Tabletop Tuesday - Dixit

Welcome to another edition of Tabletop Tuesday - Your weekly exploration into games of dice, luck, cards, and more of the Tabletop world.

This week's game...the game of abstract art to guess apart that is Dixit.

Players: 3-6

Time: 20-40 minutes

Genre: Social / Casual Family Game

The game's title, Dixit, derives from the Latin word for "he/she/it said".  Winner of various awards including the 2010 Spiel Des Jahres award, Dixit is an intriguing game that requires plenty of creative thinking and clever deductive skills.  Each player is given a set of six cards with surreal imagery.  One player each round is the "storyteller", in which they will pick one of their cards and comes up with a short sentence / phrase to describe it.  Each other player then picks one of their cards that would match the description and then places them face down.  All the images are shuffled and then revealed, to which all players other than the storyteller must guess which image they believe to be the storyteller's real image.  If all players guess the real image or fail to guess the real image, the storyteller has failed and gets 0 points, while everyone else gets 2 points.  Otherwise, the storyteller and anyone who guesses the real image each score 3 points.  Players can also score an additional point for each player who guessed their fake image.  The first to 30 points wins.

A small sample of some of the surreal imagery to be found in Dixit.

Because of this unusual scoring mechanic, storytellers will want their descriptions to not be too obvious, but neither too vague, less they score no points.  As such, it requires a subtle balance to allow room for loose interpretations.  Ideally, a storyteller will want only one player to guess their image in order for them to score points and minimize other players scoring.  As for non-storytellers, they will want to pick their fake images in such a similar manner so as to score those extra points.  Dixit is a captivating and accessible game as it has room for deep and creative thought with these cunning mechanics, but its loose nature can also allow players of all skill levels to still play and enjoy.  There are also many expansions which include quite a variety of other artwork.  I recommend this game for those who enjoy creative writing and visual language.

If you have any questions about Dixit, let me know in the comments.  Otherwise, look forward to future installments of Tabletop Tuesday!