Fandooble – Steal the Gold

Fandooble dice game box — What lies in store for us?

We don’t know exactly what “Fandooble” means. But it must have something to do with knights, wizards, dragons, and gold because Fandooble is a family board game (or dice game rather) that’s all about stealing gold from dragons (and other players).

Fandooble isn’t a long adventure board game like Defenders of the Realm or Fortune and Glory. Rather it’s a simple, light game of rolling unique wooden dice that’s enjoyable in its own right.

How to play Fandooble
Like a number of other recent dice games, Fandooble is built around the abilities of the unique images on the dice. Players take turns rolling the 4 dice and pressing their luck to steal as much gold as they can.

Fandooble dice game — Roll well and get the gold.

Here’s what each item on the dice gives you:

Treasure Chest – steal a gold coin from the dragon’s lair (pile in the center of the table) and put it in your Loot pile
Man Flipping Coin – he’s Fandooble and the player can steal a gold coin from another player and put it in your Loot pile
Green Dragon – can be fought off with a knight
Red Dragon – can be fought off with a wizard
Knight – combats/cancels a green dragon
Wizard – combats/cancels a red dragon

When it’s your turn, you can push your luck and roll the dice as much as you want with a few limitations: If you roll a dragon you can’t re-roll it unless you also rolled a character to combat it. So you must set the dragon aside and only re-roll the other dice. But if on the subsequent roll you get a Knight or Wizard, they can cancel out the dragon previously rolled.

So each turn you’re checking to see if you can fight off a dragon and steal coin from the center of the table or other players. If you get to steal coins (via Treasure Chest or Fandooble), then you can pick up those dice and roll again. Also, if you have a Knight and a Green Dragon, you can pick both of those up and also roll them again (since the Knight cancels the Green Dragon).

The cool thing about the re-rolls in Fandooble is that you get to steal gold coins and add them to your Loot pile every time you roll a Treasure Chest or Fandooble character. You don’t re-roll X number times and then stop and collect coins. You get coins along the way. So if you’re rolling well, you can keep collecting.

The trick however is that if you ever have 3 dragons showing on the dice without a character to combat them, you lose your pile of Loot and it goes back to the center of the table. If you stop before having 3 dragons showing on the dice, then you move the gold coins in your Loot pile to your Stash (the piled of coins you’re storing up).

If you ever get 3 red dragons, then not only does your pile of Loot go back to the center, but the coins in your Stash go back as well.

So it’s up to you every turn how much you want to press your luck. Stash your Loot or keep going for more Loot.

Once the pile of gold coins in the middle of the table is depleted, the game is over and players count up the gold coins in their Stash to see who wins – the player with the most coins.

Can the whole family enjoy Fandooble?
Yes, the whole family can enjoy playing Fandooble.
It’s a very simple game of rolling dice and pushing your luck. And it’s always fun to see who the riskier players are in your family. The only downside with younger kids is they don’t like their gold coins being stolen by their siblings (or their parents).

Wooden dice are cool.

We’ve played a number of board games that include wooden dice, but none with dice as big as Fandooble. Take a look at this photo to see a size comparison between a Fandooble die and a standard D6. These are good size dice.

The first game we picked up that had wooden dice with images on them (rather than just pips) was Roll Through the Ages. And we love the light and natural feel of wooden dice.

The wooden Fandooble dice have fun, colorful images on every side that make it very easy to immediately tell what you’ve rolled. The style of the images are also fun and comical and fit the playful nature of the game.

How does Fandooble score on the “Let’s Play Again” game meter?
Quick, light dice games like this often score high on the “let’s play again” game meter. And Fandooble is no different. When the game ends, there’s always a call to play again – a good sign that it’s a game that kids enjoy playing.