We have no idea what “Qwinto” means or where on earth that name came from, but we do know it’s a fun dice game!

Over the last few years, “roll-and-write” games have been pouring out from almost every game publisher. These are games where players either roll dice or flip cards and then write the results on their personal sheets. A few such games we’ve reviewed include That’s Pretty Clever, Kingdomino Duel, and Metro X.

Qwinto, by Pandasaurus Games, is the latest we’ve played and we’ve been hooked!

We got a copy in the game trade at SaltCon 2021 and have played over 20 times this past month. And when we play a game that much, you bet we’re going to tell you all about it.

 

How to play Qwinto

Qwinto is a quick game to play with simple rules that are super easy to remember.

Players all play at the same time, writing in dice results on their sheets to score the most points.

At the start of the game, everyone gets a pencil (included) and a scoresheet to write on.

Each scoresheet has 3 colored rows matching the dice colors with spaces to write numbers. Most of the spaces are circles and some are pentagons. Additionally, the spaces are arranged in columns (used for scoring the pentagons).

While all players can write on their sheets on each player’s turn, players still do take turns being the active player.

On a player’s turn, they choose which dice to roll (1, 2, or 3). If they just choose 1 or 2 to roll, they carefully choose which colors to roll. If the active player doesn’t like the result, they may choose to roll the dice again (the same number and color just rolled).

At that point, players add the total sum of the dice and can then write that number in an empty space on their sheet. However, the row they may write on must match the colored dice rolled. For example, if the orange and purple dice are rolled, the result may only be written on the orange or purple rows.

When writing on their sheet, players must follow these rules:

• All numbers in a row must increase from left to right.
• No number can be repeated in a vertical column.

The passive players may choose not to write the result on their sheets. However, if the active player can’t write the result on their sheet (because of those 2 rules), they must mark off one of the “failed” boxes on their sheet.

The game ends when a player has filled in 2 rows on their scoresheet or someone has marked all 4 failed boxes.

Then players total up their points:

• If they completed a row, they score points equal to the value of the last number in that row.
• If they didn’t complete a row, they score points equal to the number of spaces filled in in that row.
• For each pentagon, they score points equal to the value in the pentagon IF they completed the column with the pentagon in it.
• For each “failed” box marked, a player loses 5 points.

The player with the most points wins!

 

Can the whole family enjoy Qwinto?

Qwinto is absolutely a game the whole family can enjoy playing together. Well, that is if you don’t have more than 6 people in your family. Otherwise you’ll have to take turns playing.

Since it’s a “roll-and-write” game and each player writes on their sheet independently, we guess you really could play with more than 6 players. However, some of the challenge of the game will diminish with more players. That’s because the element of “busting” on your roll decreases when you’re not rolling as often. As such, it really is best not to play with more than 6 players at a time.

Of course, we don’t know why the game only comes with 4 pencils if it’s up to 6 players. But we digress…

While really young players may not grasp probability of certain dice rolls (actually even adult players may not fully), they can still have fun playing as well. Plus, it’s a good way for kids to learn about different probabilities of results based on the number of dice rolled and such.

And as players continue playing, they start to better gauge where to place certain numbers on their sheet and how much space to leave between numbers and such.

Yet even with that level of thought, it’s really still a very light dice game and fun to play over and over again (like we have for the last couple of months).

One of the things we like most about the game is the simultaneous game play. Since everyone can choose to write on their sheet on every player’s turn, there isn’t any downtime in the game and everyone is interested in watching the dice rolls. Even if it’s not your turn, you care about the result – especially later in the game when you only have a few spaces left to fill in. Then you really care what’s being rolled!

We’ve also introduced Qwinto to a wide variety of players (cousins, aunts & uncles, grandparents, and friends) and everyone we’ve introduce it to has enjoyed it as well.

 

How does Qwinto score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

If the fact that we’ve burned through the whole scoresheets pad already is any indication, Qwinto scores super high on our “let’s play again” game meter.

Because we were burning through at such a rate, we did like we’ve done with a number of roll-and-write games — we laminated 4 sheets and now use dry erase markers on the laminated sheets to play. Now we don’t need to worry about running out of sheets!

The biggest reason why we’ll be playing it over and over for a long time to come is because it’s a quick game to play with easy to remember rules and choices that make you push your luck all along the way.

Grab a copy of Qwinto and start playing with your family!