Dixit Review: The Artistic Clue Giving Party Game

Beautiful artwork, clever clue giving, and bunny meeples! Ten years old already, Dixit has inspired a number of excellent games since its release. But how well does it still hold up?

Gameplay

Each player chooses a player token and places it at the start of the scoreboard. Next you deal each player six cards which they may look it (but which they do not show to the other players). A draw pile is created with the remaining cards and each player takes a number of voting tokens equal to the number of players and the game begins.

At the start of the round the active player selects one of his cards and, still keeping it hidden, announces a clue for that card. The clue may be anything: a word, a sound, something made up, or a reference to something else. The other players then consult their cards. Each person chooses one they think best fits the clue, and passes it facedown to the active player. The active player shuffles these cards with the card he selected and then places them face up on the table.

The active player may not vote during the round. The other players secretly vote on which card they believe belonged to the active player. Once everyone has voted, the guesses are revealed. The active player gets no points if everyone or no one guessed his card, and everyone else earns two points. If only some of the players guessed the active player’s card, the active player and those who guessed it each earn three points. Non-active players also earn an additional point for each person who guessed their card.

All cards used that round are then discarded, each player draws a new card, the active player shifts to the player who is on the left of the last active player, and a new round begins. The game ends once someone reaches thirty points on the scoreboard and the player with the highest score wins.

Review

Dixit is undeniably gorgeous. The artwork is varied, whimsical, colorful, and imaginative, while being abstract enough that multiple, and very different, clues could be invented for each card. It’s a delight just to go through the cards, looking at all the pictures.

While there are games with similar mechanics that have come out more recently, such as Mysterium or Muse or even Codenames: Pictures, Dixit is probably the most streamlined and easy to learn of these games. There aren’t restrictions on the clues you can give. Voting is simple. Scoring is easy. And active player and non-active player are both enjoyable roles.

The components are a nice quality, with the cards nicely printed, cute little bunny meeples used as player tokens, and a bright and cheery board that goes well with the spirit of the game. The game never drags on, as a healthy number of points are always scored each round by at least two players.

Dixit is already a classic for a reason. It’s a party game that is simple and quick to learn, and will win interest as soon as someone lays eyes on it. You might have similar games already in your collection, but Dixit still stands as an excellent addition because of its streamlined rules. What it does, it does excellently.

Pros: Artwork is beautiful, rules are easy to learn, components are high quality

Cons: You may already have several similar games in your collection