I’m not sure I’ve ever seen my kids more excited to play a game that has landed on my doorstep than when Sour Patch Kids Sixem arrived. Despite their limited reading skills, they quickly recognized the Sour Patch Kids logo on the box.
Much to their chagrin, eating these tasty candies was actually not part of the game (although props to publisher Hootenanny Games for including a box of them with the review copy. My kids quickly ate them all up when I wasn’t looking. No, I’m not bitter about that). The game itself is a fast-paced dice game where players are rolling dice trying to get specific numbers.
Gameplay Overview:
The goal in Sour Patch Sixem is to be the first player to accomplish the game’s objective. Usually, this is marking off one or two lines of numbers/colors on your board. Each player board has columns numbers 1-6, and rows with 6 different colors.
When someone says go, all players roll and reroll their dice at the same time. As soon as one player has a straight run of 1-6, they call out stop and all players must stop rolling. Beginning with the player to the left of the one that called stop, they mark off on their board each number they rolled in the matching color’s row. If they have any duplicate numbers rolled, they must choose one of the dice to use.
The wrinkle comes when one person has previously marked off the space matching their die. In that case, they can choose to be Sweet, allowing another player to use that die to mark off a matching space. Or they can be Sour, forcing another player to erase the matching number from their board.
If nobody has won at this point, another round begins. The game ends after one player has completed a row on their board.
Game Experience:
I’ll admit, after reading through the rulebook for this game, I was a bit skeptical. Reading it through the lens of a gamer, I couldn’t figure out why any player would ever be “Sweet”, giving free marks to another player. I mean, it’s a race to the finish and why would you ever help an opponent?
Well, what I missed was that there will be times when no one has the space marked off, so you’ll HAVE to be sweet and offer up the number to another player. This is when the posturing begins. Your daughter will look at you with those doe eyes, begging to gain the free mark. Or your son will remind you that his current favorite color (all of a sudden) is the same as yours, so you should pick him. Talk about a Sophie’s Choice!
The other thing I failed to take into account is that kids don’t play like strategy gamers. They are happy to dole out free points to people or take them away on a whim. My daughter would give an X out to whoever her favorite was at that moment, despite that person’s position in the game. To be honest, actually think this was their favorite part of the game. They absolutely loved handing out or taking away X’s. It’s rare that they ever wield any kind of power, especially over their parents, so I get it.
From an adult’s perspective, there is actually some strategy here once you get past the first round. Each die matches a color on the board, so when you are rolling dice, it can be good to concentrate on one or two colors to make sure you are making progress towards winning, not just for getting the straight to stop the round.
However, ending the round does have its advantages, as you will be the last one to mark your spaces on your board. This means that people will have less of a chance to erase marks from your board. It also allows for some horse trading (if that’s your thing), where you can promise to share your Red 6 with another player if they give you that Blue 1.
Final Thoughts:
I’ll be honest. I didn’t have high exceptions for Sour Patch Sixem. The rules may be super simple, but there is actually more depth here than shown on the surface. For what it’s worth, the Sour Patch theme is 100% pasted on, but that’s to be expected for a roll-and-write game. However, the real judge here are my kids, and they love it. I brought back quite a few family games for them to review from Gen Con, and this has been one they’ve consistently asked to play again and again. Which is high marks considering all the choices they have in games.
