Players: 3-6
Playing Time: 30 minutes
The Components
Dixit comes with several different components inside a somewhat oversized box, the heart of which is a beautiful deck of cards.
The Box: This is a standard square game box, but what's notable is that the scoring track is set right into the box, as a raised platform of cardboard. The middle of it contains a well where the rest of the pieces go.
Wooden Bits: Each players gets a little wooden rabbit, which is attractively & evocatively cut, to mark his score. Why a rabbit? I dunno, but it does add to the whimsical feel of the game.
Cardboard Bits: Each player also gets a set of six cardboard tiles, marked "1" to "6", in his color. They're used to select a card during play.
The Cards: These are the heart of the game. There are 84 of them total, printed on high-gloss tarot-sized cards. They all feature painted artwork by Marie Cardouat which is entirely beautiful. They're weird and symbolic, magical and mysterious, sad and joyful. I've scanned a couple for you to see nearby. I think the one with the woodcutter is my favorite.
Given the fact that the card illustrations are entirely gorgeous, I can only give this game a "5" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The object of Dixit is to earn the most points through the clever combination of pictures and sentences.
Setup: Each player is dealt a hand of six cards and given their voting tokens.
The Cardplay: The active player is the 'storyteller'. He chooses one of his cards, places it face down on the table, then says a sentence about it. The sentence should neither be too revealing nor too opaque.
Each other player then chooses a card from their hand which matches the sentence well and places it face-down on the table.
When all the cards are turned in, the storyteller shuffles them, then reveals them all, placing a number next to each.
Now all players simultaneously vote on which card they think was the one selected by the storyteller.
Scoring the Round: Each player who selected the storyteller's card gets 3 points.
If neither all of the players nor none of the players selected the storyteller's card, he also earns 3 points. Otherwise, every other player gets 2 points.
Finally, each player other than the storyteller whose card got votes gets one point per vote.
Ending the Game: The game ends when the draw pile is emptied. The player who has the most points wins.
Relationships to Other Games
I've seen most of this game's elements before. Apples to Apples was probably the originator of the "select between cards from all the players" mechanic. Barbarossa was probably the earliest game with the "don't be too obvious or too opaque" mechanic. Finally, there are any number of simple storytelling games, like Nanofictionary and Once Upon a Time. Clearly, Dixit is much more minimalist than either of those.
The Game Design
Dixit is a simple, enjoyable game. There's not a whole lot to it, but it accomplishes its goals admirably, by sparking a little bit of creativity, and giving players the fun opportunity to try and improve upon the storyteller's image and to figure out the puzzle of which card is the right one.
In one of the groups I played this with, some of the players were uncomfortable about the creative aspect, so you do have to play it with the right crowd, but what game isn't that true of?
I have a few light concerns. First, I'm not sure about the longevity of the game given the number of cards, but I suspect different stories will arise based upon the groups. Surely, there was no overlap in the two games I played. Second, I think the scoring mechanism was more difficult than it needed to be for a game of this weight.
I generally rate the Substance of a game based on how well it has accomplished its goals. Though there's not a lot to this game, that was the intentional design; the real thing you need to look at is the fun of the gameplay. Based on that criteria I've given it a "4" out of "5" for Substance.
Conclusion
Dixit is a light, original party game where you make up sentences to describe pictures (but not too well!). The result is evocative, thanks in no small part to the beautiful pictures that appear on the game's cards.
