TerrorEyes has lost his eyes, and it’s up to you to help him get them back in place!
What Is TerrorEyes?
TerrorEyes is a silly dice-rolling game for 2 to 6 players, ages 5 and up, and takes about 10 minutes to play. It’s available in game stores now and retails for $19.99; it will be available from online retailers after November 9. The game is designed for younger kids and is easy to pick up.
TerrorEyes Components
- 3 Eye dice
- 1 Hand die
- 46 Eye cards
- 10 Action cards
- 1 Monster box
The box itself also serves as a game component: the cardboard insert looks like the cover (though without the text) and depicts a monster face, with a hole where its eyes should be. The box is made to look like the monster–it has feet on the bottom, ears on the sides, and a butt on the back.
The eye dice are oversized green dice, with various types of eyes (and one blank) on the faces. The three eye dice fit into the holes in the insert to complete the monster face. They’re really enormous, but you only roll one at a time, so the game still works even with small hands.
The hand die is a standard-sized die, with a clawed hand on one face, an exclamation point on another face, and blanks on the rest of the faces.
Eye cards depict the monster again with one, two, or three eyes. Like the box, the cards are square and also show the back of the monster on the backs of the cards.
Action cards have an exclamation point on the backs, and depict various actions on the fronts, with the square green monster performing various actions. The illustrations on these cards are really cute.
How to Play TerrorEyes
The Goal
The object of the game is to get 3 eye cards by successfully placing the eye dice into the monster’s face.
Setup
Put the box in the center of the table, with the lid set aside. Shuffle the eye cards and place them in a stack near the box. The starting player takes the three eye dice, and the player to their left takes the red hand die. The action cards are used in the Terrifying variant.
Gameplay
At the start of each round, turn the top eye card face-up so that you can see the monster face. Everyone plays at the same time.
The player with the eye dice rolls them one at a time repeatedly. If the die matches one of the eyes on the card, the player puts it into the box in the right position, and then picks up another eye die to roll. If they place the third eye into the face, they shout “TerrorEyes!” and win the card, and the round ends. The dice are passed to the next player and a new round begins.
Meanwhile, the other players are working to stop them. The other players take turns rolling the hand die as quickly as possible. If the hand symbol is rolled, the player shouts “Stop!” and the player with the eye dice must stop (even if they were about to put a die into the box). Any eye dice that aren’t already in the face are passed to the next player to the left, and then play continues.
You win if you get your third eye card.
Terrifying Variant
For a slightly crazier game, throw in the action cards. Shuffle the action cards, and reveal the top card at the start of the round (when a new eye card is revealed). Whenever a player rolls the exclamation point on the hand die, they shout “Action!” and the player with the eye dice must perform the action before they can continue. The other players will continue rolling the hand die while the action is being resolved.
There are 10 different actions:
- Balance an eye die on your head for 5 seconds.
- Touch your nose with your foot.
- Toss an eye die and catch it.
- Take off a shoe.
- Roll the eye dice with your wrists until the end of the round.
- Crawl under the table.
- High five all the other players.
- Spin around 5 times.
- Count to 20 out loud.
- Run all the way around the table.
Why You Should Play TerrorEyes
TerrorEyes is a pretty goofy game with a goofy theme. The big chunky eye dice are a lot of fun to play with, and filling in the monster face with various eyes is oddly satisfying. The gameplay itself is fairly simple, though, and is primarily luck-based: who will roll the right die faces first?
There is, I suppose, a slight bit of dexterity involved. If you can roll dice more quickly than the other players, you may have an advantage in getting the eyes placed before somebody rolls a hand–but of course there’s no guarantee, either.
Some cards are easier to match than others. For instance, a face with three different eyes gives you more options when you’re rolling the first die, because you have a 50% chance of rolling something that matches, compared to a face that has 3 of the same eye. On the other hand, by the time you’re placing the last eye, you’ve got a 1/6 chance of rolling the correct eye, no matter what the card.
The interesting thing about the hand die is that it’s circulating among the other players, but no matter who rolls the hand, the eye dice will pass clockwise. The sooner somebody rolls a hand, the sooner it will be your turn, but sometimes depending on who’s ahead, maybe you don’t want the dice to transfer just yet. Ideally, you want your turn with the eye dice right when the second die has been placed.
The various actions in the Terrifying variant are, to be fair, not extremely terrifying (except maybe the ones about removing shoes and touching your nose with your toe). They do add a bit more zaniness to the game, though, and remind me a little of Dancing Eggs, another game that has players doing silly things. In TerrorEyes, the actions are just intended to slow down the active player so they can’t finish placing the eyes.
Overall, I think TerrorEyes is a cute game for younger players, but it’s not one that will probably hold the interest of older players as long. I do think it would work well as an early game for teaching dice-rolling and pattern matching; if your kids need practice rolling dice (because, let’s face it, some kids can’t roll dice without tossing them off the table), they’ll get plenty of practice by playing TerrorEyes, and at least you’re not stuck playing something like Chutes & Ladders. But those looking for more strategy or choices during gameplay may find it a little too light.
If you’ve got younger kids and are looking for something a bit silly to play–particularly for a Halloween game night–TerrorEyes is worth a peek.
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
