Wouter & Ymke 
In Sneaky, you’re rolling dice to catch bandits from the center of the table… or from each other. That’s really the whole idea. You look at what’s available, roll your dice, and try to match colors to complete those bandits. Sounds straightforward, but it rarely plays out that cleanly.
What makes it interesting is that you’re not just building your own little pile. The higher-value bandits stay face up in front of you, which means they can be taken if someone else completes them on their turn. So you’re constantly deciding whether to stop and keep what you have, or push a bit further and risk losing everything. It’s one of those games where you’ll say “just one more roll” more often than you should… and you already know how that usually ends.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 20 minutes
📝 Designers: Jannik Walter
🎨 Artwork: Oliver Freudenreich & Sandra Freudenreich
🏢 Publisher: KENDi (review copy provided)
Gameplay Overview
You start with three bandits in the middle, one of each value, and each player begins with two handcuffs. From there, turns are very simple. You roll seven colored dice and start placing them on the bandits. Each bandit needs a specific color and a number of dice equal to its value, so you’re always trying to match what you rolled with what’s available.
You have to place at least one die every time you roll. You can place more if you want, but once a die is down, it stays there. No changing your mind later. After placing, you choose whether to stop and secure what you’ve completed, or keep going and reroll the remaining dice. This is where the game pushes you a bit. You’ll often feel like you can squeeze out just a little more, and sometimes that works… but quite often it doesn’t.
There are a few small rules that matter more than they first seem. Once a bandit is full, you can’t add more dice to it, so you can accidentally limit your own options if you’re not paying attention. And when you complete multiple bandits, you choose how to stack them, which decides what stays exposed on top for others to target.
Because yes, other players can go after your cards. On their turn, they can place dice on the top bandit of your stack, and if they complete it, they take it. You can’t really stop that from happening, so part of the game is just accepting that what you have isn’t fully yours yet.
The handcuffs are a small extra thing to keep track of. If you take at least two bandits from the center in one turn, you gain one. If you take none from the center, you lose one. Only bandits from the center count for this, not stolen ones, so it pushes you to not ignore that middle area completely.
After each turn, the center is refilled back to three bandits if possible. Once the deck runs out, everyone gets one final turn, and then you score. You add up your bandits, the player with the most handcuffs gets a small bonus, and if you somehow have none, you lose points instead.
In a two-player game, there’s a small adjustment where you use two stacks instead of one, but the rest stays the same.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
This is a small box game, and it looks like one. Just cards and dice, nothing more.
The artwork goes for a light, slightly cheeky thief theme. The characters look like they’re enjoying what they’re doing, sneaking around with loot. It works fine, but it didn’t really stand out to me in a big way. It’s more something you notice at the start and then stop thinking about after a few turns.
What does work well is how clear everything is. The colors on the dice match the cards perfectly, and you can see at a glance what goes where. That helps a lot, because the game moves quickly and you don’t want to spend time double-checking things.
The dice are very straightforward, just white with colored pips. Nothing special, but easy to read. The handcuffs are also clear enough and do their job without getting in the way.
Overall, it’s clean and easy to use. Not something that draws attention on the table, but it doesn’t need to.
Our Experience
This is one of those games that gets going almost immediately. You explain it in a minute or two, and people are already rolling dice and making decisions.
What we noticed pretty quickly is that you’re rarely just sitting there waiting. Even when it’s not your turn, you’re watching what others are doing. You don’t really want to miss it when someone goes one roll too far… or decides to take a bandit from you. So you stay involved, even if you’re not actively playing.
The push-your-luck part works exactly as you’d expect. Sometimes everything lines up and you get a really satisfying turn. Other times you go one roll too far and end up with nothing. That happens quite often, and it’s really what you’ll remember after playing.
The stealing is what we kept talking about during the game. Cards don’t stay with one player for long, and you can lose something you thought was yours. It’s that kind of game, so you can’t really complain when it happens… even if you still do.
We also found that the game works best with three or four players. There’s just more happening, and more chances to get in each other’s way. With two players, it becomes more controlled and less interesting.
Our Thoughts
Chances are, you’ll feel like you’ve seen this before after a round or two. If you’ve played something like Pickomino, this will click almost immediately. You roll dice, set some aside, and decide if you want to keep going or stop. For us, it really comes down to that flow, more than anything else. It makes the game easy to understand right away, but after a couple of rounds, you kind of know what it’s going to be.
Because of that, it’s very easy to bring to the table. You don’t need much time to explain it, and people usually get into it straight away. It fits nicely as something lighter between heavier games, or just as a quick start or end to a game night.
At the same time, it doesn’t really change much the more you play it. After a few games, you’ve more or less seen what it does, and the decisions don’t shift all that much. I mean, that’s fine for this kind of game, but it does mean a lot comes from who you’re playing with.
What we did notice is that the game tends to reward taking a bit more risk. Going for more during your turn or going after cards in front of others often works out better than playing it safe. That’s clearly part of how it’s designed, but I can see that not everyone will enjoy that.
The handcuffs are easy to overlook at first, but they do matter. They give you a reason to pay attention to what’s happening in the middle instead of only looking at other players, and they end up having just enough impact on the final score to feel relevant.
In the end, Sneaky is a light, interactive game that’s easy to get to the table and easy to play. It can be a bit mean at times, but that’s very much what it’s going for. And if someone takes your card, well… at least now you have someone to blame. Probably.
📝 We received a copy of the game from KENDi.
