"Roll and Write" game "The Border": Just set boundaries

The Border is an interactive roll and write game that requires good planning despite simple rules. A review by game experts Hunter & Melli.

As the publisher describes the game: “The Border” – set your limits! Set borders and enclose areas – and all this without any waiting time! Any dice that the active player cannot use remain for the other players. Few rules, good planning and a lucky hand – great dice games can be so easy!

Review by Hunter and Melli: In recent years, the “Roll and Write” genre has become firmly established. The easiest way to compare the principle of this “rolling the dice and writing them down” is with bingo. A player rolls the dice and the result applies – with restrictions – to everyone else who is playing.

The Border is now about ticking off colored boxes on your board that form multiple overlapping borders. Whoever manages to completely enclose an area first will then receive more victory points than those players who only achieve the same thing at a later point in time.

The highlight of the game is the rules according to which the active player and the other players are allowed to use the dice result. Because the active player may re-roll three times in order to achieve the best possible result for himself with the colored dice. In the end, however, he or she may only cross off those color fields that completely close off a colored area on their own board. For this, these colored areas can be located anywhere on the tableau and do not have to border on areas that have already been marked with a cross.

For the rest of the players, it is exactly the opposite. They may use any colored dice results that the active player cannot use, and they do not have to complete any areas with them. However, they may only place their crosses where they connect to existing crosses.

These asymmetrical rules guarantee exciting games time and time again. As the game progresses, the role of the actively playing person becomes increasingly difficult. If you take too much risk and, for example, try to fill a four or five square area with one throw, you may end up empty-handed. But even for the inactive role, it is important to plan ahead and border on as many different colors as possible. Because otherwise it can happen that you cannot really benefit from the lush leftovers of the active players. In addition, you should always keep an eye on which limits the players are particularly following, so that you don’t have to be content with a thankless second place again and again.

“The Border” is an unusually interactive “Roll and Write” that promises a lot of fun and excitement with simple rules. Plus, thanks to the erasable player mats, you don’t have to worry about running out of block like many other games in the genre do.