Designed by: Chad DeShon
Sequoia is a fast dice-chucking game of trying to grow the biggest trees in the forest.
Out of the small box comes cards numbered 2-12 which are laid out on the table and then points tokens for first and second places are randomly assigned to them. Players take all the dice and tree tokens of their own colour and play begins!
Players all roll the five dice they have simultaneously, keeping the results hidden behind their hands (or some makeshift screens if you prefer). You split your rolls into two pairs as you like (one die won’t get used) and then everyone reveals their pairs at the same time. The combined number of each pair dictates where you place your tree tokens on the cards: at the end of the game the player with the most tree tokens on each card will get the first place points token, and second-most takes the second place token. As there are only ten turns, this happens very quickly!
There will often be ties to decide first and/or second place. When this happens the tied players play further turns until ties are resolved: as you won’t necessarily roll the dice you need for the tie in question, this can sometimes be over fast, and sometimes be a bit more dramatic, with players both adding (or failing to!) tree tokens on the same turn.
If you’re lucky enough to roll the same number on all of your dice, you get to cry out ‘Sequoia!’ and turn them to any side you like before applying tokens as normal. When all cards and ties are resolved, the player with the most points wins.
None, other than being a smaller tree.
None!
Very little. What you need to do is be seeing where the highest point tokens are and judging whether to go for them, or let others fight it out whilst you take a Darwinian survival-of-the-sneakiest approach around the edges. But even then your plans can be harpooned by others, or even your own dice rolls!
Not a game to scare anyone off, Sequoia is a nice and simple dice-chucker with a seam of surprise running through it. You'd probably not want to play it over and over in the same sitting, but it's fun to revisit now and then, and only takes ten minutes.
2-5
Players
8+
Years
5-15
Mins
Sam says
A decent little dice-chucking game, slightly more chaotic than the same publisher's Mountain Goats, but an entertaining 10 or so minutes that can lead to a decent quotient of cries of delight and dismay. I'm not convinced it ousts several others of a similar weight and length as go-to titles, but it's fun enough.