Dixit Board Game Review:

In the game Dixit, you are trying to describe an image with weird and wacky Dreamlike twists. Everyone else will select a card that matches a clue given by the storyteller. Then all cards are shuffled. Whoever can most consistently guess the storyteller’s card wins the game.

How to Play

To set up, assign each player a matching score marker, and tokens numbered 1-6 in that player’s chosen color. Then deal each player 6 cards. Place the board and remaining cards in the center of the table. Choose the first storyteller. You are now ready to play Dixit.

As the storyteller, your job is to pick a card in your hand. Once you select a card, give a clue that will help the other players guess your card. The ideal clue will allow some players to figure it out but not be too obvious where all the players guess it.

What counts as a clue? It can be anything and everything. Some examples of clues you can give are single words, sentences, miming, and sound effects. If you want to use a mug as a clue, go for it. Dixit is a weird and abstract game, so get fun and creative with it.

Once a clue is given, all the other players select a card from their hand that matches the clue. Then shuffle all the players’ cards together with the storyteller’s card, and deal them out into the numbered slots on the board. All players except the storyteller now secretly pick a card from the selection by choosing the corresponding number token, trying to find the card played by the storyteller. You cannot vote for your own card. Once everyone has made their selection, reveal the tokens.

If no players found the storyteller’s card or every player found it, everyone except the storyteller gets 2 points. Instead, if only some of the players guessed correctly, the narrator and any players who guessed correctly get 3 points. If a player receives a vote on the card they played, that player gets 1 point per vote.

The game continues until a player reaches 30 points or the deck runs out. The player with the most points wins.

Pros

Dixit is an imaginative game, each card seeming to come straight from dreams. It puts you in a world that seems to make no sense on the surface, but that wacky feel sets Dixit apart.

Dixit is an excellent nonsense party game. It has so little concern for strict rules. You will be laughing in no time. Yet it has enough rules to satisfy gamers. This creates a perfect storm of controlled chaos.

Cons

Easily the best part of this game is the fantastic illustrations. This makes it all the worse when you realize there are only 84 cards. You will see every card after playing twice. They quickly lose their inspirational quality after you have seen the same card for the 5th time. There is a remedy. You can pay to purchase expansions with more cards. While there is no shortage of new cards to buy, it will cost a small fortune to buy all the expansions.

Accessibility

Color Blind: It is not recommended to play Dixit with the color blind, but it is not impossible. A color represents each player. If you have another player moving everyone’s tokens on the score track, it may be playable, but it will still have some difficulties.

Reading: Reading is not needed to play Dixit.

Children: These cards draw inspiration from dreams and nightmares, including topics such as demons, violence, monsters, magic, blood, death, and suicide. These cards make up only a tiny portion of the game. If you are concerned about some of these cards, you may want to remove some cards from the game. You can do this while keeping the game mostly balanced.

Who would love this game?

This game is excellent for people who have a wacky and limitless imagination. This game also is perfect if you play it with different people each time. While the cards themselves may get stale. You never get tired of seeing people’s first reactions to the cards. Dixit is one of the few games in which you can rarely find a player who regrets playing it once. It’s not going to be on everybody’s shelf. But it is hard to find someone who regrets trying Dixit.

Final Thoughts

Dixit is a great game that will surely be a hit in almost any group. Its weird and wonderful style is unique and brings raw joy to every game. If you are closed-minded and looking for a game of logic and reason, Dixit may not be for you. If you have limitless imagination and enjoy the natural goofiness that can come from dropping the constraints of the everyday, you probably should get Dixit.

If you would like to purchase Dixit and support Tabletop Game Source, you can purchase it from Amazon here.

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