Direct Link : Farkle
Publisher : Smart Box Design
Price : $14.95
Graphics : 6 Out of 10
Sound : 5 out of 10

Gameplay : 9 Out of 10
Longevity : 8 Out of 10
Overall : 7 Out of 10

Boy do I love to Farkle. Now get your mind out of the gutter, Farkle in this instance, is one of those annoyingly addictive dice games, that you think you can dismiss after a game or two, but keeps you coming back for more, which is just the kind of game I like.

With easy to understand rules, this is one of those games, that’s very quick to grasp, but beneath the simple exterior are some neat strategic undertones, that once grasped make the game much more enjoyable.

The aim of the game is to be the player to score either 5,000 or 10,000 points first, depending on the game options selected. The basic rules are that you roll 6 dice. You can hold 3 dice of the same kind, or dice with a one or 5 displaying. You can keep rolling the dice until you have all 6 dice selected or if you fail to roll any dice of the aforementioned type, this is a Farkle and you then lose the score accrued and your turn, otherwise you can keep throwing or pass to bank your score.

There’s quite a few different options to play with, that effect the overall game play. The most obvious of these is a varying amount of human or computer players, up to a maximum of 6 including you. There are 8 computer players to choose from, all with their own idiosyncrasies. You can also select whether you want to end the game at 5,000 or 10,000 and also whether you want there to be a barrier to entry, “Break In”, i.e. a player must score at least N before they can begin their game. This last option maybe shows the one flaw in the game and that is that playing dice is random. It’s sometimes really frustrating trying to get into a game, when the other players are on 5,000+ and you have yet to score. Although I realise the random nature of dice, I did sometimes feel that the random generator was a little flawed, sometimes giving me the near exact set of dice turn after turn. I’ve not managed to nail that down to the freaky nature of randomness, or whether the random number generator is flawed, but it only resulted in the odd game feeling a little unnatural. You can also set whether to score three pairs of numbers and also if you want a player to be forced to roll, if all dice are scoring.

Conclusion : A great game and currently one that I find my self constantly coming back to, especially when I have 10 minutes or so to kill. The overall score does not really do justice to the game. The graphics are clear and bright and the sound, very functional, but only that. Where this game really scores is in it’s game play and the fact that you don’t need to devour a heap of instructions to get going.