Matthew Bailey“Dice Fishing Roll and Catch!” is a kind of betting dice-based, social deduction-like game… and it’s brilliant.
The rules of the game are fairly simple. Essentially, you set out 10 fish cards face up in the centre of the table. These are the fish that you are all then going to try and catch. Each fish has its point value represented by hooks, a target number you need to reach to catch it, and any specific conditions you need to achieve to catch it, such as two fours.
Each player takes all of one-colour dice, which are going to act as their fishing rods.
At the start of a round, you turn one of the fish cards over to see which fish you are going to catch. All players then make a wager behind a hidden screen as to how many dice they think they are going to need to beat both the target number and fulfil any specific conditions.
Each player has five D6 dice, a D10, and a D20. The D6 are used for their point value, and the D10 and D20 can be used for their point value or to re-roll other dice, much like you do in Yahtzee. If using this re-roll ability, rolling an even number lets you re-roll twice, while rolling an odd number lets you re-roll once. If you use a special dice, then it sits out and you are unable to use it for one round.
Now the real magic comes in when players reveal their chosen dice. The player with the least amount of dice that they reckon they can meet the conditions gets to go first and try to catch the fish. If they successfully manage to catch the fish, they get to keep it and gain the point value denoted by the hooks. If not, this continues to the next person and so on. If you draw, you roll at the same time, and the person closest to and over the target number wins.
There are some other specific card rules, such as fish that force opponents to discard other fish, but that is the general gist of the entire game. It’s really simple; both of my children got it immediately. The social deduction element that comes with trying to gauge what others are going to choose and also pushing yourself to think how few dice can I actually achieve this with is something quite special. There were a couple of times at the start of our second game where Jack continuously pushed himself to be the first roller but quickly realized that playing a bit more conservatively could be the better strategy. It doesn’t take very long; the whole game lasts about 20 minutes, and we all really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately, I can’t be quite so gushing about the overall package. Firstly, the artwork is really quite dull. I don’t think they could have possibly made the visual look of this game less appealing if they tried, using pencil sketches of fish and an overall beige look. That aside, the dice that come with the game are quite possibly the cheapest and nastiest dice I have ever come across in a hobbyist board game. These are dice that I would expect to get in a game from Poundland. Most of them had marks and blemishes; one of the black dice even had some silver sparkly plastic kind of moulded into it. While I don’t think it spoiled the overall experience, should this get a second printing, I really hope this is something they can improve on.
It is worth noting there is also a mini-expansion which adds new fish types.
While this is an import, it is quite popular and therefore available in the UK from a number of places. If you are a fan of dice rolling and social deduction-type games, this is something quite special and different enough that it can sit alongside other similar games in your collection. You just need to overlook the lacklustre presentation.
