There's just something about a big pile of dice that draws the eye. Clearly the publishers of this game understand that, as it is packaged with a big clear plastic bubble in the front of the box showing off the fact that it contains a boatload of dice: six complete sets of polyhedral dice, sixty tiny d6's, poker dice, dice with random pictures on them, and more. When I saw it in a store display, I was compelled to buy it, even though I knew it probably wouldn't be a good game, and I don't really need more dice. There's just something about a big pile of dice....

In spite of not needing more dice, I'm certainly pleased with what I got here -- nothing earthshatteringly fancy, but nothing shoddy either. All hundred-plus dice are of decent quality, and it's probably as good or better than what you'd get in one of those "pound of dice" grab bags (and pretty close in quantity and price). The game is really just a bonus.

Gameplay is simple. The board is divided into three regions: Actionland, Thinkingtown and Triviaville. A path winds through all the regions from Start to Finish. Each turn, you draw a card that corresponds with the region you currently occupy, follow the instructions, and move forward if you successfully complete the specified activity. First player to reach Finish wins. Actionland cards are physical activities, Thinkingtown features more intellectual challenges (mostly involving basic math), and Triviaville is just what it sounds like.

Not surprisingly, the game is extremely uneven. Some cards are quite entertaining (Actionland features some clever Pictionary-style challenges and the ever-popular dice stacking), but others are mindnumbing (too many Thinkingtown cards involve rolling ridiculous numbers of dice and performing pointless math on the results only to earn a single space forward on the board). The trivia just feels out of place. The "roll a d20 and do that many push-ups" card may be met with some objections. Some players will be annoyed by the fact that the game is extremely random and borrows elements haphazardly from other party games; others will be pleased by the fact that almost every turn is completely different. Either way, it's pretty much guaranteed that some turns will be fun and others will not.

When I played the game with a fairly large group (ten people split into two loners and four teams of two), it took about two and a half hours to play -- decidedly longer than the thirty minutes suggested by the box, and definitely longer than the average party game group is likely to tolerate. During the course of that time, we went through well over half of the cards in the game. This suggests that the game is not designed to scale well for very large groups (even though team play is mentioned in the instructions) and also that its replay value may be somewhat limited. Still, there are all those dice... and a creative group might easily remove the more pointless cards and replace them with better ideas.

This certainly isn't a classic for the ages, but it's respectable for what it is, and it's not a bad way to built up an instant dice collection. I certainly don't regret the purchase!

Just picked up a stack of games (mostly from the late sixties) at a yard sale, and one of them doesn't appear to be on the 'Geek and also doesn't include any instructions. In fact, based on its format, I'm not 100% sure it's even a game... just thought I'd see if anybody recognizes it and could provide further information.

It's called Zick Zock and comes in a small square box. Inside is a block of wood with a symmetrical pattern of pins inserted into it and a few rubber bands of different colors. Looks like the sort of thing that could just be a solo logic puzzle, but it might also be a game. Either way, the objective appears to be to stretch the bands around the pins in various patterns, but that's simply a guess.

Only clue as to publication is a logo showing a bee and the letters KFL, plus the number 7011 (probably a product code). No copyright date, no other text of any kind.

If anybody is interested, I can share pictures. If anyone can offer some clues as to what this is, I'd be interested to hear them. I'd love to get an entry for this on the site if one belongs here!

thanks,
Demian

Attorney Power is a roll-and-move game, and it suffers from the traditional pitfalls of the form: too much reliance on luck, and too many dreaded "miss X turns" spaces. However, in spite of its inherent flaws, sometimes a roll-and-move game is a nice mindless way to end a game night, and Attorney Power has enough good ideas to make it entertaining for at least a play or two.

Basic gameplay is straightforward -- every player has a law office on the board containing twelve empty spaces. The objective is to fill these empty spaces with clients. Clients can be obtained by answering questions about legal cases or by getting lucky on certain board spaces. There are also four cards which can be purchased for special powers (an extra turn, double winnings, new clients on spaces that are otherwise useless).

The most interesting game element here is the fact that at the start of play, each player is dealt Office Records cards. These show unethical activities that the player participates in and/or special abilities. On certain spaces of the board, players are allowed to investigate one another -- at this point, the current player can take one of his or her opponents' Office Records cards. If it is an unethical activity, it is turned face up and its owner is penalized. If it is a special ability, its use generally transfers to the person who investigated it. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of variety among these cards, and the rules regarding their use aren't worded as clearly as they could be, but the idea of each player having different abilities and flaws adds to the game considerably.

The game also deserves credit on a couple of other points -- the cartoon illustrations on the board and the client pieces that fill players' offices are quirky enough to add flavor to the game, and the legal questions on the cards used to earn clients are genuinely thought-provoking (and seem to remain quite relevant even twenty-five years after the game's release).

Attorney Power is by no means a great game, and its components don't entirely come together as a satisfying whole. However, if you come across it at a flea market or thrift store and you're not completely averse to a bit of roll-and-move now and then, it's not a bad little diversion.

Diadem has been sitting unplayed on my shelf for well over a decade -- I don't often get the right crowd together for hex-and-counter games. However, this time around, we had a very small group (just three players), so I pulled it out at long last to give it a spin.

After a lengthy period of counter-sorting, we set up the board and began play. Based on the entry here, we expected about four hours of play to ensue. This was not to be....

It only took a few turns for two of us to each expand our territory by claiming a neutral sector. The third and final neutral sector became the site of a protracted battle, with landed ships getting blasted off the ground before a colony could ever be established. Elsewhere in the galaxy, the two players now controlling four sectors apiece began taking potshots at one another, while the player with the fewest sectors began intense fortification activity.

Thus the game proceeded.... One player fortified, two players battled endlessly over the last remaining neutral sector, and a different pair of players harrassed each other's occupied territory without making much headway. Occasional propaganda and espionage results caused minor inconvenience, and tech level advances temporarily put some players at a small advantage over one another... but the game kept rebalancing itself.

After about six hours, we started talking about reducing victory conditions to end the game. However, even changing victory conditions from five undisputed sectors to four would not have allowed an endgame in the foreseeable future. It was easy to create disputed sectors but hard to make headway in actually capturing anything. The battle for the final unclaimed sector was still showing no signs of ending. We played for another hour or so and then called it a stalemate.

As we are not hardened veterans of this style of game, it's entirely possible that we were missing the strategic point... or that the strategies we chose were effectively cancelling each other out. In any case, the game prompted a lengthy discussion about strategy and has some interesting mechanics (the regular vs. hyperspace movement is a nice touch, as is the secret bidding for propaganda and espionage), so we were relatively happy with it. However, it's extremely slow-moving and requires a great deal of long-term planning, so it's clearly not intended for players who lack an impressive attention span. If the stars align, we may dig it out again and see if we can do better now that we have more of a clue as to what we're supposed to be doing... but until then, I think I'll stick with Amoeba Wars when the space conquest mood strikes.