roll your die you will have special actions that you can do. Some of these actions will allow you to steal points, move to a different space, gamble for more points or roll again. There are thirteen different actions in total. The one pip on the die can never be taken out as this is what makes the Rattle-bones character move on the scoring track. Every time you roll a one then Rattlebones moves on the scoring track but in the opposite direction. When a player's scoring token reaches Rattlebones then the game is over. The player with the most points win. It seems like in the beginning if will take forever to reach rattlebones. But as you build your die then you start to rack up points fast.Pro's1. Great looking gameboard with high quality colorful components.2. Unique die building game that is easy to teach for most ages..3. Takes about twenty minutes4. Light strategy. There are choices on what parts of the die you want to change that will earn you the most points.Con1. There are a lot of pieces to this game and only one big insert for the box. If you get this game you might want to get some little plastic boxes to separate your pieces.

As I usually say on these reviews, I have a LOT of games. I've seen a lot of them. This one has a beautifully unique mechanism that allows a family to literally build their dice (almost like Legos). The games starts off on the slow side and then ramps up to a beautiful conclusion. I have a 9 and 6 year old and they've really enjoyed the game. It's just a joy to pick the new faces of the dice and watch as the face you just chose gets rolled and points start accumulating. The creepy little Rattlebones figure moves slowly forward and things go round and round until suddenly (within about 30-40 minutes) it slams to a close and a winner stands up. Whimsical, but not overdone, circus-like them that is sorely underrated by boardgamegeek.com euro snobs. Buy it if you have a family that like cool board games.

I love this game. The board changes every time you play, so the strategies available to players change too. It's easy to learn the basic rules and play a game in half an hour or less, which is my sweet spot for light gaming. The game parts are well made, but the organization in the box is very poor. I solved the problem by buying an organizer at lowes (Tough Box 16-Compartment Plastic Small Parts Organizer), which fits snugly inside the game box with no modification and allows all the parts to be available without a bunch of setup time (see pic). I have since slightly rearranged the die sides but otherwise this makes the game super easy to play.

Un juego familiar bastante divertido y fácil de aprender. Pueden jugar tanto niños como adultos, para esto simplemente no pongan en el tablero algunas de las locaciones mas complicadas y pronto.Lo malo es la calidad de algunos componentes que no es la mejor (la calidad del cartón principalmente), los dados y peones de madera son increíbles!

I really dont have any complaints about this game. Multiple strategies work and keep the replay value. I picked it up for only $15! Some people complain about taking the sides off the dice. We dont have any issues.

While I like this game too, my five year old grandson goes nuts over it, shrieking "RATTLEBONES" every time anyone rolls a "1". He does need help understanding what the various options are but he is in the game for the long haul.

This is one of those games that you finish playing and want to set up to play again immediately. It is very easy to understand and play. There is luck involved but also a lot of strategy depending on how the board is layed out and how you configure your dice.

I love this game! Good quality game. So much fun, easy to play, and each time is a little different. One of our favorite games to play.

Rattlebones is a fun game that takes a lot of well known mechanics and mixes them up to make something quite unique.It's essentially a Roll & Move game, which might work well for players that like light, luck based games ... but the options available to you when you land on the board spaces suggest that the developers were aiming for a more mid-level difficulty game - with collecting and cashing in sets, plus 2 or 3 other different mechanics all affecting the outcome. Also, the strategic choices you're given are affected by the ability to customise your dice, swapping out faces as you play.This range of actions available make it a bit of a muddled game in my opinion. It tries to be simple by using well established mechanics, but then throws too many of those mechanics in as options. To me, it feels like a fore-runner of the concept of customising dice as you play rather than a particularly good implementation of it.I think, on gameplay alone, I would have wanted to give a higher rating ... but it also falls foul of a pet peeve of mine. Component organisation.There are no dividers or bags inside the box. That means that in between plays, all of the components are intended to be slung back into the box all mixed together. That'd be fine if there weren't HUNDREDS of little components to sort through the next time you play.The interchangeable die faces are small plastic disks that are actually tricky to pick up, and several types of them are very similar colours. I disliked this to the extent that I had to buy a plastic gem box to keep them all in. Granted, this isn't unusual, but people generally do it because the components fall out of their intended spaces in the box while being carried - not because the box is literally just a big space to throw everything in together.So yeah, that's why the 3 stars!On gameplay alone though, this is a fun game to play. But don't expect non-gamers to pick up the rules very quickly. It looks a lot simpler than it actually is.

Simple elegant dice rolling game that has a sneaky amount of tactics. You choose one of your three dice to roll and move one of your three pieces, when it lands on a space you get to decide if you want to put that dice part onto that die. If you roll an action you take it. Very simple game but the building your custom dice doesn't seen tactical it actually is. Very fun quick easy game!