Mark Off Boxes and Plan Ahead in Roll-and-Write Encore!

Choose a color and a number die and mark off the matching color boxes on your player sheet. Complete columns and colors before your opponents to earn bonus points.

Published by Stronghold Games, Encore! is a roll-and-write for 1-6 players with a 20-minute playtime.

Gameplay

Each player has a player sheet showing colored squares placed in columns and rows. The squares can be one of five colors. Each round, a different player is the active player. He rolls the six dice – three of them are number dice and three are color dice. The active player chooses one color and one number dice combination and removes them from the dice pool. Each other player also chooses a number and color combination from the remaining dice pool.

Everyone then marks off boxes on their player sheets based on the combination they selected. During the first round, the boxes must be in the center column of the player sheet, but afterward they can be any boxes that are adjacent to previously marked-off boxes. All the boxes marked must be connected to each other, must be of the color indicated by the combination selected, and a player must mark off the exact number indicated by the number die he selected. Five is the highest number of boxes a player can mark off in a single turn. Both number and color dice have a joker side, which allows a player to choose the desired result as part of the combination. Each time a player uses a joker, he marks off one of the exclamation point boxes at the bottom of his sheet. If a player does not have a valid move, he passes and does not mark off any boxes that round.

Players earn points for completely marking off all boxes in a column, with the player who completes each column first scoring more points. Players also score points for marking off all the boxes of a single color, with the player completing a color first also scoring more points.

The game ends once a player has marked off all the boxes of two different colors. Players add up the points from marking off colors and completing columns and earn one point for each exclamation mark box not marked off on their player sheets. Some boxes on the player sheets also have stars on them. Two points are deducted from a player's final score for each one that is not marked off at the end of the game. The player with the most points wins the game.

Review

Encore! is a straightforward roll-and-write game that doesn’t overcomplicate itself. The challenge comes in trying to keep options open several turns ahead and trying to make room for whatever the dice roll. This results in a solid combination of luck of the roll and strategy.

Working out from the center, expanding in different ways across the board, trying to mark off those star boxes, balancing filling the columns that are closer to the center with those farther away, all come together in satisfying gameplay and interesting player choices.

Scoring is simple and it’s a nice mechanic that you’re motivated to not always use jokers when they’re rolled. Those exclamation boxes can make all the difference in the final scores.

It's important to note that there isn’t really any player interaction here, outside of racing players to be the first to complete columns and colors.

There are a lot of roll-and-writes out there now, and some players might find the abstractness of Encore! a little bland. However, that simplicity has charm, as well, and does make this a game that is easy to dip into.

Pros: Nice simple rules that blend well with interesting choices

Cons: No player interaction, lack of theme may turn some players off

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.