January Board Game of the Month: Dixit

Plenty of Spiel des Jahres winners and nominees are pure-strategy games, the kind that exemplify the Euro-game genre and reward intensely mathematical strategizing. They're awesome games, and they've led to the countless hours of scrutiny and nitpicking that qualifies as fun among a bunch of engineering grad students. Every once in a while, though, the Spiel des Jahres award goes to a game like Dixit that, despite absolutely no math or strategy behind it, is engaging and complicated and worthy of the title of "game of the year".

Style and Gameplay

Dixit is a card-collecting game that draws inevitable (and entirely appropriate) comparisons to Apples to Apples. Like Apples to Apples, every player has a hand of cards; on each turn, every player selects one card that fits the turn's theme the best. The mechanics are a bit different from Apples to Apples--instead of the "active player" deciding which card fits best, all the players vote on which one belonged to the "active player". Dixit's greatest improvement over Apples to Apples is a track and  mechanism for scoring, keeping Dixit to a manageable length by having an endgame condition within sight.

The scoring system also provides some incentive for the "active player" to create clues that are guessable but not immediately obvious. If a clue is too easy or too hard, the "active player" scores no points. The real trick to Dixit is to hit somewhere in the middle: anything from a clever interpretation to an inside joke to a slightly abstract or off-kilter narrative can do the trick.

Probably the most remarkable part of Dixit is its beautiful artwork, a style somewhere between fairytale storybook and surreal epic fantasy. Different people looking at the same card, or looking at the same card from a different angle or in a different context, can interpret it in vastly different and imaginative ways. The impetus is always on the "active player," rather than a randomly selected "green card," to suggest an interpretation for a card, so there are some cards that don't speak to a player and may go unused the entire game. But the vast majority of them inspire something wonderful: a story, a reference, or even a mere flicker of word-association.

Analysis and Anecdotes

Another point of similarity Apples to Apples, the only real way to gain an advantage in Dixit is to know the people you're playing with very well. Upon seeing a card with a picture of a knight riding out of the pages of a book, my dad gave the clue "woeful countenance". Having played in the musical Man of la Mancha together, I immediately understood the reference, but my mom and girlfriend were not so informed. Similarly, I had just been to the mall with my girlfriend, where we saw a carousel; when she gave the clue "a trip to the mall," I knew the carousel card had to be hers.

Depending on the group of people playing, Dixit could take a number of different turns, ranging from the imaginative to the idiosyncratic, filled with artistic allusions or recounting of hilarious stories from college. It would be easy enough to rig Dixit, to give each picture a phrase specific to it and use the same one every time, but that would be missing the point. And playing through the same deck of cards with the same people multiple times could wear out a lot of the game's novelty: there was a fantastic sense of discovery turning over each card and seeing it for the first time. Asmodee, Dixit's creators, understand that (and have a good business model) and have released a number of expansion decks.

Dixit does take a bit of getting used to; there's a fine line between "too obvious" and "too obtuse". In our first game, we tended, accidentally, toward "too obvious," but we assumed that if we'd played more games, we would have gotten the hang of making appropriately specific clues. And the game could stand to be a little more interactive--for most of the game, there's very little being said except for when the "active player" reveals which card was his or hers. The first game of Apples to Apples I played was like that too; then we discovered how important and fun it was to advocate for your own card. Presumably, Dixit is even more fun once people become comfortable enough with it to start advocating and arguing with the active player.

Overall Impressions

Yes, Dixit is basically "Apples to Apples with pictures". No, that's not a bad thing. This is another game that probably won't appeal to those looking for a deeply strategic gaming experience. But as a social game, suitable for playing with your family or colleagues or acquaintances, Dixit excels in the same way that Apples to Apples does. It helps to know your fellow players well, but it helps more to play with people who are imaginative and creative.

The only obstacle to Dixit's continued playability is running out of interesting picture cards, and when that happens, it's simply time to buy a new deck. Until then, I'm excited to keep delving into Dixit, discovering new and fantastic stories each time.

3-6 players, 30-45 minutes, $35 at a game shop or $25 on Amazon