Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
“Yes, but which sylLAble receives the emPHAsis?” I asked. “Is it P’RAM-i-dice, like Paradise with an extra half-beat? PY-ram-i-dice, which begs pronouncing the first syllable as if I were Archimedes? Pyramid-ICE, as if it were a beverage? Or maybe emphasizing every syllable—PIE-RAM-EYE-DICE!”
I guess it’s a good thing when a game offers that sort of conversation before the teach, a conversation that inevitably ends with allowing the eventual winner to select the pronunciation that will live in perpetuity.
Pyramidice is a dice rolling pyramid builder from Ares Games and the mind of Luigi Ferrini, who had a semi-hit a decade back with Stronghold’s The Golden Ages. Rather than building a civilization, players are marking their civilization with pyramids on behalf of the Pharaoh while seeking the favor of the gods—and the occasional sacred cat.
Building blocks
Pyramidice is, in many ways, a procedural affair—add a stone die to the quarry, roll a number of dice determined by available workers, then choose from a list of possibilities until the dice are spent. You might reroll, attain a god card, send a stone die to a pyramid, carry out a god action, discard a die to refresh a card, or discard two dice for a point. As needed, you’ll discard cats to modify dice.
In lieu of a standard Work turn, you might Rest, beckoning one of only two gods who work on the weekend (if you’re lucky enough to have access), selecting a tile to bolster resources or take a sneaky action, and refreshing a card in the market. The beautiful design choice here is that players keep their Rest tiles until they have acquired three, at which point the tiles return to the general supply. Scarcity, in the interim, breeds fun.
Aside from a bit of maintenance, making sure gods don’t exceed resources and refilling the market, this is the rhythm of Pyramidice until either the deck runs out or the stone dice disappear.
Weights and Counterweights
Pyramidice has a lot going for it. First and foremost, it is a squeaky clean design. The choices here are sensible and account for every combination of satisfaction or disappointment, excess or want. Of course, some of these choices are hardly choices at all. Most Work turns feature a prioritized chase— “I’d love to place a four on the pyramid and collect one of the Ennead gods”—followed by a certain resignation: “Well, I picked up the god, but I couldn’t roll a four.” At this point, you do the only thing you can do: discard dice to either disrupt the market or collect a point.
As the game rolls on, the base list from which to generate the priority list grows. More gods equal more special abilities—trading resources for points and the like—to offset the failure of the dice. Rest turns manufacture the stockpiles needed to translate workers into points, prayers into lucrative god cards. But the base turn never really feels much different. Roll, reroll, assess, do the possible thing.
The components are nice. I really like the dice. The color choices are perfectly matched shades of drab to mimic stone construction and gold while holding to the overall scheme. The little workers are walking like Egyptians and they are marvelous. The cats are small but detailed. The art of the gods is inviting and the graphic design boasts an easy onboard for iconography. The player boards display the progression of activity and the pyramids lay out scoring and cost. Once again, it’s the sort of clean that squeaks.
Several decisions do chip my stone, though. The production team attempted to create a clever floating grid of tiles for the Rest turns, intending it to rest neatly between the Sphinxy scoreboard above and a small footboard to designate the market below. It just doesn’t work. Not at all. It looks good for pictures, but then once play starts the bottom gets tossed in the box. But wait! The bottom doesn’t fit in the box. Ok, yes, it technically fits, but it rests awkwardly atop the insert, waiting for an accidental crease or the sort of sag that is inevitable with time. The Sphinx, too, hovers above the insert. The box is downright wasteful in this way. I shake my head when I take the game out and again when I put it away (and once in between when I toss the bottom piece back to the box).
I like that every player has unique goals and abilities. Players are looking for unique orthogonal combinations of dice in the pyramids—fours near fours, ones by sixes, etc. Likewise everyone will exercise their strength, gathering extra workers, stone, cats, or prayers according to their special situation. These give the game a bit of personality and suggest strategic plans.
But some of those orthogonal combinations are inherently more valuable. Since every stone die scores its value in points, the player looking to bunk up sixes will gain six, eight, or ten points for the die depending on its elevation, and then those adjacencies will score two more points each at the end of the game. Compare that to the player cursed with a need for twos. Two points each, maybe four or six, and then…two more points for pairs in the endgame. I understand that player can look elsewhere for points, but there is no inherent balance in these objectives.
Not Reckless Enough
Pyramidice is a tidy quasi-efficiency puzzle engaged in a mild tiff with the dice, and I mean that in the nicest way. There are obvious best choices, but the game is in building the sort of engine and system that will accommodate and bend for the randomness that gets in the way. The Ability (Scarab) cards suggest a style of play. The Project cards create preferences, but as others’ preferences become obvious, some cards are better disregarded in an effort to play spoiler on the pyramids. Gameplay just walks along.
The game has a solid table presence and is relatively easy to play. The beige in this case fits the setting perfectly and lends the right sort of life. When I first saw the game, I was taken by the charm of the components and they did not disappoint. Somehow, though, the play lacks a matching spark.
If I worry, it’s that Pyramidice has yet to find a champion among my play partners. Everyone thought it was really nice, but no one got rowdy over it. The dice aren’t lively enough to mimic push-your-luck plays. The cards offer standard set collection and predictable action. I don’t think I’d ever be upset to play with these wonders, but I’m not exactly a champion for the cause myself. If you’re into the look or the Ancient Egyptian setting, this might be the right light play for you. But I’m not sure I’ve seen a rampant audience that makes me think this one will stick around.
Pyramidice details
- Designer: Luigi Ferrini
- Artists: Marco Pantaleoni, Oscar Casel, Quentin Regnes
- Publishers: Ares Games, Ergo Ludo Editions, MS Edizioni
- Release Date: 2023
- Player count : 1 - 4
- Age range : 12+
- Time range : 30 - 60 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Deck Construction, Dice Rolling, Set Collection, Solo / Solitaire Game, Variable Player Powers
- More articles about Pyramidice.
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