Base price: $44.
1 – 6 players.
Play time: ~20 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 8
Full disclosure: A review copy of Roll to the Top: Journeys was provided by Allplay.
The one nice thing about moving to two reviews a week is that it’s much easier to slowly get a week ahead than it used to be. When I was doing four a week, I had to consistently write 5+ reviews in a week to get ahead on my schedule. It wasn’t impossible, but it definitely didn’t leave time for much else. Writing 3+ isn’t easy, but it’s certainly doable if I manage my time effectively. Either way, I think we’re writing and photographing two today, so if I can get any done tomorrow it’s just pure extra. The dream. But instead of diving into my process, why don’t we dive into Roll to the Top: Journeys?
In Roll to the Top: Journeys, players are traveling artists who want to see the sights in their entirety. To do so, you’ll roll dice and write values on each sheet representing a feature, wonder, or monument as you gradually move up the structure. Just be careful! A box touching boxes below it must be filled with the same value (or a higher one), so you might run into some trouble along the way. Plus, each round, you’ll be adding, removing, or exchanging dice within a shared dice pool for all players, so you may not even have access to certain high values before or after too long. But that’s part of the adventure! Do you have what it takes to reach the top?
Overall: 8 / 10
Overall, Roll to the Top: Journeys is very much the definitive version of Roll to the Top! I’ve been a little loathe to review and play these games, lately, since one of the designers (van Moorsel) started running his mouth during the pandemic about masks in a disconcerting way, but I’m hoping Allplay won’t be doing much business with him again. In the meantime, though, what you have here is a quick and simple roll-and-write with some upgrades over the original. For one, the art is significantly improved. Everything has style and flair, now, even the dice! It looks great. Honestly, as someone who backed the original Kickstarter, I also appreciate that the core game only has six maps; it felt like there were dozens in the original one and it was stressing me out, a bit. There’s also a particularly nice bit of connectivity between the various maps with a narrative of an artist traveling from place to place, and as you open the envelopes to discover more complex offerings you get to read their postcards, as well. It’s a nice way to move the game along.
The maps are fairly classic (though I find the pyramid kind of boring), but the two new ones (Half Dome and Marina Bay Sands) are quite solid additions to the Roll to the Top family. Not only are they particularly fun and interesting locations, but their rules and strategies can throw the game for a loop in a few different ways, as Half Dome kind of asks you, the player, to gamble on whether or not you think you’ll successfully be able to dump all your high numbers. The other maps are familiar from the original game, though again, the updated art breathes new life into them (and the dry-erase boards are a great upgrade, though I laminated all of my originals).
The only issues I have with Roll to the Top: Journeys are still holdovers from the original game. I was going to look at my old review for inspiration, here, but I never actually ended up reviewing it. Wild, Past Eric. But in all seriousness, there’s not really much in the way of ways to catch up to a player who got too far ahead of you, assuming you messed up and played too many high numbers too early. If you fell behind because you held off on high numbers, well, that’s a different matter entirely. There’s an interesting bit of player interaction where you can sometimes remove dice from play for a few rounds, which might prevent your opponent(s) from getting the low or high numbers they need (keeping in mind that dice are still pretty random). It’s subtle, but nontrivial. But, yeah, getting stuck behind another player is a bummer, and there’s not much you can do. This also might be too basic for folks looking for more complex roll-and-write games; you’re really just rolling and writing numbers down in increasing order until you get to the top. I like it for a little break, but you might have trouble selling fans of Motor City or Three Sisters on this one unless they’re looking for a quick break. If you’re a fan of thematic exploration, you love world monuments and natural features, or you’re just looking for a quick roll-and-write, though, you’ll probably enjoy Roll to the Top: Journeys! I’ve found it fun.
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