Mechanism: Roll-and-write

Far to the north, in a remote winter land, rivers are frozen most of the year. When the villages along the riverside eventually are accessible, a small river cruise company offers exotic tours like polar bear safaris, reindeer trips, ice fishing, and more. Lucky tourists may even get a chance to see the northern lights.

You work as a tour guide trying to attract tourists to your guide boats for spectacular excursions.

Riverside is a different kind of roll-and-write game: The game comes with a modular game board, which composes the route for the game. On a river cruise boat, everyone follows the same route, but you can take your tourists on different tours. You may plan ahead, but beware, the dice may force you to change your plans.

You start each round by rolling dice into a common pool. Simultaneously, each player chooses one die of one specific color (without physically taking it) and fill seats on the matching guiding boat on their own player sheet. Whenever they have completed a row of seats, they have sold a group ticket of the corresponding color (excursion). The longer the row, the more points they get. Additionally, this ticket is valid for the remainder of the game: Every time they go on an excursion in a village of this color, they take this group with them to earn even more points. The player with the most points wins the game.

Each dice color represents tourists with a preference for one specific type of excursion. The transparent green die is "wild" and represents the northern lights, something everyone wants to see.

Riverside offers tough decision-making within a short playing time: Some rows are short with low points and bonuses, while other rows are long with higher points and bonuses. Which one do you start to fill? Within each guide boat, you need to score higher and higher, so taking too many tourists on your first excursions could be fateful. Players are rewarded if they manage to please all five kinds of tourists, so maybe you need to score a new color instead of scoring really high in another color? Higher dice represent tourists who are freezing and cost fire symbols to get. Note that the "wild" green die always costs fire symbols to get! You have a limited number of fire symbols to use, so when will be the right time to use them?

—description from the designer

In the early days of the coronavirus, a time of self-isolation for many people, Jamey decided to create an infinitely scaling roll-and-write game to teach and play with people around the world via Facebook Live.

In Rolling Realms, players compete to earn the most stars in a series of minigames over 3 rounds. This is a roll-and-write game, meaning that players will write on the game components using dry-erase markers.

Each turn, one player rolls 2 dice, and all players use the dice results on their realm cards to generate resources and earn stars. After 3 rounds, the player with the most stars wins!

—description from the publisher

Retrograde is a real-time roll-and-write inspired by classic 80s arcade games.

Evil Astrodroids are invading earth. Grab the joystick and blast as many as you can. Can you get the high score?

Each round, roll your dice as fast as you can. Race to roll combos shown on the target cards, claim the best card, and spend your dice to put the ‘Droids on your sheet out of commission. Be fast, or an opponent might beat you to the card you want. If you're the last player without a card, you can only reroll 2 more times before you're stuck with what you rolled.

Depending on the card you choose, you'll collect Coins and power-ups. Blast entire columns of 'Droids to destroy bosses for bonus points. Blast rows of 'Droids to unlock the power-ups you collect.

—description from the publisher

Retrograde is a real-time roll-and-write inspired by classic 80s arcade games.

Evil Astrodroids are invading earth. Grab the joystick and blast as many as you can. Can you get the high score?

Each round, roll your dice as fast as you can. Race to roll combos shown on the target cards, claim the best card, and spend your dice to put the ‘Droids on your sheet out of commission. Be fast, or an opponent might beat you to the card you want. If you're the last player without a card, you can only reroll 2 more times before you're stuck with what you rolled.

Depending on the card you choose, you'll collect Coins and power-ups. Blast entire columns of 'Droids to destroy bosses for bonus points. Blast rows of 'Droids to unlock the power-ups you collect.

—description from the publisher

Gather your courage, pack your sword, and roll the dice as you journey through the realm in search of treasure and glory. In the roll-and-write game Dungeons, Dice, & Danger, you explore deep, dark dungeons filled with treasure — and infested with monsters! Do you have what it takes to be a hero of legend?

—description from the publisher