Stonemaier Games has already given us many different gaming experiences. In Viticulture we harvested grapes and bottled wine and did some bird watching in Wingspan. In Euphoria we built the ideal society with our workers and set up civilizations in Tapestry. We built proverbial and literal bridges between our fellow players in Between Two Castles and Between Two Cities. Time flew by in Pendulum and Charterstone was forever. Cold wars were fought in Scythe and the caste system was brought down in Red Rising. In Rolling Realms, all the worlds of Stonemaier Games’ individual games come together in a modular and varied roll and write game. Ready for your world tour?
You may already be familiar with Rolling Realms, and that’s not surprising, as Jamey Stegmaier developed this game in the early days of the global COVID lockdown for online play with infinite numbers of players. Players could (and still can) print out a free version of this game and armed with a pencil or pen and two regular dice go on a world tour. In addition, Jamey regularly organized gaming sessions to play this game with fans. This game proved so popular that several people asked for a professionally produced version. Stonemaier obeyed and the result is a version of Rolling Realms with laminated and writable cards, erasable markers, two awesome chonky dice and a real solo adventure.
A total of 3 rounds are played in Rolling Realms, each with 3 worlds and 9 turns. Each turn the 2 dice are rolled and players get to tick off the dice results in 2 different active worlds. Each world is a unique mode of play. Players can roll dice to determine the wingspan of birds, collect resources in Scythe, harvest grapes and grow wine in Viticulture, and fill hourglasses in Pendulum. In these different worlds, players can collect points and get resources in different ways. With points, players win the game and with resources, they can manipulate the roll or the use of the roll.
The broad array of worlds is the highlight of the game. The different worlds provide a lot of variety in gameplay. Three worlds are used each round, so the game play is different each time. Some worlds are a bit more similar, but there is plenty of difference. The solo adventure is also a very nice addition. In a sort of miniature golf course, you walk through different worlds and challenges.
Rolling Realms is a roll-and-write that runs like clockwork. It may not offer as much variety to dice games as some lavish and thematic dice games do but remains essentially simple and very easy to learn as a result. The modularity, as I wrote, provides plenty of variety. In addition, there are also a lot of fan-made expansions already available and addition packs with new worlds are also coming. Enough to look forward to!
