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So… you know that feeling when a roll-and-write looks nice and relaxed, and then halfway through you’re staring at your sheet like it personally betrayed you? Yeah, that’s kind of what happened to us with Keer op Keer 3.
It’s still very much Keer op Keer. You roll dice, fill boxes, try to be efficient. But this one adds a bit more going on. There are more tracks, more things to keep in mind, and more moments where you think “this will work out”… and then it doesn’t.
👥 1-6 players, ages 7+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designers: Inka & Markus Brand
🎨 Artwork: Leon Schiffer & Jan Biehl
🏢 Publisher: 999 Games (Dutch version, review copy provided)
Introduction
Keer op Keer 3, also known as Encore! X or Noch X-Mal!, is a standalone sequel by Inka Brand and Markus Brand.
If you’ve played the earlier games, you’ll recognise the core immediately. You roll dice, pick a colour and a number, and fill in connected spaces on your own sheet. Everyone plays at the same time, so no waiting around, which is still one of the nicest parts of the system.
That said, this version clearly wants to do a bit more. There are more ways to score, more bonuses to think about, and more small systems layered on top. None of it is difficult to understand on its own, but together it asks a bit more from you than you might expect.
The goal is still simple. Fill in areas, complete things, and get rid of your X-tokens before everyone else. The challenge is getting there without turning your sheet into something you regret halfway through.
Gameplay Overview
Setup is easy enough. Everyone gets a sheet and ten X-tokens, and you roll a starting combination of colour and number. That starting combo ends up being more important than it first looks, especially once the pass track comes into play.
Each round, six dice are rolled: three colours and three numbers. In the first few rounds, everyone can freely choose from all the dice. After that, the active player picks first, and the others choose from what remains. It sounds like a small change, but later on it can really limit your options.
When you pick a combination, you fill in that number of spaces in the chosen colour. The placement rules are strict in a way that only really shows itself after a few turns. Your very first move has to start in the starting column, and from then on everything must connect to what you’ve already filled in. You also have to use the full number, and you can never place more than five spaces in a turn.
At the beginning, it feels open. You have space, you have options, and it seems easy to plan ahead. But as the sheet fills up, that changes. Small gaps start appearing, numbers don’t quite fit anymore, and you end up taking turns that are more about limiting problems than making progress.
There are jokers that let you adjust things a bit, like picking a colour or changing a number, but they are limited. You can fix a situation once or twice, but not constantly.
Passing turned out to be more interesting than we expected. At first, it feels like something you only do when you’re stuck. But in practice, it becomes part of how you plan your turns. You always move at least one step on the pass track, even if nothing matches, and the rewards there can be quite strong. Things like extra actions, small area fills, or even finishing a whole colour area can change your next turns completely.
Also, if the active player decides to pass, everyone else suddenly has access to all six dice again. That small rule can completely shift what is possible in a round.
While all of this is going on, you are trying to complete rows, columns, colours, diamonds, and intersections. Some rewards are limited to the first player who gets them, so there is always a sense that you’re racing others, even if you’re mostly focused on your own sheet.
And then there are the X-tokens. Removing those is how you win. Sometimes they give you a bonus when you remove them, but you have to give that bonus to another player. From their next turn, they can use it, which creates those small moments where you hesitate before handing something useful to someone else.
The game ends when someone gets rid of all their tokens. If more players do it in the same round, it compares overall progress, then pass track progress, and a few other things. In most games though, you can already tell who is ahead before that.
Artwork, Components, and Visual Design
The player sheet is doing most of the work here. It’s colourful and clear once you get used to it, but it is quite full. Not messy, just dense. There is a lot happening on a single sheet.
You have different colour areas, symbols, and scoring tracks around the edges. After a round or two it becomes easier to read, but the first time you see it, it can feel a bit overwhelming. One of us just stared at it for a moment like “okay… where do I even begin?”
The dice are very easy to read, which helps a lot. The colour dice and number dice are clearly different, so there’s no confusion there.
The X-tokens are simple but nice. They are chunky, easy to handle, and match what you’re doing on the sheet. Nothing fancy, but they do their job well.
Overall, the design is focused on clarity rather than theme. It’s not trying to tell a story, and honestly, that fits the game.
Our Experience
The game moves quickly. Everyone is involved at the same time, so there’s no waiting around, and even with more players it stays smooth.
At the start, it feels very straightforward. You’re filling spaces, making progress, and everything seems to work. But as the board fills up, things start to change. Options that looked easy before are no longer available, and you start running into turns where nothing really fits the way you want.
Those moments come up quite often. You’re not confused about what you can do, but the choices you have don’t feel great. You end up placing something just to keep going, even if you know it will make things harder later.
In the middle of the game, you’re constantly looking at what you’re doing now and what it will block next. It becomes a bit of a balancing act between finishing something and not closing off too many options.
The pass track was probably the biggest surprise for us. We expected it to be a fallback, but it became part of how we approached the game. Sometimes it just made more sense to skip and take a bonus instead of forcing a bad placement.
The race between players is also very noticeable. If someone gets ahead early, they tend to stay ahead. Those first bonuses matter, and you can feel it during the game.
And then there’s the moment where you give someone a bonus. It’s a fun idea, but also slightly uncomfortable. You’re basically helping someone and hoping it doesn’t come back to you later. Which, let’s be honest, it usually does.
Our Thoughts
For us, this feels like a slightly heavier version of the system. Not heavier in terms of rules, because you can explain it quite quickly. But heavier in how it plays. There’s more to keep track of, and more small decisions that build up over time.
What stands out most is how everything connects to getting rid of your tokens. It’s not really about scoring as much as possible at the end. It’s about keeping your progress going and finishing before the others do. That changes how you think about your turns. You’re not always trying to find the best move in isolation. You’re trying to keep things moving forward, even if the move itself isn’t ideal.
Some players will really enjoy that. It gives the game a clearer sense of where you’re going. Others might feel like the game is asking a bit too much for something that looks quite simple at first.
For us, it sits somewhere in between. We liked the added layers, especially the pass track and the small player interactions. But there were moments where it felt like the game was pushing beyond what we usually expect from this kind of game.
After a few plays, it also starts to feel a bit more structured than it first appears. Certain approaches seem to work more consistently, especially if you focus on steady progress rather than trying to chase everything at once.
So yeah. It’s a good evolution, but not necessarily a cleaner one.
If you like roll-and-writes with a bit more pressure and a bit more thinking, this will probably work for you.
If you’re looking for something you can play while chatting and not paying too much attention… this might occasionally demand your full focus. Which, let’s be honest, wasn’t always what we expected going in.
📝 We received a copy of the game from 999 Games.
