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Roll-and-write games feel pretty settled these days, I guess. You roll some dice, everyone looks at the same result, and then each player quietly works things out on their own sheet. It’s quick, it’s usually easy to explain, and most of the time you can be playing within a minute or two. That’s probably why so many of them keep showing up on tables.
A lot of these games lean into grids. Instead of filling boxes or ticking numbers, you draw paths, shapes, or routes, and once you’ve started going somewhere, it’s hard to undo that decision. Early moves matter more than they first appear, and by the end of the game you can usually trace back exactly where things started to go wrong. Or right. But let’s be honest, usually wrong.
Linyo clearly lives in that space. You play with four dice, a shared pad, and a pencil, and you’re trying to cover as much of the sheet as possible by drawing four separate lines. When the game ends, you don’t score what you achieved, but what you failed to reach. Fewest empty squares wins. Simple goal, but the path there gets tight pretty quickly anyway.
👥 2-6 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 15 minutes
📝 Designer: Florian Benndorf & Steffen Benndorf
🎨 Artwork: Christian Opperer
🏢 Publisher: KENDi (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
Everyone starts with a sheet and a pencil, using the same side of the paper. One player rolls all four dice to kick things off.
The dice don’t show numbers, only colors: blue, orange, and gray. That first roll decides where your four lines begin. Each player picks four starting squares on their grid that match the rolled colors. You’re also allowed to start on bonus star spaces, which already hints that these might matter later.
Each round, one player rolls the dice and everyone uses that same result. Dice are always rolled together and, most of the time, you’re stuck with what comes up. The one exception is when all four dice show the same color. If that happens, the active player can change three dice to whatever colors they want, but one die has to stay as rolled. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s a noticeable moment of relief.
After the roll, each player chooses one of their lines and extends it by up to four squares. Each die can be used once, so if you use all four, that line can grow four spaces in one turn. You can move only horizontally or vertically, bending the line as needed, but diagonal moves are never allowed.
Once a line moves, it’s committed. You can only continue it from its current endpoint in future turns, and lines may never cross each other. There’s no restarting elsewhere, no resetting, no forgiveness.
If you end your move on a bonus star, you may immediately extend that same line by one extra square. That means a line can reach up to five squares in a single turn. You don’t have to use that bonus, and you’re allowed to stop early and let dice go unused. Sometimes that restraint matters more than squeezing every move out of a roll.
At the end of each round, the game checks for canceled lines. This is where Linyo stops being gentle.
If you didn’t extend a line at all that round, one of your lines is canceled. If you extended a line by only one square, that line is canceled too. On top of that, any line that can no longer be extended because it’s completely boxed in has to be canceled as well, even if you didn’t touch it that round.
Once a line is canceled, it’s done. You can’t extend it again, and you’re not allowed to cancel a line on purpose if it moved at least two squares that round. The game decides when lines disappear, not you.
The game ends after a round in which at least one player has lost all four lines. Everyone then marks every square they didn’t reach. You add everything up, and whoever has the fewest empty squares wins.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
Linyo looks exactly how it plays. Clean, abstract, and not interested in dressing things up.
Inside the box you get a pad of sheets, four dice, and pencils. That’s it. The dice are white with large colored dots instead of numbers, which fits the game well and keeps rolls easy to read, even from across the table.
The game sheet itself does most of the work visually. It’s a dense grid of colored squares with a few bonus stars scattered around. It’s not flashy, but it’s clear. Pencil lines stay readable, even late in the game, and you never really struggle to see what’s happening.
Nothing here is trying to impress you. It just stays out of the way, which honestly feels like the right choice for this kind of game.
Our Experience
From the start, it was clear that this is a pretty strict roll-and-write. The shared dice and separate sheets are familiar, but the limit of only four lines for the entire game changes how everything feels. Every small decision sticks around. There’s a strong sense that once you head in a direction, you’re slowly closing doors behind you.
More than once, it reminded us of the old Snake game. Early on, it feels open. A few rounds later, you’re carefully threading paths through shrinking gaps, hoping you didn’t corner yourself without noticing.
Most of the pressure in the game comes from the end-of-round cancellations. Missing a turn, playing too carefully, or misjudging space can suddenly cost you a whole line. Because these checks happen every round, there’s constant pressure to do just enough, but not too much. Very few moves feel relaxed.
Bonus stars are tempting, and sometimes genuinely helpful, but they can also push you into aggressive lines that turn into problems later. A lot of our games followed the same arc: plenty of room at the start, rising tension in the middle, and decision-making got much tighter near the end.
Trying the higher difficulty levels made a bigger difference than expected. Increasing the minimum required movement changes how you approach the board almost immediately. It’s less forgiving, but also more deliberate. Planning ahead becomes non-optional very quickly.
Our Thoughts
Linyo leans harder into pressure than many roll-and-writes. It’s less about building something nice and more about avoiding mistakes for as long as possible. To be honest, that won’t work for everyone.
There are plenty of path-drawing roll-and-writes out there, but Linyo’s combination of limited lines, strict non-crossing rules, and mandatory cancellations gives it a sharper edge. You’re constantly balancing efficiency against safety, and the game doesn’t really let you coast.
The turns themselves are quick, but they don’t feel light. One roll, one line, and you’re done, yet there’s often more thinking than you’d expect. Because everyone uses the same dice, wins tend to come from better planning rather than lucky rolls, which we appreciated.
Interaction is almost non-existent. This is very much multiplayer solitaire. You’re aware of how others are doing, but nothing you draw directly affects their board. That’s fine for what Linyo is, but if you like games where people react to each other at the table, this won’t do much.
The cancellation rules can also feel harsh. Losing a line because of one conservative move or a cramped corner can be exciting, but it can just as easily feel frustrating, especially for newer players. You really need to be okay with the game pushing back.
Replay value comes more from improving your decisions than from seeing new scenarios. You do get two different grids on the sheet, but beyond that the setup stays very fixed. What changes is how careful you become with space, when you decide to let a line die, and how much room you leave yourself for later turns.
Luck matters, especially later on, but because it’s shared, losses rarely feel unfair. Over multiple plays, success mostly comes down to reading the grid well and staying flexible when plans collapse.
Linyo fits comfortably among small, fast roll-and-writes that are easy to teach and quick to play. It’s a tight spatial puzzle that gets stricter as it goes, and that alone will already tell you whether it’s for you or not.
📝 We received a copy of the game from KENDi.
