Pocket Yamslam – Yahtzee in your pocket

We’re guessing that everyone’s familiar with Yahtzee.

It’s a classic dice game played with 5 dice that you can roll up to 3 times, holding the dice that you want to complete 1 of 13 categories. Some of the categories are 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, full house, large straight and of course – Yahtzee – which is all 5 dice showing the same number. Once all 13 categories are scored, the game ends.

Yahtzee was one of those classic family games we played growing up. Simply roll the dice, make your choices and score some points. And when our family picked up a hand-held electronic copy of Yahtzee, it could suck time away like nothing else.

One of the key elements of Yahtzee is choosing when to score each category – because you can only score each category once. So if you score your 4 of a kind with 4 twos, then when you roll 4 sixes, you’re just out of luck.

Well, we’ve got a game for you where that’s no longer the case – Yamslam and Pocket Yamslam by Blue Orange Games.

The great thing about Yamslam is that you’re not limited to only scoring a category once. If the dice are giving you straights, then just go with the flow, score 4 large straights, and rack up the points.

Yamslam is easy and fun to play

Yamslam is a dice game built on the same Yahtzee mechanic of rolling 5 dice up to 3 times while holding dice that you want to use for a scoring category. But Yamslam is a lot quick and more competitive. And you won’t need to worry about recording your score on a pad of paper. Instead, when you complete a category, you take one of the chips for that category.

Yamslam dice — Collect the chips for points.

There are 8 category combinations you can achieve with a different value for each:

2 Pairs / 5 points
3 of a Kind / 10 points
Small Straight / 20 points
Flush / 25 points
Full House / 30 points
4 of a Kind / 40 points
Large Straight / 50 points
Yamslam (5 of a Kind) / Pick any chip and play again

In Yamslam there are only 4 of each chip so grab the best ones before they run out. Because once the chips start running out, your time is running out as well.

But just taking the highest value chip isn’t always the best strategy either, because you can score bonus points for having different combinations of chips in the end. For example, if you collect 1 of each chip, you’ll get a 50 point bonus and collecting 6 different chips will grant you 20 extra points. So keep an eye on those bonus opportunities as well.

Can the whole family enjoy Yamslam?

Absolutely!

As you can see, Yamslam is a very simple dice game that people of all ages can enjoy. It’s a family game that doesn’t take long to play and involves a lot of luck simply because it’s based on dice rolls. Sure, there’s some strategy in what categories you choose to go after and when. But it still comes down to who has the lucky dice rolls. And in that sense – anyone in the family can walk away with the win.

We also love the different colors of pips on the dice – red pips for even numbers and black pips for odd numbers. It may be a small thing, but we’ll admit it does add fun to the game other than just rolling standard black and white dice.

Pocket Yamslam

And Blue Orange Games didn’t stop with Yamslam – they also came out with a version perfect for travel – Pocket Yamslam!

Pocket Yamslam comes in a compact case that closes up tightly and makes it very easy to take on the road. So as we head into the spring and summer travel time, Pocket Yamslam is a great game to add to your stack of portable games to take with you on vacation.

After all, you can pick it up on Amazon.com for under $9!

Other fun family dice games you might like: