Yahtzee with Buddies

Are you a Yahtzee fan?  I remember playing Yahtzee as a kid, it’s such a game of chance, you would never know how your final score would end up.  

Dependent upon which list you look at, Yahtzee is in the top 15 best board games of all time, as ranked by users at ranker.com.  It continues to sell well, landing at #35 in Best Sellers in Board Games at Amazon.

Although board games like Yahtzee are a great way to spend the evening with your family, sometimes finding the time to get the family altogether can be tough.  With the Yahtzee with Buddies app, the only officially licensed Yahtzee game on the app store, you can play Yahtzee anytime you want.  

You can create a Yahtzee with Buddies account and play with other app users, your friends, even your children.  Just play your turn and the game is updated on your buddy’s list for their turn.

Playing Yahtzee with Buddies

If you haven’t played Yahtzee in a while, I found this great website called The Yahtzee Page, that reminds you of the rules.  And, since my skills are a bit dusty, I perused their strategy section for a leg up on the competition! 

I have been playing Yahtzee with Buddies for the last couple of weeks.  I love the fact that I can play intensely for several minutes at a time or just stop and pick the game back up the next day…or even the next week!  Because it is so easy to start up a game with someone through the app, if you delay in your game, the buddy can start another game with someone else and wait for you, it’s really no big deal.

In fact, Yahtzee with Buddies is set up so you can have a good number of games going on at the same time.  Right now, I have six going on!  

Although my son doesn’t have his own phone yet, he and I are sharing my games together on my cellphone.  He’s having a blast learning about the game and playing it.  He looks right away to my phone when he hears it vibrate…hoping it’s our turn again at Yahtzee.

Ways to Play

There are a number of ways to play Yahtzee with Buddies…

1. New Game – you can play a match against a random buddy, you can rematch a buddy you’ve played before, or if you connect Facebook to your Yahtzee account and challenge your Facebook friends.  There are also daily challenges you can join.
2. Events – there are a number of different events you can play each day.
3. Tournaments – this is one of my favorite ones to play.  There are a number of scheduled and Fast Play Tournaments everyday you can join.  Each of them costs anywhere from 2 to 15 Bonus Rolls to join.  You earn dice from each game you play. You can then spend them in Tournaments and Events to earn even more Bonus Rolls or even custom dice.

I like to play the Tournaments when I want to play a game straight through and not wait for another person’s turn.  Yahtzee with Buddies will review all of the scores of the people in the tournament and then ranks your score.  Prizes are available for the top scorers.

The Yahtzee with Buddies app is free, but of course, there is always an opportunity to pay some cash to get some advantages.  You can buy Bonus Rolls to use as entry fees into tournaments or to roll extra times in a game to increase your chances of getting the roll you want.  

You can buy as little as 9 Bonus Rolls for $2.99 up to 380 Bonus Rolls for $99.99.  Unless you find that you really get into the game, buying Extra Rolls is purely optional.  I have been playing for free and earning Bonus Rolls slowly, but surely.

Let’s Talk Dice

Yahtzee with Buddies has a number of dice options.  You start with plain white dice, but by purchasing “Bonus Rolls” you can buy any dice choice that you’d like.  The more you play, the more dice color options open up.  

But if you wait it out, you can Bonus Rolls to buy some of the lower cost color dice as well.  You can also “earn” Bonus Rolls by downloading other suggested apps.  This can be rather tempting for kids, so be sure to tell them this area is off limits if you don’t want them downloading a bunch of games on their phone.

Purchasing the cheapest dice will set you back 250 B0nus Rolls, so every time you’re tempted on using a Bonus Roll during a Game or Tournament, think again about how badly you’d like to change your dice color.

Parental Controls

Privacy

There is no option to make your profile private, so you can play only with friends.  By it’s nature, Yahtzee with Buddies is a public game where you can easily pick up a game because many people are eager to play.  

There are several options to sign up for Yahtzee with Buddies.  You can sign up as a guest, through email, or through a Facebook account.  Signing up through email is preferred so your child can keep his/her profile/history.  If your child signs up using his/her Facebook account, the app will not post to Facebook, but it will note his/her birthday and friends, which encroaches upon your child’s privacy.

Ads

There are ads that run as a part of using this free app.  If you prefer no ads, ads can be removed with a purchase of 16 Bonus Rolls at $4.99.

Chats

There is a way to chat with players, but it is not easily viewable.  You touch a player’s profile and then touch the word “Compliment” to send them a note.  They player can respond and a chat has begun.  But the chat isn’t at the bottom of the game as they play, so it’s not as obvious.

Blocking Users

There is a way to Block a user, should you need to through Settings.  In my two weeks of playing, I have seen no reason to do this, but I always like to see this option in an app.  You can use this option if someone is chatting to your child and you’d like to discontinue it.  But no one has sent me a chat the whole time I’ve been playing.

The Yahtzee with Buddies is free in both the iTunes and Google Play stores.  There are also in-app purchases available to enhance gameplay.

A Mom’s Perspective

Yahtzee is Buddies is a fun way play this timeless board game in your own timing…and you don’t even need to pull out the physical game and mess up your kitchen table!  It’s a great game for moms and dads to play on their own or with the kids.  My son has really been enjoying the game and honestly, if it weren’t for this app, I’m not sure he would have learned the game otherwise.

He is learning about strategy, chance, and patience, as he waits for others to take their turn.  Already our overall score has been increasing as we learn why it makes sense to choose a Four of a Kind for a roll of 4 4’s verses putting a score in the 4’s column.

With regards to safe play for kids, I did not see anything alarming for kids, other than the enticement to download other apps/games to receive free Bonus Rolls.  The option to sign up via email and to Block users as well as the fact that chatting is not an obvious part of the game, help make this a safer environment for kids as well.