Qwixx Longo

• Designer: Steffen Benndorf, Reinhard Staupe
• Publisher: NSV
• Players: 2-5
• Age: 8+
• Time: 15-20 minutes
• Times played: 5+ with review copy provided by NSV

As I’m sure you know by now, attendance at SPIEL 2021 was impossible for me given the current situation of the COVID Pandemic.  Our blog is blessed to have writers in Europe, and a few of them were able to go to the show, and they were gracious enough to help us get a huge parcel of games to play from the show.

Qwixx Longo was one of the smaller games that I was looking forward to trying.  Qwixx has been a favorite here, being one of the first roll and writes that I came across.  The original version of the game made it into our poll of the top 10 Roll and Write games a few years back:

“#4 – Qwixx / Qwixx Deluxe

Designed by Steffen Benndorf, Published by NSV and GameWright

Qwixx has different colored rolls: two have ascending numbers, and two have descending numbers.  The goal is to mark off as many spaces as you can in a row, but you can never mark off spaces to the left of one you’ve already marked.  There are six dice in the game — two white dice and a dice for each color of row — and all players can mark the sum of the white dice, but the active player can also mark the sum of a white die and a colored die.  If you’re ever not able to mark a row, you take a penalty, and the game ends when two colors are locked (which happens when a player has so many spaces marked off) or a player takes too many penalties.

Qwixx is certainly one of the better-known roll ‘n writes.  You can even find it in big box stores such as Target or, as I was once surprised to see, Kohl’s!  It was nominated for Spiel des Jahres in 2013.”

It has spawned a number of follow up games and expansions – and we have also reviewed Qwixx Bonus, Qwixx on Board and Anubixx in years previous.

This newest version is most similar to the base game – though one big change, instead of d6, the game now uses d8!  As a result, the scoring sheet is a bit longer as the tracks now must go from 1 to 16.  The rules for the most part follow that of the base game (as summarized above).  The differences:

• Each sheet has a pair of lucky numbers in orange stars (under the rows) – when you are the active player, if the sum of the white dice equals one of your lucky numbers, you can cross of the next available number in the colored row where you have the fewest crosses. 
• The right end of each row has two numbers in the locking area, and you can use either of these two numbers to lock and close off a row.  You must have at least 6 crosses in the line to lock it.

The game still ends when either a player marks his 4th failure space or when the game has two closed off rows.  You tabulate your score at the bottom of your sheet.

My thoughts on the game

So, this game really is just Qwixx with d8.  It adds a little bit of length to the game as the rows are necessarily longer, but some of the game length is mitigated by the higher variance of the d8 – you will likely take some numbers that are much further away from the previous cross – but this ends up being OK as you have a longer row to start with.  The lucky numbers are also a nice way to help mitigate this luck by giving you a chance to mark off the leftmost available space in your worst row at the time.  

At first the lucky numbers seemed a bit weird as they are not equal distribution (in terms of probability) – but while I have been too lazy to do the math on my own – I wonder if the probabilities even out in the end.  For now, we just roll with it, take the top sheet off the pad when we start, and just play the game.

But in the end, it’s really the same game (at least to me).  I’ll gladly play it as Qwixx is one of my favorite roll-and-writes; and it remains easy to play.  Roll the dice, usually take what seems to be the obvious choice, and then do it all over again.  A few of the gamers in my group liked it for the slightly increased strategy and slightly increased game length.  I, on the other hand, prefer the shorter original which provides a similar experience in less time.  My copy of the game was gladly accepted by the resident OG Benndorf fan boy, so I know it’ll get a lot of play in his home.  

As far as I can tell, this version is not yet available here in the US – though you can find the original at mass market stores and online.  Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3pMwUGm

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it. Dale Y, Steph
• Neutral.  Mark J
• Not for me…