Playroom Entertainment Ultra Pro Sunflower Valley, Multi-Colored

Sunflower Valley is a roll and write game, a genre of games that seems to have exploded once a game called Qwixx came on the market. But unlike Qwixx, Sunflower Valley has a theme and instead of writing numbers you're drawing small icons: House, straight railroad track, curved railroad track, sunflower, sunflower with villager, and sheep.Where it gets a little wonky is explaining how to win - this game is a bit of a point salad. You get points for houses paired with sheep, variations of sunflower placement, most villagers, and houses connected by railroads. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. Each round all the dice are rolled and players choose a single die with one of these icons and then you assign it a color on your board and that same color can now no longer be chosen again by you or anyone else.I can't say I'm an expert on roll and writes as I've played maybe four or five before Sunflower. In general I like the mechanic (although don't love it) and I like Sunflower Valley. It is, like a lot of roll and writes, a bit solitary with the exception of denying someone else a die or color. So for the most part each person is trying to best solve their own puzzle by creating a valley that will get them the most points.I have a couple of niggles with the game.The biggest problem is that there's no luck mitigation. What these game needs is the ability for players, at a cost, to re-roll the dice. The problem is that sometimes the selection of dice is boring and/or unhelpful which makes the game drag. On Boardgamegeek people have suggested that a player sacrifice a villager to re-roll the dice. I didn't try it, but it makes a lot of sense. Quite honestly, I don't see playing it any other way. Given how simple this little house rule is I'm surprised it wasn't thought up by the designer or publisher. Normally I believe games don't need improvement, but on this point I think this is something that needs to be fixed. Some people have also suggested a house rule to allow people to sacrifice two villagers to re-use a color that's already been chosen. I'm not sure how I feel about that suggestion.The other problem, and it's a minor one, is that the rulebook is sometimes a little unclear. This isn't a big deal because the parts that lack clarity become more clear as you read. It's just odd because the issue could have been resolved by just being clear in the first place. For example, in one spot it says you can get points for houses connected by at least two railroads. What immediately came to mind was two separate tracks connecting to a house. But that's not what they meant - as clarified later in the rules it's points for a single train track consisting of at least two hexes. So all they had to do was add the word "hex" and the problem would have been solved. There's at least one other similar spot in the rules that creates the same unnecessary confusion. However, I want to stress that for the most part the rules are fine. I've certainly seen far far worse.Unlike most roll and writes, this game comes with dry erase boards and markers. In other words, you aren't using disposable sheets of paper. I happen to think this is a great idea because you only have to worry about replacing the markers and not have to worry about getting extra copies of the map sheets/player boards.Sunflower Valley is a game for serious gamers who like light roll and writes who might be looking for something a little similar to Railroad Ink, but with a more cheerful theme. I think more casual gamers will also like this game, but only if they've already dipped their toes into games like Catan or Carcassonne first. This game has more going on than Yahtzee and will frustrate people who've never played a dice game beyond that.Overall I like Sunflower Valley and think it's fine addition to the roll and write genre. For me personally, in terms of theme and genre, I see this as a step up from the game Harvest Dice. For others, if you liked the idea of Qwixx, but not how abstract it felt , then check out this game.