Crowns (2014)

Overview

Players in Crowns want to gain as many crowns as they can, and they do so by rolling dice, then covering spaces on their grids based on what they roll and how they manipulate what they roll.

In more detail, each player starts with 18 tokens and a player board that shows a 5x5 grid surrounded by a border on two sides that effectively makes a larger 6x6 grid. Next to the left column of the grid are die faces 1-6 from bottom to top, and above the top row are the numbers 1-6 from left to right.

On a turn, a player rolls the half-dozen six-sided dice once. If she wishes, she can change any die face to a lower number as long as that number is one that she rolled. If she wishes, she then places tokens on the grid to match the die combinations rolled. For example, if she rolls 5-4-4-3-3-2, she could change all the dice to 2, then cover the six 2s space on her grid; she could also change the 5 to a 4 and the 3s to 2s, then cover the three 4s space and the three 2s space. A player doesn't have to place tokens on her turn.

Once someone places her 18th token on her grid, the game ends after everyone has had the same number of turns, then players score points. Each token in the outer border is worth 1-6 crowns, depending on where it's located; each token in the inner grid is worth points only if it's part of a complete row of five tokens, and you score points (3-20, depending on the row) only for those completed rows, not for each covered space in the grid. Whoever has the highest score wins.