Dixit Board Game – A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words! | Review

It’s rare to find board games that do something completely new: Dixit is such a game! We tested the Dixit board game for resourceful fantasists.

There are dice games and card games, strategy games, board games, games of chance, puzzle games and many kinds of other games. Most of the new games vary familiar game principles and some of them in very brilliant and imaginative ways.

Dixit comes from France – and you can tell because the French love communication games. And the Dixit board game is a very special game that lets the imagination blossom, offers surrealistic dream worlds and could not be compared to any board game we know of on the German-speaking market.

Dixit is about giving free rein to one’s own imagination and power of association and at the same time assessing the fantasies of one’s fellow players.

The Dixit Board Game at a Glance

• Game type: Association game, Communication game, Family game
• Age: 8 years and up
• Players: 3 – 6 players
• Duration: approx. 30 minutes
• Publisher: Asmodee Libellud
• Game author: Jean-Louis Roubira
• Year of publication: 2010
• Awards: Game of the Year 2010
• Game objective/What is it about?: Inventing imaginative associations to pictures and guessing what the other players associate with which picture.
• Angebot

  

  Libellud Asmodee Dixit (Alte Auflage), Grundspiel, Familienspiel, Erzählspiel, Deutsch

  3-6 Spieler | Ab 8+ Jahren | Bis zu 30+ Minuten Spielzeit je Partie | Spiel in Deutsch

  24,04 EUR
  *

How to Play the Dixit Board Game

Convenient – the game board is right in the box with Dixit

In Dixit, the game board is built right into the box and represents a meadow landscape. The game pieces are small rabbits in different colours. Each of the 3 to 6 players chooses a rabbit and places it on field 0. In addition, each player takes his set of voting tiles in the corresponding colour.

Now the 84 picture cards are shuffled well and each player is dealt 6 cards face down (exception: 7 cards for 3 players). The remaining cards are placed next to them as a draw pile. Only you should be able to see your own picture cards.

The Narrator

Each player now looks at his or her picture cards and thinks of a statement for one of them that he or she associates with this card, but which does not describe this card too clearly. The first player who thinks he has found something suitable may start as the narrator in the first round.

The narrator recites his statement, which can be a sentence, a word, a fantasy term or even a modified proverb, poem or quotation. There are no limits to the creativity of the players.

Example: I once had the following 6 cards in my hand, as shown in the picture below. The first thing that came to my mind about the fifth card, the wanderer looking up at the stars, was the expression “aim high”. I shared this statement with my fellow players.

Of these Dixit cards, the narrator chose the fifth

Choosing Your Own Picture

Now each of the other players chooses one of their own cards that they think best matches this statement and gives it face down to the narrator. The narrator now shuffles the cards of the other players and his own chosen card and places them in a row next to each other on the table.

Note: If there are only 3 players, each other player hands in 2 cards so that there are 5 cards face up.

The Vote

The task of the other players is now to find the picture of the narrator. To do this, everyone places a voting tile face down in front of them, where 1 means the first picture card on the far left of the row, 2, the second card and so on.
Once everyone has made their decision, the tiles are turned over at the same time and placed on the respective pictures. The narrator now resolves and says which picture card was his or her.

Variation: However, we played Dixit in such a way that before the narrator resolves, every other player briefly explains their choice, which is really most interesting!

Example: The result of the vote on my statement “set high goals” was surprising for me. I didn’t expect that the other players would find cards that fit so well. The card with the ladder to heaven even misled 2 other players…

6 picture cards of the Dixit board game

Scoring

If all or none of the players have guessed the picture card of the narrator, the narrator receives no points, all other players receive 2 each. The narrator of a round should therefore choose the statement about the picture in such a way that it is neither too obvious nor too absurd to link it to this picture and some but not all players choose this.

If the latter is the case, the narrator and all players who guessed on the correct picture get 3 points each. In addition, each player whose picture card was tapped incorrectly gets one point per voting token on it.

Example: In the case represented by the pictures, I (as the narrator) thus received 3 points, as did the player who guessed correctly on my card (4). The players who had given me the first and second cards each got 1 point, and the player who picked the 6th card got 2 points.

Round Change and End of Game

Each player now moves their rabbit forward the appropriate number of points on the board. Everyone moves 1 card forward (or 2 cards if 3 players) and the next player clockwise takes the role of the narrator.

You play the Dixit board game until the last picture card has been drawn from the draw pile. The player with the most points wins.

Review and Conclusion

Rating

We have played Dixit several times in different sized groups with different numbers of players. The first time we played, there were five of us and a friend who is already a big Dixit fan got us excited about the game.
You get into the game very quickly and anyone who loves fantasy and language will quickly catch fire, because Dixit is a game in which everyone gets really creative on their own and is enormously communicative.

We also felt with Dixit that it really became a minor matter who got how many points or won in the end. The real fun of the game lies in creatively associating and interpreting the picture cards. And in the surprise of how differently people can interpret pictures.

We therefore added our own rule that after each vote, each player first explains why he or she chose which card before the narrator solves which one is the right one.

When we played Dixit for the second time, we agreed before each round what kind of statement the narrator should make. For example, “just one word”, a film title, a proverb, a well-known person associated with the picture, etc. In one round, the narrator was even only allowed to pantomime his or her association with the picture card.

Conclusion

Dixit is a unique fantasy and language game that is wonderfully suitable both as a family game and for rounds of adults who like to be creative

On our website you will find many more game tips, for example on The Quacks of Quedlinburg. Our website regularly features inspiration for gifts and activities with friends, partner and family. Never want to miss more ideas and tips from Abenteuer Freundschaft? Just follow Abenteuer Freundschaft on Facebook and Instagram and/or subscribe to our newsletter! ?

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