Hello friends, welcome to the *checks notes* Morty? Zone! Ah. Well, I’m not sure what that is. I do know that it’s roll and write designed by Matt Hyra recently of Cryptozoic Games and also the designer of the DC Deck Building Game among many others. In this game, you take on the roll of… Well to be fair, the story isn’t exactly fleshed out in the rule book. Something about Death Crystals and Jessica. If you win the game, then maybe you have the best death and Jessica decides to keep you as a contact in her mobile phone?
And awaaaaaaay we go! So I know zero about Rick and Morty, I know the older guy who gets transformed into various other versions is Rick and the kid is Morty. That’s it. I’ve never watched the show, though I understand that this game ties into the Season 4 premiere episode. So that’s where I’m at with this game. I guess, let’s peek under the lid and see what’s up – holy schmoly those are some huge dice! There are 8 of them and they are an inch! Which seems appropriate as the Morty Zone is a game of inches. You and your opponents are battling for tight scores, differences of 1 point are likely!
Back to the components. Besides the huge dice, it also has 4 really nice and thick dry erase boards, 4 markers with good erasers, cards, and card stock crystals that have bonus points for completing certain tasks.
In the game, each player grabs a crystal and keeps it secret. They also receive 3 Public cards which they keep face up in front of them, also for scoring points, or in some cases for changing your fate. Plus those player boards and a marker. Some lucky soul, probably the person with the biggest hands, rolls all 8 dice at the same time. I have big hands and roll all 8 of those one handed was tricky. You may want to pursue the Scoop-n-Dump™ method.
After rolling, put the like colors together: red, green, blue, black. These will be related to the tracks on the player board. There is not a color blind friendly method here. After grouping the colors, announce the combined values of the pairs of dice in those colors, Red 3 and Red 6 would be 9 Red. Then the players have to mark values on the matching tracks. The players can however, break up the total value into any two numbers that add to that value and have not already been crossed out. So that 9 Red could be 1 and 8 or 2 and 7. The tracks are 1 to 10, the combined dice values run 2 to 12. All players mark their tracks at the same time, it is possible that in a group all of the players will mark the same numbers on tracks throughout the game.
If you’re the dice roller you also reveal a Rick card, which can optionally affect the die roll. As you continue on in the game, you will want to score your Public cards. They feature characters from the show (I’m assuming as I haven’t looked any of them up) and mostly likely will give you points for having done something that turn. The Public cards are useable once. You can also score Smith Family characters for completing certain activities on your board, everyone has the same ones.
The round ends when all players have Locked all of their tracks. Locking happens when a player cannot mark the numbers on their track as those numbers have already been marked. Players score their crystals if possible, any Public cards that score at the end of the round, and also the Smith Family characters. What I found was the round is a solid 10-20 minutes depending on the quickness of the players’ decisions. The game recommends playing 3 rounds with the highest total score winning.
That’s fine. For me, I was happy with one round, tally score and give the player the highest score the win. Playing 3 rounds effectively feels like playing the game 3 times in a row. You maintain the points from the previous round(s) but clear everything else, get a new crystal, and get 3 new Public cards. Basically a reset of what you’ve done. You maintain the score though for your total score of the 3 rounds.
I admit that I only have this game because it is a roll and write. That said, I found it very clever. There are a few more moving pieces than say Qwixx which has you crossing out numbers on a track. But this game is more than Qwixx, a lot more, so many ways to get them bonus points.
Thematically, I really can’t give an opinion, though I will say gamers with families may pass on it as some of the characters have names that certain people will not like. So do your research first!
Mechanically, I really enjoyed this one. I think one round is plenty if I’m playing, I don’t really have a burning desire to play through 3 rounds again. It was okay, but it felt repetitive. There are plenty of Public cards though and the dice are random so variety can be found.
If you’re in the market for a roll and write that does a lot of things well and you don’t mind the characters, then this game is well worth picking up!
Full disclosure:
I have no affiliations with Cryptozoic or Matt Hyra. This game was a gift from my good buddy Derik, who also has no affiliations with the aforementioned Cryptozoic or Mr. Hyra.