Bare Bones Review
Bare Bones
Deck Building
West Coast Bias Games
Justin Halgren, Colin Felton
2-4
Deck Building, Dice Rolling, Abstract Design
Bare Bones
Bare Bones is an abstract game of deck building and dice chucking, which effectively combines two of Gameosity’s favorite game mechanisms. Designed by Justin Halgren and Colin Felton from West Coast Bias Games, Bare Bones lives up to its name, featuring stripped down aesthetics and clean rules-first gameplay that rewards smart deck building and dice manipulation. But make no mistake – there’s a chaotic core to Bare Bones that will have the strategists, along with everyone else, cheering and jeering with every toss of the dice. Now Gameosity loves deck building and dice games and has a healthy appetite for abstracts, too. But does Bare Bones have enough meat on its bones to satisfy? Let’s get into it and find out!
Overview
As we said, Bare Bones is an abstract game, which is to say there’s no theme beyond the goal of accruing more points than your opponents over the course of 12 rounds. You’ll be building a deck of cards that both provide you with access to different dice as well as special actions that can alter the way your turn goes. Every time you set up Bare Bones, you’ll use 7 of the 20 potential action cards along with the dice cards, giving you tons of variety in potential combinations. Strategic AND random!
Perks, Quirks, & Pitfalls
Perks are things we like about a game, whereas Pitfalls are potentially problematic aspects. Quirks sit somewhere in the middle, just things worth noting
Perks
- Quick turns make for a snappy experience at the table
- Fun sense of gambling on how useful different dice and action cards will be in combination
- Base game comes with a variety of action cards – 20 in total, and you only use 7 per game, so there’s plenty of variety!
Quirks
- Uneven card complexity – some action cards are incredibly straight forward, while others are thinkier in their interactions
- The stripped-down aesthetics may not appeal to everyone
Pitfalls
- One or two of the rules took us a bit to really understand. In particular, the ‘bonus matching’ rule constantly got forgotten in our first playthrough or two (but once we started applying it, things got spicy)
Gameplay Experience
As with most every abstract game, Bare Bones lives and dies by how much you’re going to enjoy the core gameplay experience, and for Bare Bones that means trying to both compensate for and capitalize on the randomness at the core of any dice-driven game. Like many deck building games, all players will start with an identical deck of cards. Each turn, you’ll play cards from your hand to determine what dice you’re rolling and what actions you might have access to. The dice will either give you coins to spend on additional cards for your deck or those sweet points everyone’s rushing to collect.
You’ll have 5 action units to spend each turn, and actions will cost anywhere from 1 to 3 units to activate. The more expensive the card is, the more potent its impact might be, but as ever, it’s the dice that will ultimately determine just how successful a given round might be. Using a card like Rainbow might net you a ton of points, but you’re much more likely to score big if you’ve prepared well and have the right dice in your hand when you play it.
I actually think the action unit restriction is really smart, because it doesn’t let you play a handful of the most powerful cards at a time – instead, you need to be a bit strategic about what actions you’re taking each turn, to maximize your impact within the limitations they represent.
Set up right and with a bit of luck, Bare Bones can feel almost like an engine-building game, where your deck and dice work together to churn out points. And when the dice don’t roll well or when the cards don’t quite line up the way you want them to, the turns are fast enough that you’ll barely have had time to groan in dismay before it comes back around to you again and you’ll get another chance at greatness.
Table Presence & Presentation
Bare Bones is a very clean-looking game, bordering dangerously on spartan. However, the aesthetic pairs perfectly with the emphasis on mechanics, and the truth is they’re what first caught our eye. Once set up, the game is visually quite simple, with all the information you need front and center. The layout is literally just cards on a table, so we’re not missing anything like a board or a playmat, but if you’ve got friends like mine, I do recommend using a small dice tray or tower.
It’s also a game that could easily have a theme painted on – if the publishers wanted, it would be incredibly easy to adjust the art and the card titles to make it any number of things: a pirate betting game, a computer hacking simulator, or even some sort of cult recruitment ritual. But to be clear, those are my random ideas and I don’t think Bare Bones would be any better for it. Still, that cult thing might be cool.
Expansions
But wait! I did use the phrase ‘base game’ in the Perks section. Bare Bones currently has 2 small expansions that add new dice and action cards to the mix, and can be freely combined with the base game to add even more variety and strategy to the game.
The High Roller expansion introduces, appropriately, High Roller white dice. Like their lesser kin, High Roller dice generate coins – big piles of them!
And that’s good, because the action cards introduced will cost you a pretty penny. But the After Hours card in particular is an exciting way to spend money, because they give you access to an entire bonus round of gameplay – a 13th chance to test your luck and earn some points!
The Golden Dice expansion’s most exciting addition are the titular dice themselves. These costly dice will let you earn both coins and points simultaneously, making them the most versatile bones in the pile. However, using them costs action units, so you’ll have to factor that into your strategy when picking them up. And even if you aren’t using them as part of your main roll, the Showdown action lets you roll off against an opponent, possibly getting 2 extra dice-worth of winnings if you can roll higher than they do.
These expansions are admittedly modest in scope – 1 new die type and 2 new actions apiece – nor do they drastically change the game in a way that’s meaningful enough that they’d sell it to someone who didn’t enjoy the base experience, but for those who already do, they’re totally worth considering.
Final Thoughts
Even though it’s a straightforward game, I really enjoy Bare Bones. Everything about it, from the aesthetics to the mechanics to even the cram-packed box is designed in the service of the game first and foremost, and while it certainly isn’t the deepest, it does what it does perfectly well. The game’s length is a great match for its complexity, with the quick play keeping things moving and satisfying and never letting it overstay its welcome. And while both expansions offer only minimal additions mechanically, I think the extra dice types alone make them worthwhile if you’re already enjoying the base game, with the extra options provided by the action cards a bonus.
I haven’t seen Bare Bones splashed around much, so I think of it as a little bit of a hidden gem, rolling up with a tight, fun design and not an ounce of fat on its aesthetically-pleasing bones.
We received our copy of Bare Bones directly from West Coast Bias Games – you can order directly from their shop to get your own bones for rolling!
Other Recommendations
- If you like deck building: Dominion is certainly considered a classic, and with good reason. Sometimes considered a little stiff by modern standards, it still does what it does very well
- If you like rolling lots of dice: There are tons of dice-driven games out there, but we recommend Spots from CMYK. Adorable and clever, with tons of cute pups!
- If you’re looking for a deck builder with more meat on its bones: Dune: Imperium is a fantastic game that has deck building at its core, with layers of strategy and complexity piled on top. Huge recommendation for this one!