Cubitos – a fun dice-building, racing game!
It’s time to get your race face on.
Because today we’re sharing all about this dice-building, dice-rolling, power-upping, push-your-luck, racing game!
It’s a new game by AEG called Cubitos.
(The game name has to be a reference to wide variety of cubes (dice) that make up the game, right?)
And lest you think you’re seeing SpongeBob SquarePants on the cover of the Cubitos game box, you’re not!
What you are seeing is a really big chunk of cheese wearing lederhosen!
Why? We have no idea.
But it definitely grabs attention. And if you’re like us, it makes you very curious about what’s inside.
So, let’s dive in!
How to play Cubitos
Cubitos is a push-your-luck, racing game with a lot of dice-rolling.
Players are “participants in the annual Cube Cup, a race of strategy and luck to determine the Cubitos Champion.” As such, the first player to cross the finish line will be the winner.
Crossing that finish line first will require buying more powerful dice, getting bonuses along the way, and pressing your luck with all your dice rolling.
Set up
Each player starts the game with 9 basic dice (7 grey and 2 black). They also get a Player board (where they’ll be rolling and moving their dice each round) and a Phase token (which lists the steps of each round).
The colorful dice are placed in their dice trays around the game board and players select the abilities for each color. There are 7 unique abilities that each set of colored dice can have in a game. But only 1 will be used for each race.
So players can either draw a random ability card for each color or follow one of the prescribed combinations listed in the rulebook.
Players then choose 1 of the 4 race boards, place their Runners on the Start area, and they’re ready to go.
Playing
The game is played over a series of rounds where all players will complete a Roll Phase and a Run Phase. Players don’t take turns during these phases. Instead all players play at the same time — only waiting between each phase for other players to finish that phase.
ROLL PHASE
During the Roll Phase, players first move dice from their pool of dice in the Draw Zone to their Roll Zone equal to their Draw amount (starts at 9 dice). Then they roll all their dice.
After rolling, players move any dice that result in a success (have an icon showing on top) into their Active Zone. As long as they move at least 1 die into their Active Zone, they can choose to roll the rest of the dice in their Roll Zone again. Or they can choose to stop rolling.
However, if they choose to continue rolling and have at least 3 dice in their Active Zone, they run the risk of Busting.
If, after rolling, they don’t get a single success, they Bust. In which case, they move all the dice in their Active Zone to their Discard Zone. Since they now won’t get to use any of those dice on this round, as a bonus, they can also move any dice from their Roll Zone to the Discard Zone as well. And they move their Fan (Runner on the Fan board) forward 1 space on the Fan track.
If they choose to stop rolling before busting, they wait for the other players to finish their Roll Phase before moving on to the Run Phase.
RUN PHASE
This is when players get to use their dice abilities and race!
Players now use the abilities indicated on their dice in their Active Zone. Each colored die gains the ability shown on their card for that race. These abilities include both Movement and Buying power as well as additional, special abilities.
For each Footprint showing on a die, the player moves their Runner 1 space on the race track.
For each Money symbol (circle with a number in it), the player has that much they can spend for buying new dice to add to their stash. They may buy up to 2 dice each time, but they must be different colored dice.
Players can also gain Credit tokens. Whereas normal money must be spent on the turn it was gained, the Credit tokens can be saved from round to round and only discarded when spent.
If a player’s Runner ends their movement on a track space with an icon, the player gains that bonus. These include things like extra money, gaining an extra die, removing a die from their stash, moving their Fan ahead on the Fan track, or even warping to another space on the race track, and more.
Also, as a player’s Fan moves ahead on the Fan track, they’ll also gain additional bonuses from those spaces (like Credit tokens and being able to Draw more dice).
After using their dice, players move the dice from their Active Zone to their Discard Zone (dice in their Roll Zone remain there).
Once all players have completed the Run Phase, they move back into the next Roll Phase.
When Drawing dice at the start of the Roll Phase, players will first count the dice remaining in their Roll Zone from the prior round and only draw up to their Draw amount from their Draw Zone. Once a player’s Draw Zone is empty, they move all the dice from their Discard Zone to their Draw Zone and continue drawing for their roll.
Players continue cycling through these phases until a player crosses the finish line on the race track.
If only 1 players crosses, they’re crowned the champion!
If more than 1 player crosses the finish line, the player who goes past the farthest is the champion.
Can the whole family enjoy Cubitos?
If your family enjoys dice-rolling games, and not taking turns, you’ll want to give Cubitos a try!
Because there are so many dice in the game, they’re all mini-dice (12mm) rather than standard D6 sized dice (16mm). And we love how colorful they are!
Plus, every set of dice has its own probability of success – showing their cool icons. How can you not love rolling them?
We really love the simultaneous play in the game. Rather than taking turns, everyone goes those each stage of the game at the same time. During the Roll Phase, everyone is rolling their dice, moving successes to their Active Zone, and choosing whether to press their luck and keep rolling or not.
And then when the Run Phase comes, everyone uses their dice at the same time as well. Since Runners on the track can share spaces, there’s no need for turn order. So you can move your Runners and buy new dice while everyone else is doing the same thing.
The only real downside to this is that if you’re worried about others cheating, you’re out of luck. You’re just going to have to trust that they really rolled what they say they rolled and moved their dice to their Active Zone correctly.
Of course, if you’re playing with younger players, you may want to slow down a bit and see how everyone does while they’re learning. It’s not that you’re accusing them of cheating, but just that you want to make sure they understand the flow and such.
We also love the all the variety in the game.
With 8 different sets of colored dice and each of those having 7 different ways they can be used, and with 4 different race boards, the possible combinations are practically endless!
The rulebook includes 10 suggested combinations of ability cards to use — which will give you a great taste of how the different dice may combo off of each other. So there’s at least 10 fun games. But then you can randomize the card sets to even more wacky fun forever more!
We really like games that have a balance of luck and strategy.
And while Cubitos relies a lot on luck, you’ll have to make careful choices along the way as well. Since each die has a different probability of success and have different costs, you’ll want to choose carefully which dice you buy.
Should you save up and buy a powerful die, or buy 2 lower-cost dice?
When it’s time to move, do you go out of your way to land on a Bonus space or keep to the inside of the track for a shorter route?
With a limited number of dice to roll each round, which dice from your Draw Zone should you add to your hand to roll?
And when should you press your luck?!?
Every round you’ll have to choose when to either stop rolling or rolling “one more time” and risk busting. And if you do bust, you may choose to also discard dice from your Roll Zone — freeing you up to have better combos of dice in your next Roll Phase.
So even though the outcome is dependent on your dice rolling luck, there are many choices throughout the game to keep everyone engaged and thinking the whole time.
Having so much variety is a great thing, but it also means that at the start of each game, you’ll want to get familiar with the 8 different abilities in play.
We find it helpful for everyone to pay attention as a player reads each of the cards for the dice being used for that race. Then players can openly discuss which dice might work well together. This helps everyone formulate some plans of which dice they might want to buy along the way.
Another cool thing about the game are those little bonuses that help those that may be behind.
The first we’ve already mentioned — moving your Fan forward on the Fan track when you bust. Those spaces grant things like Credit tokens and Hand token. The Hand tokens allow you to roll additional dice during the Roll Phase. So those are sure nice to have.
In addition, the race tracks have lines/fences across the board that are like markers. When drawing dice into your hand to roll, count how many of those lines you are behind the leader and you’ll get to add that many more dice into your roll for that round.
As you can see in some of the photos, you’ll need a fair amount of table space to play Cubitos. The race tracks themselves aren’t very large. But once you place the various sets of dice and allow each player to have room for rolling dice, you’ll need space.
Oh, we ought to mention that those dice boxes are used for both displaying the dice during the game as well as storing the dice in the game box. But they don’t build themselves!
You really don’t have to use them if you don’t want to, but they really do add to the whole “cube” theme and look cool on the table.
But you’ll have to assemble them before your first play. The back of the rulebook includes a diagram of how to fold the include sheets into the dice boxes that’s very simple to follow.
How does Cubitos score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?
Cubitos scores very high on our “let’s play again” game meter!
It’s almost infinitely replayable because of all the unique dice abilities and how they could mix together. We haven’t yet played all the 10 prescribed set ups in the rulebook, but we’re excited to do so. And we know there’s many more combo possibilities beyond that to keep us having fun for years.
Even with simultaneous play, the game lasts from 30 to 60 minutes, so we may not play a lot of games in a row. But we’ll probably play 2 games in a row simply because of the time it takes to set up and put away (opening all the boxes to take all the dice and tokens out and then opening them all up again at the end of the game to put away).
After all, “since we’ve already got all the dice out, we might as well just pick some different card abilities and play again!”
