What is a Roll & Write game why are they so trendy at the moment, are they the boardgames of the future, Are these the best games for print & play enthusiasts these are the questions I found myself asking at 11 am on a Wednesday while drinking a cup of coffee and trying to plan out my day.
I want to take a bit of time to explore this because I think it is an interesting bunch of question.
The Roll & Write format of boardgame has become massively popular over the last couple of years with games like On Tour, Welcome to and Railroad Ink having a considerable amount of success. These games usually involve players doing an action like rolling dice or flipping a card and then writing on a board or piece of paper. There are lots of print and play roll & writes available (view the whole list here)
However, is this just a popularisation of a more obscure mechanic that will continue to appear here and there adding to the growing catalogue of the types of modern boardgames available for people to play. Will these games due to a lot of them having the ability to be produced at home with a printer and some dice change the way we design and release boardgames?
What is a Roll & Write Game
Who else doesn’t love chucking dice we have a friend in our gaming group nicknamed Tupperware because of the constant need to keep dice in a container when he throws them And who hasn’t thrown those six-sided cubes of fun during childhood games of Yahtzee or even more recently?
Back to Yahtzee, most of us have played this classic game at one point in our lives, and your copy probably met the same fate as mine: abandoned at my parents’ home, quietly collecting dust on some long-forgotten shelf. Until the day you are playing it with your soon to be wife wanting to take her to a romantic location to propose, and she won’t stop playing because she as I quote “wants to win just once” flashbacks to stressful Yahtzee memories aside, gamers are happily playing games based on Yahtzee’s core mechanism: roll and write. Whether they’re simple twists on the classic or completely new games based on rolling and writing, this new school of dice-based games offer new challenges and lots of replayability.
Yahtzee’s core roll and write mechanism is one of the best ways I could think to describe these games players roll a dice or take an action that then requires them to record an outcome on a sheet of paper.
This is then completed several times until a condition is meet the game ends, final scores are tallied, and the person with the most points is declared the winner.
What is a Print & Play Game
So what then is a Print & Play Game? A Print and play game is a boardgame that is usually released in a digital version for the consumer to print themselves independent of a manufacturing company. This has been a great way for boardgame companies to release cheap or free versions of there products to customers.
We have written multiple posts on this website with links to games you can Print & Play from the collection of cheapass games to games like Secret Hitler, Ninjitsu and Unfair these games a great option for gamers on a budget. However, there is something special in the relationship between a Roll & Write game and the print and play format.
The Love Relationship Between Print & Play & Roll & Write
So why do these two types of games go along together so well? We believe it comes down to assessability and how easy it is for an everyday person to create there own DIY print and play boardgame. A print and play game usually requires only a few key things most of them can be found at your local target dice, pens, paper and a printer and in most cases you have everything you need to start playing.
Other Boardgames required the production of a board player tokens and countless amounts of cards that need to be cut produced where a print and play roll & write is simple it’s easy and because of this its the perfect format for those looking for print and play games.
So where do I find these games?
Check out the Options Below from Recient Roll & Write Contests
| Game | Style | Notes: |
| Welcome to Dino World | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Dino World Winner |
| Cathedrawl | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Color-In Kingdom | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Do Your Chores | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Prosper | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Rolling Monsters | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Six Sided Stout | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Ada Lovelace: Consulting Mathematician | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Arabica | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Backyard Buddies | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Canterpillar Feast | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Captain’s Curse | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Chop Shop | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Clear a Path | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Dark House | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Dungeon Map #4d6 | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Expo | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Fashionista | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| GTFO the Colony | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Holmes & Watson Adventures in The Fog | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Homunculi | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| My Corner of the Sky | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Pie, Glorious Pie | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Pippi & The Murmuring Desert | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Raise The Shields | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Recycling Route | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Roll For The Gold | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Samurai Dice | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Skate | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Snakey Dice | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Teotihuacãzinho | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Terrarolling Mars | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Towering Inferno | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Washington D6 | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Wreck N Roll | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Cruciverbalist | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Jurassico | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Pencils & Powers | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Roll’d Gryphon Air Corps | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Rollers of the Lost Dice | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Terraforming Dice Duel | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| The Grand Magus of Ibaur | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| 25-to-dice | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Forgotten Lands | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Partition | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Polygon Pocket | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Spell Scribe | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Time Dice | Roll & Write | – #GenCantRnW – Games For All Submition |
| Candy Craze | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Rake And Roll | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Rolling Orchards | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Patch | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Turkey Day Dice | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Pixel Trees | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Pen – Sylvania | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Fthinoporo | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Pumpkin Pie Biz | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Gnomes of Stumphall Manor | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Feathery Nomads | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Leafus | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Three Trees | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| A Walk in the Woods | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Dice County Fair | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Until the Frost Comes | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Trick or Treat | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Fall’s Leaves Fall | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Roll and Fright | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Food Truck Harvest | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Fall and Harvest | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Foliage | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Stoney Creek Acres | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Bonfire Night | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Bonfire Night | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| TrickRollTreat | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| Falling Leaves | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |
| They’re a Fallin’ | Roll & Write | – Roll & Write Jam |