Game Review: Firefly Shiny Dice by Upper Deck

Firefly Shiny Dice by Upper Deck

In Firefly Shiny Dice, each player gets three turns controlling the crew of the Serenity. The outlaws are represented by seven brown dice (since they are Browncoats, after all) and the passengers by thee white dice. Each die face represents a different character or a piece of cargo, so rolling them all generates a random assortment often with duplicates. When rolling, the player also has to roll five black dice that represent the Foes (Niska, Saffron, and Badger).

The dice

After dice are rolled, characters are placed on a game mat (which is printed on a mouse pad, so it is very durable and flexible) in the proper locations. Some dice (River and Wash) let the player re-roll other dice, which can be helpful if the initial roll is unlucky. Then the dice are locked in place and any bonuses are applied (if there are four different outlaws, the player can remove one Foe die from the board; if there are four of one enemy, each other player loses 100 points; if there are five of one Foe, the other players get the penalty and the player's turn immediately ends).

The playing mat (probably gonna use that Wash die to re-roll one of those Jayne dice)

The active player then draws a mission card, which requires certain dice to be on the board. If they are on the board, the mission is completed and a special bonus on the card takes effect. Missions also have a key word at the bottom that add an additional effect.

Mission cards

Finally, it's time for action. If the mission was a "Shiny" mission, the player deals one damage to a Foe of their choice (i.e. one die is removed). If the mission is completed, the player gets the card bonus and can discard another Foe die from the board. Then the Foes strike. If there are any Niska dice, one crew die is moved to the KO section of the board (he killed someone!). For each Saffron die, one crew member is moved to the Cargo Hold on the board (she locked them up!). For each Badger die, one supply die is moved out of the Storage area and placed next to each Badger die (he stole them!).

Now the player decides what to do with the remaining crew members. Each character can do separate, thematic actions. Zoe deals two damage to any Foes (i.e. she lets the player remove two Foe dice of their choice). Kaylee deals one damage to any foe and moves one die from the KO pile to the Cargo Hold. Simon moves one Kaylee die from the KO pile back into the Serenity. The player tries to knock out all the Foes and complete the mission card. For each Foe completely removed, the player gets 100 points in a temporary pool. If all the foes are knocked out, the player scores any supplies in the hold and has to decide to Lay Low or Keep Flyin'.

Game in action

If the player decides to Lay Low, he keeps all his temporary victory points, puts them behind a screen, and passes the dice to the next player. If the player decides to Keep Flyin', any dice in the KO area are passed to the next player and the active player re-rolls all the remaining dice (including the five Foe dice) and does another round of possibly re-rolling, drawing a mission card, taking the Foes' damage, and using the remaining crew to knock out the Foes.

Each player gets three turns. At the end, everyone counts their victory points (supplies are worth 50 points each). Whoever has the most points wins.

The game is very thematic. Each character does something that they would on the show and their symbols on the dice match them nicely (Wash has a dinosaur, Jayne has his hat). The dice are high quality and the other components are well made. The player screens have a summary of the turns and the effects of each die face, making them a great player aid in addition to hiding how much they have scored so far.

On the other hand, the game is very complicated, and too complicated for a press-your-luck style game. The mission cards are a little confusing, especially with the mission types. If the Bushwhacked mission is not completed, the player is forced to Lay Low. If the Gorram mission is completed, the player is forced to Keep Flyin' (if they even knock out all foes). If the Escape mission is completed, the player can end their turn and take their points before knocking out Foes but they don't have to. It's a bit hard to keep everything straight. The character powers work nicely but analysis paralysis can set in when calculating an optimal move. The Keep Flyin' option happens at best two times since the active player is always losing dice, because knocking out five bad guy dice gets much harder.

The other problem is that each person plays their turn solitaire, leaving the other players nothing to do. With two players it isn't so bad but a five player game is very long. I haven't had one where we played all three rounds just because of time constraints. Also, the game has no build up between rounds, making it feel like the same thing again and again. Maybe if there were a rule that let players buy dice back from the KO pile, it might make the game more interesting. But it would also make it longer, so I don't know. The box says the game plays in thirty minutes, but that must mean per player when the players are experienced enough to remember all the minutia of the rules. I think the game is better as a solitaire experience where one player tries to get the best score he can.

Zombie Apocalypse Appropriateness: The game components are fairly compact and very sturdy, so they would be easy to carry around and would last a long time. Also, I think the game is more fun as a solitaire experience, which fits well in a zombie apocalypse. And it brings back happy memories of the TV show and movie, so there's that. Once the power is out, it's a good way to relive the show.

Gen Con 2015 Firefly Games I Tried

So as not to delay the games portion of my Gen Con report, here is the first sampling of games I played, namely those based on the TV show Firefly.

Firefly: Out of the Black is an interesting card-based co-operative game where players take on the roles of Serenity's crew (but not the entire crew). The players work together to complete jobs that have Fightin', Flyin', and Thinkin' checks. Different crew members have different levels of each--Wash scores high in Flyin', Jane scores high in Fightin' but not Thinkin', etc. Players boost their characters' attributes with cards from their hand, but can't tell what they are boosting. One player may boost the Flyin' enough and then another player may put it over the top, which can turn out okay because complications ensue when a card is played from the Gorram deck. We players found it frustrating because the intelligence checks were hard to clear, even if we had chosen the smarter crew members. The game is too tough to be fun. We talked about how the crew usually did poorly on their missions which makes for entertaining story telling but not so much for entertaining game play.

Firefly: Out of the Black game

Firefly: Fistful of Credits is a fun, fast dungeon-crawl type game that sees the crew boarding a derelict space ship to find money and disable some traps. The derelict was abandoned because of a Reaver attack and some Reavers are still on board. Actually, a lot of Reavers are still on board. Each player chooses one character as their main character and another as a side kick. Each has a special power, though the side-kick version of a person isn't as good as their main-character version. The main character wanders through the ship finding stuff and fighting Reavers with the side kick's help. We enjoyed playing it even if we didn't win because it was thematic and fun, not frustrating. We came pretty close to winning.

Firefly: Fistful of Credits

My characters

Fire Fly Tall Card is a mixture of poker and mahjongg. The cards have three suits (plum, bamboo, diamond) and three types of dragons (white, green, red). Players are dealt a hand of five cards and have a chance to get the "Tall Card" which will make a suit into a trump suit or a dragon into a wild card. After the Tall Card is taken (if nobody takes it the dealer has to), a round of betting happens. Then players get new cards (though whoever has the Tall Card can only get one new card). The list of winning hands is long and complicated since dragons are worth more than the other cards. Even people familiar with poker had a hard time assessing which hands were better. If you get used to it, I suppose it's a fun game but it has a steep learning curve. I'd rather just play poker.

Firefly Tall Card in play

The box

Firefly Shiny Dice Game is a dice game (duh!) where each player has three turns to earn as much money as they can. At first, the player rolls fifteen dice, a mixture of villains, Firefly crew, and supplies. After sorting the dice, the crew has to fight the villains and complete a mission to keep flying. Players spend their crew to remove the villains. Spent crew are knocked out and not re-rollable for the next round. If the player fails to make it to the end of the round, any cash gained by eliminating the villains is lost. If they player succeeds, they get to keep supplies and have the option to try again with fewer dice (i.e. the knocked out crew dice aren't used but all the villains come back) or to lay low and collect the cash from eliminating villains. The game is a little fiddly. Each mission is in a category (Shiny, Gorram, Sabotage, etc.) and we had to keep referring back to the rules for the special circumstances that apply to each. The game has great components, feels very thematic, and is a lot of fun. I played again on Sunday in a "Play to Win" event where the person who came in first received a copy of the game. I did come in first and got to take the game home! The game doesn't come out for a couple of months, so I may do a more substantial review soon.

The copy of Shiny Dice I won!

Fistful of Credits is not on Amazon--buy it here.



Shiny Dice is not available on Amazon yet, but can be pre-ordered here. Expected release date is November 2015.