Base price: $15.
2 players.
Play time: 15 – 20 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 1 

Full disclosure: A review copy of Sports Dice: Basketball was provided by Foxmind Games.

Another week, another day where I realize I’m significantly more behind than I anticipated. There are, as usual, many reasons for this, and I’m not going to get into them here but I’m working on it. There will, inevitably, be more reviews, so do not worry! I’m excited for the next month. Lots of Kickstarter previews as well. In the meantime, though, let’s roll straight into the next one: Sports Dice: Basketball!

Sports Dice: Basketball takes us back to the court for another round of Sports Dice, this time with a basketball flair! In this iteration, players have their own dice that they roll each round for basketball-themed actions, like moving forward, passing, taking a shot, stealing, and occasionally, a free throw. All basketball terms, as far as I’m aware. As usual, the player who rolls more symbols of one type gets to take their action, so roll well and hope for a big swing so that you can dunk on your opponent! One interesting addition this time around is a real-time Inbounding Phase, where offense tries to roll 8 ball symbols before the defense can roll 6 steal symbols. If they can’t, the defense steals the ball and gets to go again! Will you be able to make the big plays and set yourself up for a slam dunk?

Overall: 7 / 10

Alright, if you’ve read the other like, four Sports Dice reviews I’ve done over the years, you should know that I’ve got a strange relationship with this game, given that I don’t really love any of the sports that the games aim to emulate. I do, however, love games that try to distill complex sports down into other genres. I love them more when they’re weird, but I still love them if they’re normal. And Sports Dice: Basketball aims for comfortably normal with one exciting exception: the weird inbounding real-time dice face-off. On one hand, it works somewhat poorly: having to move a tiny meeple on a tiny board in real-time is a great way to make mistakes and end up miscounting or bumping the little guy too much or too little. On the other hand, it’s incredibly unserious and makes the game feel more heated and intense than any of the other games in the series have.

As someone who does not care much about basketball, the game gives me about the approximate depth I crave. You move the ball and occasionally shoot it, and sometimes you have free throws. If there’s more to it, I do not care. However, I now have a way to appeal to friends and family who refuse to engage on any non-basketball topics. You know people like that; be serious. The game’s actual rules play much the same as the other games in the series: roll your dice, check your symbols; whoever got more of their most-frequent symbol gets to go. Simple concept, relatively few drawbacks. One major drawback, however, is that the games are significantly (not entirely, as a key point) chance-driven. You can have several rounds where players just cancel out each others’ previous moves, or entire games where you feel like your opponent just had better rolls. I am aware of this and while it can be annoying, it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Indeed, if your heart yearns for basketball-adjacent activity, you’re in the right spot. Or if you’re powerfully passionate about board games and can’t do much else, you can technically play this during a basketball game and it will be at least somewhat situationally appropriate. I will always have a soft spot for the Sports Dice games because they are consistently more fun than they have any right to be, even if I’m just bad at rolling dice sometimes. They’re a simple game model which is earnest about what it attempts to emulate, and I think it succeeds more than falls short, even as a noted not-big-fan-of-sports guy. If you’re looking to throw some dice around, occasionally shoot a hoop, and spend some time learning … maybe, what basketball is? Unclear. Well, then give Sports Dice: Basketball a shot! That’s always fun.

---

If you enjoyed this review and would like to support What’s Eric Playing? in the future, please check out my Patreon. Thanks for reading!