Qwixx on Board

• Designers: Steffen Benndorf / Reinhard Staupe
• Publisher: NSV
• Players: 2-4
• Ages: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Times played: 4, with review copy provided by NSV

Qwixx is one of my favorite roll-and-write games ever, and NSV has definitely kept the game in the public eye in the past few years with continued expansions and extensions.  In this version, a board is added to Qwixx. That’s right – ADDED. You’ll need to be familiar with the rules to Qwixx, as you’ll be playing with all the regular rules to that game as well.  It’s OK if you don’t know the base game, all of the components and rules are included in the box as well.

Each player takes a Qwixx score sheet as usual, and the six dice are placed on the table.  The score sheet here is nearly identical to the original one; the only difference is one extra scoring space at the bottom of the sheet to record the score that comes from the gameboard.  The board is double sided, and players jointly choose which side of the board they will use in the game. Each player places their pawn in the starting area on the board. 

A starting player is chosen, and that player is given all the dice.  All six dice are rolled, and the first thing that is considered are the 2 white dice.  They are summed together, and ALL players have the opportunity to cross out that number on one of the rows on their sheet.  As you cross out numbers, in future turns, you may only then use numbers to the right of this. Then the active player may add together the numbers of one white die and one colored die to then mark off a space in the matching color to the colored die chosen.    Note that only the active player can do this. If a player does not mark off a space on his turn, he must mark one of the four “bust” icons on his sheet.

Then, the active player also gets a chance to move forward on the board. He may move his piece forward 1 to 5 empty spaces (occupied spaces are simply ignored).  If the player moves their pawn forward, they must either CROSS off the matching space on their sheet upon ending movement OR have already crossed off that number.

Now the dice are passed to the next player who takes the next turn by rolling all six dice.  This pattern continues until a player has reached one of the final 5 spaces on the board. At this point, the endgame is triggered.  All other players get one more turn and then the game ends. Well, that is, unless one of the immediate game end conditions is met – namely when two colors have been completed or one player has busted four times.  If either of these conditions occurs, the game ends IMMEDIATELY.

However, the game ends, players tally up their points in the four rows, and adds to that a bonus score equal to the score shown under the board space where their pawn is at the end of the game. The player with the highest score wins.

My thoughts on the game

Qwixx is one of my favorite roll and write games, and the board offers an interesting way to play the game. The board adds an interesting added decision/opportunity to progress on your sheet.  You’ll have to carefully judge when you want to move forward at the start because you really don’t want to limit your ability to mark things off in a row (OR… maybe you are willing to sacrifice a color in order to get moving forward on a particular space!).   At first blush it seems like there might be a first player advantage as there are 1 or 2 spots which seem especially good (i.e. green 9 or blue 10) right off the bat; but since occupied spaces are ignored in later player’s moves, this opens up spots further down the track which could be maybe felt to be better…

I think that the addition of the board gives you something new to think about, but it also hastens the end of the game – because the board simply gives you one more way to get an “X” on your sheet, and while you won’t use it every turn to do so, you’ll still likely get a couple of marks on your sheet from the board at some point in the game.

So far, all of my games have actually ended suddenly with the second row being locked on the table. I think that this goes back to the ability to make extra marks, and it becomes easier to get that 5^th X in a row needed to open up the possibility of locking.  We’ve nearly had a pawn get to the end of the track, but as of yet, one hasn’t made it to the promised land…

While this maybe only interests a few people (those that have read James Nathan’s wild idea of a Roll and Write decathlon); but this opens up some new opportunities for us.  Heck, with the different sheets in Qwixx Deluxe, Qwixx Gemixxt and Qwixx Big Points – you might be able to come up with a Quixx Pentathalon here!

I think, like all of the other Qwixx variants/expansions, if you loved the base game, this will be an interesting twist on the original.  If you didn’t care for the original game, then I don’t think there is enough different here to convince you to like the series now. I fall into the former category, and I am definitely planning on adding the board and the new score sheets to my Roll and Write travel case (likely to replace the original Qwixx sheets as you can still play regular Qwixx with the new sheets).

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Mark J: What Dale said. I need to get a board & pawns for my Qwixx Deluxe…. which brings up another issue – would you make a different board for 5-8 players?

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it! Eric M
• I like it. Dale Y, Mark J
• Neutral.  John P, Craig V
• Not for me…