Review: SET Dice Game

• April 5, 2015
• James Skemp
• gaming, review

A pleasant twist on the SET card game

I was introduced to the SET card game a little over four years ago by a former co-worker. Having more experience than I, she kicked my butt every time we played together, but it was enjoyable, and I still did sufficiently good at the single player variant. So when I saw the SET Dice Game available for review I snapped up the chance.

First, the game itself comes in a very nice box. The top of the box is already starting to sag a bit, after less than two weeks of ownership, but the sides still seem sturdy. It's not too much of an issue since the box does include a nice bag for the dice. The dice are each very large (almost an inch square) and there are 42 in the set. They definitely seem like they're going to last.

The unfortunate bit about the game is the game board, which is only used in one of the three game variants. While it's a nice board, it has some difficulty staying flat, given the size and folding (it wants to fold closed). But, it's a very minor issue.

Moving on, there are instructions for three variants of SET. If you've played the card game before then the base rules of what makes a SET haven't changed. Each variant states that it will last 20 minutes, although these could easily go longer or shorter, based upon the skill of the players and the roll of the dice.

Scramble SET is much like the SET card game in that a number of dice are rolled and each person can call SETs as they see them. In this variant all 42 dice are rolled at once. This has a solo variant which is enjoyable.

Crossword SET is like Bananagrams in that each player gets a number of tiles. They then use those tiles to build a crossword-like grid of their tiles, optionally taking another from the bag if they're unable to use all their dice. This too has a solo variant which is enjoyable enough, although I think I'd rather play Scramble SET.

The final variant (technically first in the instructions) is SET Cubed, and is the only one that doesn't have a solo variant, and is the only one to use the game board. This is also the most complex, having more instructions associated with it than the other two variants combined, due primarily with the instructions. This variant allows players to build upon SETs others have played on the game board for added points, and is like Crossword SET but with a single grid. The complexity of this variant turned me off of this, so we ended up playing one of the other variants instead.

Overall the SET Dice Game easily gets a full five of five stars. They've successfully taken an enjoyable thinking game and added fun variants. The quality of the game definitely makes it worth the price of the package, especially given the high replay value of this game. Highly recommended.

• review
• board game
• dice game
• set
• logic