How to play Gorilla Dice

In a previous post, I mentioned the classic game Gorilla Dice which I thought everyone knew, loved, played, dreamed about, loved, knew, loved, kneeled before and loved.

But I was wrong. So many people have asked me what this game is that I have bowed to monkey pressure and here (below) I write for thee the rules for…

Gorilla Dice!



Players: 1-4

Ages: 6-17, 19-90+

Length: less than 61 minutes

Setup:

Place 3 dice of differing colors (white, red, blue) in front of each differing player (these are your gorilla dice). Shuffle the Gorilla Dice cards and place them upside down in a deck in the centre of the arena (these are your gorilla dice cards). These cards all have different numbers on them from -6 to 6 (including 0.)

Each player then takes as many cards from the deck into (onto) their hand as there are players, plus one. (The player who looks most like a gorilla goes first.)

Play:

Everyone rolls their dice at the same time.

The total on the blue dice is your gorilla number, the total on the white dice is your banana number, and the total on your red dice is your murder number.

Basically, the biggest and/or most vicious gorilla wins each hand. But we won’t know who the biggest gorilla is just yet so put that idea aside for a moment.

Choose a card from your hand and secretly place it under your blue dice. The card plus the dice is your Big Boy number which comes into play at the end.

The player with the highest murder number (in case of a tie, tied players re-roll) attempts to kill another gorilla. They must name their target. They play a numbered card from their hand (added to their murder number) and their target does likewise.

The lowest number equals one dead gorilla.

UNLESS the target chooses to play a numbered card to add with their banana number. If this is higher than the attacker’s murder number, the attacker slips on a banana and the attack fails. Please note that any used cards are discarded and once you use your banana dice it is gone!

The original attacker then tries to murder same or other gorilla until they run out of cards or are killed by another rampaging gorilla.

The next highest murder number then tries to kill everyone else and so on. Last standing gorilla may shout “oogie-boogie” which is the wild cry of murderous monkeys and gorillas and hairy men everywhere!

UNLESS more than one player is still alive and all the cards are spent. Then it’s a brawl where just the totals on the dice count.

FINALLY you add the blue dice with your secret card and multiply that number with the number of gorilla kills performed and banana slips caused.

HIGHEST SCORE WINS!

Then play again until you have played as many rounds as you want.

PS: I will never stop using the word dice to represent a singled dice. Deal wit’ it!

PPS: Play the game and tell me if it works, I have no monkey idea.