Stonemaier Games drew inspiration from their wide range of games to develop a roll & write game to play during the Covid pandemic. While everybody needed to stay at home and gaming groups couldn’t meet to play, they made a print & play version of Rolling Realms available for everyone to download, and gamers all around the globe were able to play together over the live video chats, only needing a couple of dice and a printed version of the game.
1-6 players, ages 14+
Playing time: 30 minutes
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Artwork: Marius Petrescu & Miles Bensky
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
https://stonemaiergames.com/
The print & play became a success, and after a while people started asking for a physical game to be made. After some modifications, Rolling Realms was released as a game that has eleven worlds, all based on the mechanics of one of Stonemaier’s games. While in the first version people had to choose and mark on the paper which realms they would use that round, the official version comes with dry erase cards. This way you get a random combination of realms in each of the three rounds to increase replayability.
Each of the 3 rounds starts with a player picking 3 realms randomly and the other players taking the same ones so everyone plays with the same configuration. Someone rolls the dice and each player marks the results of both dice in two different realms. Each realm works differently with other ways to score points, but the rules are very easy to grasp thanks to the short explanation on the cards themselves. Players will also receive resources which they can use to manipulate the dice, write extra numbers or unlock special abilities.
Overall we think Rolling Realms is a solid roll & write puzzle that plays very fast but still offers quite enough interesting decisions to be made.
Rolling Realms also comes with a nice solitair minigolf course in which you play the game solo against the par. Each hole has a setup with specific realms and an amount of stars you need to gain to reach the goal. The player notes how many tries they needed to reach the goal and compares it to the par of that hole. This way they play through the complete golf course writing everything down in the course log.
Tabletopping 