From the publisher:

“It’s the fast-moving dice game with a wild side! Players roll all 10 of their color dice at the same time. Dice that come up bones are wild – they count for any number you want. Keep rolling until one player has all 10 of their dice with the same number. Includes rules for 8 other games.”

Inside the Battling Bones box you’ll find instructions and 40 dice in 4 different colors (so there are 10 of each color). Each color has seven standard 6-sided dice and three with 2 sides with number replaced with Xs (different numbers are missing on each die).

The basic way to play Battling Bones is for 2 to 4 players to roll all 10 of their dice at the same time seeing who can get all 10 to show either bones or the same number. On each roll players save the dice they want and pick up and reroll the rest. The basic game ends when someone yells “Bones!” when all their dice show either bones or the same number.

The Good

Battling Bones works best as a simple, short game and is great for a quick warm-up for your game night.

The instructions include the base rules and 8 different variations in addition to team play and tournament play rules.

The simplicity of this set is its strength. It is a great game for the whole family (the box says 7 & up) and our 8 year old loved it the most of all and I would think kids as young as 5 or 6 could get involved with simpler rules.

The best thing about this game is you get 40 dice and no limit on creating your own rules. We let the winner change the rules each game and the kids really enjoyed that.

If you have people rolling as fast as they like, the gameplay can get pretty fast and furious.

Battling Bones also has potential to be a great game for adults with cocktails, especially if you add in your own crazy rules.

The short length of each game allow people to quickly get in and out, so it works well as a party game.

If you get tired of the game, you have a ton of replacement dice for other 6 sided games.

The Bad

This game could get boring pretty quick if you play the main game rules… but they encourage coming up with new games and provide rules for 8 other games.

This game could get boring pretty quick if you play the main game rules… but they encourage coming up with new games and provide rules for 8 other games. The replay and length of play for this game is pretty short and is not something people will be dying to play again and again each week for a long period of time.

The game is a lot more fun with 4 people than 2.

Overall

I picked this game up for $12 online at Indigo.ca after Christmas. We played this game a couple of times with ourselves and with guests and had fun both times. We have not brought it back out again… yet. I’m sure we’ll play it again as a warm up on game night or if we have company over.

I softly recommend buying Battling Bones, especially if you can get it for closer to $10 than $15 like I did.