Foreword
Dixit is a simple, attractive, party game for 3 to 6 players.
How to Play
Each player starts with 6 cards with pictures on them. The current player selects 1 card from their hand. They place it face down and say either a word or phrase, or they make a sound to describe it. Every other player then picks a card from their hand, that they think fits that description, and places it face-down. Once this has happened, the current player shuffles the cards, lays them out on the table face-up, and each other player guesses which card the current player played. The guessing is done by playing a tile face-down with the number of the picture you think it is. All of the tiles are revealed at once.
Scoring is based on the premise that you want your definition to be obscure, but not too obscure.
- If every other player guesses the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
- If no player guess the current player’s card, everyone but the current player gets 2 points.
- If at least one player guesses the current player’s card and at least one player guesses incorrectly, the current player gets 3 points and each player who guessed correctly gets 3 points too.
- Finally, if you are not the current player, you get 1 additional point for every person who guessed your card that round.
After this is resolved, everyone draws a card and the next player becomes the current player.
Example
Anne places a card face down and says “alone.” Each other player places a card face down as well. After shuffling the cards and placing them face up, Bob, Carol, David, Edna, and Frank make their guesses.
Anne had played the number 3 card.
Bob played the number 1 card and guessed 3.
Carol played the number 2 card and guessed 4.
David played the number 4 card and guessed 5.
Edna played the number 5 card and guessed 3.
Frank played the number 6 card and guessed 4.
Anne gets 3 points because Bob and Edna guessed correctly and Carol, David, and Frank guessed incorrectly.
Bob gets 3 points because he guessed correctly, but no one guessed his card.
Edna gets 4 points because she guessed correctly (3), and David guessed her card (1).
David gets 2 points because Carol and Frank both guessed his card (1 each).
Carol and Frank get 0 points because neither player guessed correctly, and no one voted for their cards.
Conclusion
I enjoy this game, but about 1/4 of the people I have played it with do not, and they really do not. I, personally, love thinking up interesting and obscure ways to describe the cards. Trying to connect the interesting cards to something only 1 or 2 people would get is fun for me. I don’t think I have ever won though because I go too obscure, but still, I like it.
The people that I play with that do not like Dixit dislike coming up with those words/phrases/etc. Generally, they do not mind thinking which card they want to use to match someone else’s word/phrase, but they are, to an extent, self-conscious about coming up with a “good” one on their turn.
One problem I do have with the base game is that it can get repetitive. The cards are pretty cool looking, there are a good number of them, and you can describe them in a myriad of ways, but seeing the same ones over and over again can get stale. Luckily, there are expansions which add a lot of new cards. I do not have any of these expansions though, so I can’t actually recommend them, yet.
Overall, this is another one of my games I like to break out with “non-gamers,” but I haven’t had as much success with it as I would like. I do recommend it, but it very much isn’t for everyone.