Farkle (1930)

About this game

Farkel is a proprietary version of the traditional dice game Farkle (or Dix Mille), and is a push-your luck game played with six dice. You roll 6 dice, and remove any dice you want to use for points. You can stop, keeping the points, or re-roll the remaining dice. Points can be scored by specific numbers (e.g. 5 or 1) or sets of the same number. If you can use all six dice for points, pick them all up and keep going. 'Bank' your points and end your turn at any time but beware, some scoring dice must be removed after every roll - if no scoring dice are rolled your turn ends and you score zero points. The highest score over 10,000 wins the game. In 1996, Charlie and Mary Potter, known as "Mr and Mrs Farkel", created a copyrighted scoring system and lodged various trade marks. The scoring system is proprietary to Legendary Games, Inc. Charlie started by selling product made on his kitchen table. Over the course of 10 years, it became a commercial hit. In 2007 Patch launched a version of the game spelled as "Farkle" with almost the same logo design, which soon after they changed.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 2 to 6.
• Rules load. At 1.1/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 8 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.