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A Fistful of Daisies

A Fistful of Daisies is a beautifully produced children's game from Space Cow - the junior label of Space Cowboys, distributed in the UK by Coiledspring Games. It's designed by Franck Crittin and Grégoire Largey, with cute art from Rémy Tornior, and it takes 2-4 players.



A Fistful of Daisies is a roll & move race game with dice drafting and set collection thrown in for good measure. The game uses four custom six-sided dice (0,1,1,2,2,3); one is denoted a 'special die' - it has similar faces to the others but the player who chooses it gets to be first player in the next round. Instead of rolling a die individually, all the dice are rolled together and players draft the die that they will use. As it's a race game, you might think the higher numbers will always be preferred but you aren't racing to the finish until your cow has eaten the flowers indicated on your individual board... There are different flowers on each space on the board, so you might prefer a lower numbered die if it allows you to chomp a flower you need. That said, tho' the exact mix of flowers differs for each player, everyone needs every flower type so it's really only in the mid game that players will in practice need to consider taking a lower number in order to eat a specific flower.



As an alternative to eating a flower, players can collect a clover token. Collect four of these and you can exchange them for a flower of your choice. Clovers can also be used to re-roll all the remaining dice and to add to your score in 'duel'...


The USP in A Fistful of Daisies are the plastic cows. These are your player pawns and they are also what you use when you 'duel' another player. The cows have spots on each side (0, 1, 2, 3) and they are designed so that if you lock horns and push two together, they'll flip. Alternatively, you can just roll them as dice. When a cow lands on a space occupied by another. it triggers a duel where the highest number of spots wins that number in clovers.


The cow duels will certainly keep the kids amused but, even allowing for the option of using clovers as modifiers, they are just another test of luck in a game that is already mostly luck: its attraction is down to the design rather than the mechanics. For younger children tho', that alone is enough for this game to stand out from others in the corral.


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