So as some of you may or may not know, I sort of accidentally won a set of official playmats due to the article I wrote about the teaser images on Boardgame Breakfast. They also came in good time for my birthday! So, what's a girl to do but to play with them and decide how they measure up? Dave already reviewed the unofficial CowCow play mats, so it's only fair that I take the official variant out for a spin.I was originally not going to purchase the playmat, and had considered the CowCow solution if anything, but now that they're here I actually really liked it! There are quite a few things to recommend it, even if it does have a few downsides to go with the good parts.
What Works
The material is thick and flexible with a pleasantly grippy undersurface. The mat is NOT going to slide without some serious effort. It rolls up very easily (as it comes that way) and it fairly easily folds into 1/8ths for mostly flat packing if that's how you roll. I will note it's clearly not designed to fold, but it does it pretty well anyway. All play areas are neatly labeled and easy to read.
The card areas are tightly packed without being cluttered, with very clear and concise areas for the dice to be kept before they are purchased. This can save a bit of wear and tear on your cards, as you are not scraping dice over them since the dice have a place to go just beside. They are very clearly 'not yet purchased' which can be a bit tricky if you're playing with a more cluttered and less demarcated area.
The basic action areas also have an appropriate space for the color cards that go under them.
I give partial credit to the game designers for this point, but the play area is very nicely laid out, the place for cards to go and the way dice move is also very intuitively laid out. If you are playing across from someone who also has an official playmat there are four centrally located areas for the basic actions and everything looks very nice.
The life tracker at the bottom is simple and fits the purpose. You will want a d20 or similar die or marker for it (not included), but it works. My only negative about that is that I found myself accidentally knocking into the d20 I was using for a life tracker when I was scooping up and rolling dice. Additionally there is no way that the 'dice bag' can actually go in the area where it is marked, so it seems like a slightly silly addition. The dice bag will, necessarily, be kept to the side or behind the mat proper.
What Doesn't
So obviously I did enjoy several features of the playmats but it's not all fun and games. I alluded to one issue above, wherein I kept bumping into the marker I was using to track my life. I never lost place of my life, but if I hadn't noticed immediately (which was definitely a possibility) I would have long since forgotten my life total. Life trackers are meant to keep me from worrying about that sort of thing. It might have been a better design feature if it had run down the side of the mat, rather than across the bottom, so it would stay out of sight, out of mind, and away from the active rolling zone.
Which brings me to the active rolling zone, or the reserve pool. We here at The Reserve Pool have a great affection for that area of the mat and it's... TINY! I started off the game, and indeed continued throughout the game, trying to roll into the reserve pool area of the mat and you just can't do that.
'But Katie, that's silly, why on Earth would you do that when the area is so small?'. Well my hypothetical friend, (I have real friends, they just don't usually make such nice hypothetical questions!) it's because there's not really anywhere else to roll! Clocking in at about 15" x 22" the mat itself takes up a lot of table space, table space that I cannot roll on because it's covered in neatly spaced dice, the used pile, the prep area, and my opponent's space. Even a fairly sizable coffee table with two of these across from each other is a bit tight. I found myself rolling dice into what should have been the used pile area, and it was only with several tries that I worked on a strategy for rolling into a cupped hand.
This flew in a friendly game, but it really shouldn't in tournament play. You should be able to watch your opponent roll his or her dice, that is only fair and appropriate. The mats are so real estate intensive though that I felt I needed a special box to roll into, or similar, and that's pretty suboptimal for a product that should be a full play solution.
In the end, I think you'd find you have to roll off to the side area and for anyone who is sufficiently vertically challenged (like yours truly), I just don't have the wingspan to do that comfortably. There's also the matter that you are then transferring those dice back to the reserve pool area. Ideally I should have been able to roll into the area, it is just way too small.
A wider and deeper reserve pool area (mixed with nixing the useless 'dice bag' area and pushing up the prep and used pile) would have made for a much larger roll area without sacrificing too much space from areas that needed it.
Worth It?
Just like other bits of Dice Masters swag, the official mats have been a touch hard to come by, but MSRP is floating around in the teens for these. The end result is they are pretty nice, they transport well, they are the official solution and no one will look at it oddly. The CowCow mats are definitely a more niche and 'if you heard about it on the internet' solution, unlike the official mats. They are definitely grippy on the bottom, and even clung to my fluffy carpet and my glass and wood table surfaces, they are not going anywhere even with some pressure on the mat. You really have to yank to get it to do something more than slide slowly.
Value to price point is sometimes very difficult to judge, and a reasonable expense for some is lavish for others; I balk slightly at the price, I'll admit. I tend to spend my swag money indiscriminately, but I'm not sure this would be high on my purchase list for myself. I would 150% get this as a gift for a DiceMasters enthusiast, however, if they didn't already have one. I think it's one of those things that everyone wants, but people aren't necessarily prepared to drop the money for it.
If you think the price is reasonable for a generic playmat, I think you will think it's a good playmat that you have gotten for your money. If you think it's too expensive for a playmat, you are not going to suddenly be enlightened by the sheer perfection of its playmattitude.
My two cents: I keep my dice in a flat, clear, plastic fishing tackle box with dividers. I keep my cards in a 3-ring binder, organized by card number. I've thought about buying official mats before, but what works for me are mats I printed out on card stock. They fit in the inside pockets of my card binder, take up less space, and it is one less thing i need to grab when I go to play somewhere. They don't have grippy bottoms, but the only time that was an issue is what my 1-year-old decided to play too, and no one was quick enough to stop him. (looking back, a grippy-bottom playmat may not have enough to stop his destruction)
ReplyDeleteMy playmats were cheap, easily replaceable, and I'm pretty sure the reserve pool on my mat is bigger that the one on the mat reviewed above.
Yeah, I'm very sure that there are a lot of cheaper options that people can bang out. Personally if you're looking for inexpensive in a thing that you can use that looks a bit official, the CowCow mats are cheaper and since there's not so much of a premium on space you can afford to use some of your free space to roll.
DeleteThe grippy was pretty intense though, but if you're picking UP it doesn't grip, it was very slide resistant on many surfaces I tested, though.
I've been wanting this playmat since they teased it back in April/May! Nice review, I was wondering if I'd need a tube for it or if I could stuff it in the pocket of my card binder.
ReplyDeleteI agree on the price though. Maybe not drop my own money on it but for that price I can get someone to buy it as a bday gift most likely.
Thanks!
DeleteI personally think you could stuff it in the pocket of the binder for transport, but I think you might want to store it rolled. It's not really made for folding, but as you can see in the picture above it folds without much effort at all.