Sixem and Floats McGoats Games Review

Get ready to add two new games from Hootenanny Games to your next family game night. Sixem is a fast-paced dice game, while Floats McGoats is a game with goat playing pieces. Both games are for ages 10 and up.

The basic gameplay of Sixem is that everyone rolls their dice, a player yells “stop”, and players mark their boards with Xs. Each player gets six dice, a playing board, and a dry-erase marker. If you’re the first to complete the pattern shown on the spinner by forming lines of Xs on your board, then you win. For instance, you might have to create one vertical line or two horizontal lines. When you roll all six of your dice, you’re actually trying to roll one of each number. You can re-roll some or all of your dice to get the numbers you need. But once one player rolls one through six, they yell “stop”, and it’s time to mark the boards. But you do it one player at a time. You add one X to your board for each unique dice number that you have. Now, if you roll a die that matches an X already on your board from a previous roll, you can make another player erase that same X (identical color and number combination) from their board. So that means that if one player has matched the spinner, but it’s your turn to mark your board, you can make them remove an X and no longer win. You can play this game with two to four players.

Floats McGoats is a board game for two to four players where you have to take turns building a raft out of sticks and securing your goats in triangles to earn points. The game comes with 24 mama goats, four baby goats, two anchor sticks, a 12-sided die, 48 raft sticks, a shark, and a playing board. Every player starts with a set of the same-colored goats, and on your turn, you can pick one of the following actions: add one goat to any open spot on the raft or roll the die and take the action shown. How do you add a goat? A goat can be added to either side of a stick, and only one goat is allowed per side. How do you add sticks? By rolling the die. You might have to add one stick, move one or two sticks, or flip a stick. And once a goat is surrounded by three dark sticks, it’s locked in and protected, and will score you points. Other possible die actions include stacking one of your goats that’s already on the board on top of another one. That’s called Goat Love. If you roll Goat Fight, you can swap the positions of one of your goats on the board with an opponent’s. Watch out for Shark Attack. This means that you must remove a goat or stack of goats on the board. Tough luck if the only goats on the board belong to you. There are a few other rules to know before you play, and the number of players you have determines how many points you play to. The first player to earn that number of points based on the number and type of goats they’ve secured in triangles wins.