Review: Istanbul: The Dice Game rules the bazaar

Enlarge (credit: Nate Anderson)

Welcome to Ars Cardboard, our weekend look at tabletop games! Check out our complete board gaming coverage at cardboard.arstechnica.com.

When it comes to gaming, I am a man of simple pleasures. I need no boxes of sculpted minis, no hour-long setup, no manuals the size of novels. Let me chuck huge handfuls of dice, collect colorful goods, earn chunky gems, and I am content. Wrap the whole package in elegant artwork with a clear ruleset and a low price, and I am ready to play, anytime, anywhere.

That’s why I love Istanbul: The Dice Game, the (inevitable) dice-driven implementation of 2014’s award-winning board game, Istanbul. In that earlier big-box game, players moved their “merchants” around the “bazaar” to collect and trade goods, or to gamble in the tea shop, or to spring a relative from jail and send him on an errand for you. (Don’t ask.) The goal was to collect enough shiny acrylic rubies to retire rich.