A trick-taking game with dice?! That sounds almost like a challenge of mythological proportions. Mino Dice not only proves that it’s possible, but also delivers an entertaining game that cleverly combines traditional trick-taking gameplay with ‘push your luck’ mechanics.
Trick-taking games remain popular, but they are certainly not new. In trick-taking games, players are dealt cards, play them, and usually the player with the highest value wins the trick. The player who starts a round typically determines which suit is played, and in most trick-taking games, players must “follow suit.” To follow suit means a player must play a card of the same type or color as the first or another card in a trick, if they have one. Often, players win these games by winning tricks—or sometimes by avoiding them. Many games have used or elaborated on this standard game mechanic, adding all sorts of twists and complex features, and the mechanism remains highly popular.
Many modern trick-taking games build on the games that players can play with a standard deck of cards. Think of bridge, klaverjassen, hearts, and more. Boerenbridge (or Chinese Poepen in Belgium) is a well-known, centuries-old trick-taking game. Well, maybe “centuries-old” is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s certainly a card game that’s been around for almost a century. In Boerenbridge, players receive a hand of cards and then bid on how many tricks they think they’ll win. Players earn points for the accuracy of their bid, not necessarily for the tricks they’ve taken.
The games Wizard and Skull King (Pirate Bridge) both took Boerenbridge’s bidding mechanism and added trump cards and special powers. In Skull King, players bid simultaneously, which makes the game faster and fundamentally different from Wizard (although the games are otherwise nearly identical except for a few cards).
Mino Dice (also known as Mythical Dice) is a reissue of Skull King the Dice Game. It’s not just a dice game with the name of a popular card game slapped on it (as is arguably the case with the Wizard dice game); it’s truly a version of this popular card game where the cards have been replaced by dice. A trick-taking game with dice? How does that work in Zeus’s name?!
Mino Dice lasts 6 to 8 rounds, depending on the number of players. In each round, every player draws a number of dice from the bag equal to the round number. So in round five, each player draws five dice. Players keep their dice hidden behind their screens, just as they keep their hands of cards secret in Skull King. After everyone has received their dice, players simultaneously bid on the number of tricks they think they’ll win.
The first player of a round chooses a die from behind their screen and rolls it in the center of the table. If one of the four numbered dice colors is rolled, the other players, if possible, must roll a numbered die of the same color; otherwise, they may roll any die of their choice, or one of the special dice, such as the minotaur, griffin, or mermaid die. The die with the highest value wins the trick; in this case, the color of the numbered dice is ultimately irrelevant.
The question remains: how can you play a trick-taking game with dice? Isn’t it completely random, and dice only have six sides! Mino Dice contains a total of seven types of dice: minotaurs (brown), griffins (green), mermaids (blue), and four colors of numbered dice (red, yellow, purple, and gray). The order I just mentioned is also the order of the (probability) “strength” of the dice and thus somewhat influences your chance to win a trick.
The red die generally has higher values than yellow, yellow higher than purple, and the gray die contains four flags (zeros), a 1, and a 7. The minotaur beats the griffin, the griffin beats the mermaid, and the mermaid beats the minotaur (and therefore also the griffin in the rare case that all three compete for a trick). All these special figures beat the numbered dice. The best die wins, and in the case of a tie, the last player to roll wins (unless only flags are in play). The player who wins the trick collects the dice in front of their screen and starts the next trick.
When all tricks in a round have been played, it’s time to tally up the points. If you’ve hit your bid exactly, you get 20 points per bid trick; if you miss your bid, you lose 10 points for every trick off, whether it’s more or less. If you bid zero tricks and achieve this, you receive 10 points for each trick in the round; if you miss a zero bid, you lose 10 points per trick in the round, regardless of how many tricks you actually won. You may also score bonus points for tricks won with special dice.
The strategy lies in choosing the right dice at the right time, but luck certainly plays a role too. After all, they’re still dice, and there’s always a chance of a bad roll. Players need to manage their luck wisely.
I can reuse the intro here for the conclusion, and why not: a trick-taking game with dice seemed like a challenge of mythological proportions, but Mino Dice not only proves it’s possible, it also delivers an entertaining game that cleverly combines the traditional gameplay of trick-taking games with ‘push your luck’ mechanics.
