PLAYED FOR YOU

CaStro

Yatzy for Rows of roofs

Some game mechanisms are all over the place by providing ideas and inspirations for other games, for instance Yatzy and Four in a Row, here combined in Castro: On 6x6 squares all possible results are marked - Two-of-a-kind 6x, Yatzy (= five of a kind) 3x and three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, Straight and Full House 7x each.  

Each player has 15 roofs of his color and, in a turn, rolls five dice and has a maximum of five rolls for a useable results, which he need not announce at the start of the turn. You can set dice aside and re-roll them later. Depending on the number of rolls it took to achieve a result you place your roof onto an empty square only (if you did five rolls) or on a square already holding a certain number of roofs, for instance four roofs if you rolled only once. You need not use available heights and must always use your last result; a roof set on a four-roof stack is secure, it cannot be topped. If you cannot place a roof you lose a roof. If you are first to achieve four roofs in a row in top position or manage to place three roofs into Yatzy squares on any level you win, or else the game ends after 15 rounds and you win with the highest score from top positions of your roofs.

A simple yet sophisticated game, offering a bit of tactic in choosing of levels, but usually one has to frustrate row-forming by other players or to try to achieve topping of a four-roof stack which then enhances the risk of an unusable result and loss of a roof. All in all a nice combination of luck of the roll with the tactic of position choice, a well-working end recommendable family game.

Players: 2-4

Age: 8+

Time: 30+

Designer: Jürgen P. K. Grunau

Artist: Johann Rüttinger

Price: ca. 20 Euro

Publisher: Noris Spiele 2013

Web: www.noris-spiele.de

Genre: Dice, placement

Users: For families

Version: multi

Rules: de en fr it

In-game text: no

Comments:

New edition, first edition as Cuatro at Noris 2013

Well-working combination of mechanisms

Tactic combined with a high chance quota

Good family game

Quickly explained

Compares to:

All dice games with re-rolling for results and additional use of results

Other editions:

Currently none

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0