How to Play Doodle Dice

Doodle Dice is a drawing game with no drawing. The recommended age is 6 and up and it’s for 2 to 6 players.

When we heard about Doodle Dice, we thought we had to give it a try. Pictionary is a family (or most of the family) favorite. And as there is no actual drawing, we thought this would be a great fit (especially the family member who doesn’t love to draw). So, how do you draw without actually drawing? It’s all in the dice.

Each of the six dice have different lines on them. They each have a face, straight line, diagonal line, wavy line, curved line and a dot. When you roll all the dice, you get to create a drawing. But you don’t have to come up with the drawings. There are cards that have the drawing on them for you to match up.

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The Doodle Dice Cards

The cards come in 6 different colors. The colors have different amounts of dice used to complete each drawing. The orange cards only use one dice. The red cards use two cards, the yellow three, the green four, the blue five. Then there are the purple cards that use all six dice to create their drawings. Each drawing has a title. The tiles are the best part. “Rub-a-dub-dub” depicts three men in the tub. There is a card with a face in between two wavy lines that is titled pigtails. And there is a picture of a swimmer playing Marco Polo. Just to name a few.

What is also good about the cards is that they have English, French and Spanish on them, making them not only trilingual but a possible learning opportunity.

Objective

The objective of Doodle Dice is to be the first player to collect a card of each color by drawing their pictures.

How to Play Doodle Dice

To start, a card of each color is placed face up where everyone can see them. This is the gallery. Next, on a players turn, she flips over a card from the draw pile to add to the gallery. Then she rolls all the dice and tries to make one of the pictures that are face up. She then can decide to keep any dice or reroll any or all of the dice. She has three tries to make one of the pictures. At the end of her turn, she collects the card that she has drawn and places in front of herself on the table. If she wasn’t successful in drawing any of the pictures, she scores no cards.

The next player then turns up a card into the gallery and tries to roll a picture.

Special cards

There are two types of special cards.

First, there is the free roll card. This one is pretty self-explanatory. A player can keep this card until he would like one extra turn. Once he has taken his extra roll, the card is placed on the bottom of the draw pile.

Block a turn. This card is also easy to understand. A player places this card beside a different payer when she wishes to block that players turn. Like the free roll card, the block card does not need to be used right away. After it is played and the player misses his turn, the card is placed on the bottom of the draw pile.

Stealing a Card

At the beginning of a turn, a player can declare his intentions to steal another player’s card. He then gets to roll the dice three times to draw the picture on the card that he stated. At the end of the three rolls, if he is unsuccessful in drawing the picture, his turn over. He is unable to collect any other card that he was successful in rolling.

Winning Doodle Dice

To win, you need to be the first player to collect a card of each of the six colors.

What we Like

Doodle Dice is a light game that can be played by anyone. It’s easy to learn and play. We especially like the card titles and seeing the creativity of the game makers. We also like that Doodle Dice is a great two player game. The quality of this game is also great.

What we Don’t Like

Honestly, we thought there would be more creativity on the players’ part, although, some of us find this a positive rather than a negative. Ending a game can be a bit long if everyone still has to get the purple card. The purple cards are the hardest ones to get and it can drag. Also, the box could be a bit smaller.

Is Doodle Dice Worth Adding to your Family Game Shelf?

Doodle Dice a great light game that can be played by the whole family. Its creativity will make you smile. The biggest drawback is that it gets a little repetitive so playing over and over isn’t as fun. I would recommend Doodle Dice is you have younger children and you have room on your Family Game Shelf.

To get your copy of Doodle Dice click here. Canadians can get Doodle Dice here.

Find more dice games in our Dice Game section. Visit our Family Game Shelf Shop for tons of seasonal and original games to make game night one to remember.
If you’re looking for card games we have lots of those in our card game section. And if you’re looking for board games, check out our game reviews here.

For even more family fun, dowload our FREE Quick Play Refernce book for dice games in our reference library!

Pros: easy, no drawing, quality
Cons: playability, can drag out, box size
Mom: critical thinking, bilingual