The object of a Tenzi game is to get all of your dice to show the same number of pips. That’s a simple enough concept, and easy for even the youngest players to understand quickly. Older players tend to aim for speed while younger players concentrate on the sorting, matching, and grouping. The instructions encourage players to make up new ways to play such as adding die instead of matching them. The recommended age is 7 years and up, but we’ve also learned that seniors love it as a way to exercise their minds–and to be able to prove to themselves that they can still play a physically and mentally fast-focused game.
All of the players roll their die at once. You decide which number, one to six, to focus on and put aside those die with that number. Let’s say of the 10 die, three are 4s. You put aside the three die and continue rolling, trying for more 4s. If you roll your ten 4s before anyone else rolls ten of their number, you win.
The game is meant for two to four players, and that brings up an important piece of information. The image displayed on several sites for Tenzi is misleading. The image shows five sets of tubes. The game is actually just one tube, containing 40 die, with 10 each of 4 different colors. If you want specific colors, you may want to buy this from a resource where you can pick which tube–and set of colors–you want. That’s also probably your family’s first start to being Tenzi addicts, but at least you’ll be having fun!
