This post originally appeared on my old blog: PinkMeeple
Three Little Pigs is one of my daughter’s favorite games and it should be yours too. Why? Simple Yahtzee mechanics that everyone understands. The theme is cute and solid. It also adds just a little more difficulty for other or all players with awards cards.
Published by Iello Games and designed by Laurent Pouchain with illustrations by Xavier Collette, it is part of what is now a two game “Tales and Games” series. The box looks like a book as does the second game Baba Yaga. Inside the box along with the game is a 6-page story book of the The Three Little Pigs.
The object of the game is to build houses out of the various tiles. The taller the house, the more points. The better the building materials, the more points. In other words, wood is better than straw and brick is better than wood. You can also score bonus points if the tiles have a little flower pot picture on it. But the game will end when a certain number of the stacks of tiles have been emptied which varies depending on the number of players.
In the setup of the game, you have 9 stacks of 4 tiles each. Three roofs, three windows, three doors; each in their respective building materials: straw, wood and brick. C’mon, you know the story. There are 5 pink colored dice; three with black icons and two with white. The dice are pictured with doors, windows, roofs and wolves. A player rolls the dice, keeping what they want, and rolling the remainder up to two more times. If you can get 2 symbols, you can buy that straw part of the house. If you roll 3, you can buy that wood part of the house, and 4 lets you buy the brick part. You can also mix and match if you can “afford” it. However, if you roll one wolf, you have to put it aside and cannot re-roll it. (Note: wolves are only on the black imprinted dice and not the two whites) If you roll a total of two wolves, bad but fun things happen.
When two wolves are rolled, the player stops rolling and cannot buy anything. He/she picks an opponent’s house and spins a spinner. For more unsanitary fun have the player blow on the spinner! Whatever the spinner lands on (straw, wood or brick) the wolf blows that down. Those tiles are removed from the game. Tiles on top of that collapse on top of the ones below. A house can have several windows but only one door and one roof. Although a door is not necessary, once a roof is put on top, it is completed. Uncompleted houses do not score any points at the end of the game. That’s it! There are optional award cards that can be put out on the table as well. If players complete the objectives on any of those cards, those players get extra points.
Natalya dominates at this game. Dice like her. They hate me. Iello has a real winner here. The components are top notch. The dice are nice and the tiles are thick and well illustrated. Be it known, I am not a fan of spinners. I am also not a fan of people “blowing” on my game bits. I wish they had included a single die with three straw sides, two wood sides and one brick side to replace the spinner as an option. I know…nitpicky. I have only played it with two people. Although it scales to 5 players, there would be some significant downtime for the others while they wait for people to roll. But overall the game is solid, plays fast and is a great time.
Viel Spaß!
