Big Bang Burger Bar

(http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/image/comgames/4308.jpg) (http://www.spiritgames.co.uk/gamesin.php?UniqueNo=4308)

Although the cheekily titled Roll Through the Ages has nothing to do with the lengthy civ game Through the Ages and since it only deals with the Bronze Age should probably be docked it's plural it does manage to deliver a satisfying fun civ-lite experience in less than an hour with four people. No mean feat but since this is from the designer of Pandemic it comes with something of a pedigree.

At heart it's a Yatzhee variant as each player rolls between 3 and 7 dice (1 for each city in your Civilisation) in an attempt to feed his population, research advances or build Wonders in order to keep up with the Sumerian's. Each turn the player may choose to re-roll any of their dice up to a total of three times.

The mechanics are simple enough to be learned in a couple of minutes but are full of nicely thought out details. The “skull” side of the die for instance is instantly locked but depending on how many other “skulls” are already on the table and what choices you and your rival civs have made so far in the game may hurt you or everyone else which adds a push your luck element to what would otherwise have been simply bad luck.

There are plenty of interesting choices like that to be made along the way. Do you concentrate on building high scoring monuments or expand your empire? Should you save up for the big developments which add to your final score or hoover up the smaller ones that should help you getting there?

It's a little pricey at  just under £25 for a dice game but the components are nice and substantial. You get four wooden peg boards for keeping track of your resources, a  huge stack of double-sided record sheets and the dice themselves. Some have complained that the dice, which are wood with embossed symbols with a burnt-on effect, can be tricky to read in certain lights but I've never had a problem with them. They both look and feel very nice to play with as does the rest of them game.

The whole game can be bought to a satisfying conclusion in under an hour with four players or as little as fifteen minutes with the included solo rules. There isn't much in the way of player interaction but with practise turns should come around pretty quickly once everyone is comfortable with the rules and of course there is an element of luck but it's a fun, light filler. Following on from Stone Age maybe?

Mat Leacock has released what he describes as a "meatier" version of Roll for the late Bronze Age to play in 60 rather than 30 mins:

http://rollthroughtheages.com/latebronzeage.php (http://rollthroughtheages.com/latebronzeage.php)

This variant is more about trading (a variant in the base game) and the ships look particularly interesting.