[Note: I received a free copy of this game in exchange for a fair, unbiased review. Due diligence, full disclosure, and all that.]

Everyone knows the exquisite tension that comes with rolling the dice in any game.

You might be counting the places until you land your token on the last property in a much-desired set in Monopoly, the dice already bouncing across the board. You might be sitting with four matching dice on the table, watching the fifth one tumble and wobble, hoping for that elusive Yahtzee. You might be on the brink of destruction in Dungeons & Dragons and only a miraculous toss of your twenty-sided die stands between you and oblivion.

You’re completely beholden to fate, or chance, or maybe both. It’s a central part of gaming.

But what if you had a little more say in the matter? What if your cleverness AND your math skills meant you could turn a dice roll to your favor?

That’s one of the things that sets today’s game apart from the rest. So let’s roll them bones and test our skills against the latest offering from the fruit-fueled Bananagrams family of games.

Today, we’re reviewing Countaloupe.

In Countaloupe, two to four players each have a deck of slice cards, numbered from one to sixteen. Your goal is to roll the dice and discard slice cards from your deck.

How do you do that? By looking at the results of your die roll and using a little addition.

To discard a card, you need one or more of the dice to form the value of a given card. For instance, to discard the 1 slice card, you need a 1 on one of your dice.

To discard the 2 slice card, you need either a 2 on a die OR a 1 on one die and a 1 on another. As the numbers of the slice cards go higher, you can use either a single die result (up to six, of course) or a combination of dice to add up to the value of your slice card.

And if you’re sharp, you can eliminate more than one slice card in a turn.

Look at this roll. There’s a natural 3, so you can ditch the 3 slice card. But you also have a 1 and a 3, meaning you can ditch the 4 slice card. You have a natural 5, so the 5 slice card goes. Finally, you have a 1 and a 5, so the 6 slice card can be discarded. (The 7 slice card stays, because there’s no way to form a seven with the dice as rolled.)

That’s four cards in one roll!

And as the slice card values increase, so do the number of dice you can roll.

At first glance, it looks like this player is out of luck. Those dice don’t add up to 7.

But if you notice, there’s a “X4” on the card. That means you roll four dice for this card, not just three! If that fourth die is a 1, a 3, or a 6, then that 7 slice card can be discarded. (Again, math is a huge help here in spotting different possible ways to make 7.)

That continues for slice cards 12 through 16, which give you five dice to play with.

This is a lucky roll at such a high number. Not only can you make 13 to discard the 13 slice card — 1+3+4+5 — but you can make 14 AND 15 with the available dice, leaving only one card left in your deck before victory.

But your math skills aren’t the only way to affect the game. You’ve probably noticed that white die in each of the previous rolls. What is that for?

That’s the Chance Die, and it mixes up the circumstances of the table randomly.

• If you roll SWEET, you can trade your deck for another player’s deck. This means you can just pick a deck where the player is ahead of you OR steal a deck where the dice in front of you will eliminate more cards.
• If you roll SOUR, you must trade your deck with whichever player has the lowest number on top of their deck (meaning they have the most cards remaining to discard)
• If you roll NOPE, you gain control of the Nope! Chip, which lets you either protect your deck of cards from a SWEET theft or play it on another player’s deck, preventing them from discarding any cards until they control the Nope! Chip in a future turn

Essentially, the Chance Die adds a little more spice to the game and offers another tool — the Nope! Chip — to allow for more strategic play.

There’s also the game mechanic called Taking a Risk, where you reroll the dice and try to discard more cards, but that comes with the penalty of regaining discarded cards if you fail.

So as you can see, a game that would otherwise suffer from a lot of the pitfalls of other dice games — where a series of bad rolls early can leave you just sitting at the table as others race ahead — still gives you other options, like Taking a Risk, playing the Nope! Chip, or hoping for a SWEET roll, putting the power back in your hands.

It’s also strange to find yourself rooting for low rolls after playing so many other games where high dice rolls were desirable. I couldn’t believe the disappointment I felt on that first roll after tossing 5-6-6. I would love a roll like that in D&D!

Factor in relatively brisk sessions (usually around the 10 minute mark) and an immensely charming mascot that is begging for a spinoff game all its own, and you’ve got a recipe for a really fun game of chance and strategy that all ages can enjoy. It actually makes addition exciting. How is that even possible?

(Your replay value may vary, of course, but when we started adding a wagering mechanic, betting on how many cards you could discard on a given roll, it added a nice injection of freshness after a ton of replays.)

[Countaloupe is available from Bananagrams and participating retailers at just $9.99!]

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