Roll Through the Ages – civilization building with dice

We’ve got another great family board game for you – Roll Through the Ages.

Just like the name suggests, this game has a lot of rolling in it. And rolling dice can make for a great family game because with dice, you know that luck’s involved. And when luck’s involved, you know that the kids have a chance to beat their parents – which can make a great family game.

But then on top of all the dice rolling you toss in a theme that creates a setting where you’re each building your own civilization – well, then there’s even more to enjoy.

Can the whole family enjoy Roll Through the Ages?

We think this is one of the reasons why Roll Through the Ages is a great game – because the whole family can enjoy playing it.

Although it wasn’t mentioned in the video review, Roll Through the Ages is kind of like Yahtzee. It’s like Yahtzee in the sense that you roll a set of 6 sided dice, keeping which ones you’d like and then rolling again (up to 3 times) and then choosing how to score your points. And when one person selects a certain development to use their resources on, it doesn’t stop anyone else from selecting that same development on their turn (like in Yahtzee how my scoring 3 of a kind doesn’t stop anyone else from scoring their 3 of a kind).

Of course there are many differences too, but everyone in the family can pick up and play Roll Through the Ages just like they can Yahtzee.

So since we drew the comparison to Yahtzee, I guess we better mention how Roll Through the Ages isn’t like Yahtzee. Of course, you could just watch the video review to catch most of the differences. But here’s a quick list of a few anyway.

In Roll Through the Ages:

You get to roll cool wooden dice with images on each side representing different resources that collect for later use.
The amount of dice you roll isn’t the same throughout the game – you can roll more dice to get more resources as you build more cities.
Scoring / buying developments along the way help augment your dice rolls later.
You get a cool pegboard to track your resources and a score sheet to track your use of those resources to score points.
You can affect other players by rolling dice in such a way to cause disasters on your opponents.

Can more than 4 people play Roll Through the Ages?

Unfortunately, there are only 4 pegboards in Roll Through the Ages to play the game with. But does that mean you can’t have another player join in if they really want to? Well, if they really want to they can be creative and just find another way to track the resources.

Since those pegs move up and down the board every turn, it will just take some creative tracking. Those pegboards really are a great way to track everything.

And what’s more – kids love to move the pegs all the time. Rolling dice, moving pegs, choosing which developments to buy and monuments to build = lots of fun.

How does it score on the “Let’s Play Again” score meter?

Roll Through the Ages is another game that we’d gladly recommend to every family out there. It registers high on the “let’s play it again” gauge.

You know what we’re talking about – that’s where at the end of the game everyone shouts out, “let’s play it again”? It’s a simple game that’s quick to play and seems to end just as you’re getting warmed up – which drives an easy decision to play again.

Thanks go to FRED Distribution – the publishers of Roll Through the Ages.