Are you ready to make some ice cold drinks? Well, you’ll have to be quick about it! Build the best word you can with your drink dice, but be sure to include as many letters on the ice cube dice as you can, or your drink will be too warm to score. Let’s get rolling!

What Is It?

🥅The Goal of the game is to have the most points after 5, 10, or 15 rounds, depending on the length of game you’re playing
⚙️Dice Rolling / Word Game – Each round, the ice cube dice are rolled to tell players which letters they’ll want to try to put in their word. Then, players have 2 minutes to roll their drink dice (with up to 2 re-rolls) and form their word. They will score for the letters in their word multiplied by how many of the ice cube dice they matched, and then possibly add bonus points for the word’s length

Who Is It For?

👥2 to 4 Players – Scales fine at any count, especially since most of the game is simultaneous
👥Ages 8 & Up – There are some rules included for younger players as well, in case they need more re-rolls or time, or have them avoid the penalty of not scoring if they do not use any of the target letters
👥Fans of word games
👥Players who don’t mind a timed element

PROS

🟢Aesthetics / Components – Everything looks great on the table, and the quality of everything is nice
🟢Rules are well-written and clear
🟢Real-Time – I like that the timed element is not about finishing the fastest, but just about getting a word in the time allotted. It helps the game not last too long, without adding too much pressure to players
🟢Sugar Cube – I liked this optional rule to give the player in last an extra die to help them out. It didn’t have points on it for your word score, but could be helpful in extending a word, or matching something from the center
🟢Rounds are pretty quick, and everything is simultaneous, which is nice. I also like that you can choose the game length

CONS

🔴Bag – I don’t love when games are stored in a bag in general, but I also thought this just had way too many components for a bag, it was not convenient to put away afterwards
🔴Scoresheets – Each player is supposed to get their own scoresheet to track their scores each round, and I just thought that was wasteful/unnecessary
🔴Luck – If you are unable to roll the target letters, it can be pretty frustrating to only get points from the length of your roll. I don’t love the “zero multiplier” for that, since it is ultimately a game of chance

Final Thoughts

Overall, I did really like the concept of this game, and I thought it was pretty fun in practice. That said, I did watch players who, in multiple rounds, just did not roll and of the target letters, and were left with much lower score than others, even if they were able to still get a decently long word.

The only way to combat that luck is to implement those rules that are noted for younger players (i.e. unlimited re-rolls or ignoring target letters) , but that might also not feel like the best solution if players are looking for a bit more challenge.

But, it’s a pretty quick game, especially if you keep it to a short number of rounds, so if you like word/dice games, it’s worth checking out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6/10

Designer – Tim Phillips
Publisher – KOSMOS
MSRP – $22.95
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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