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-----• Eight dice in two new colors to allow for up to seven players.
-----• A grey die for each player that allows you to remove an opponent's die when placed (with enough gray dice to have up to eight players).
-----• A large die in each color that counts as two dice when determining who scores at a casino.
-----• Rules for playing a solitaire version of the game.
-----• Bills worth $100,000.
-----• Bills worth $10,000 for each color of bill you collect.
-----• One-shot action cards, with each player receiving one such card at the start of each round.
-----• Special cards of variable value that are available in a new, seventh casino; on a turn, a player can place all the dice he rolled of a single number in this casino, but then no more dice of this number can be placed in this casino by any player.
(Edited Nov. 3, 2013 to note that two extra colors of dice are included, with the gray dice serving as an eighth color if you want that large of a group around the table.)
I'm a big fan of Las Vegas, which has gone over well with gamers and non-gamers alike, but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to try Las Vegas Lights as either the table wasn't ready (in the morning when I arrived) or a game was already underway (every other time I passed by). Ah, well, something I can look for once Nürnberg 2014 rolls around in January...
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Demo game at Spiel 2013
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Each player starts the game with two single-use action cards that you can play on yourself or another player during your turn. In the image below, the player at right is forcing the active player to shoot into a particular cup; other cards grant you an additional shot, make you shoot blind, or force you to take a really long shot. Extremely silly, and sold out when I played it on Sunday. Alas, no Coconuts for me.
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After seeing this "roll", each player chooses one or two cards from hand — with the cards valued 0-7 — and places them face-down. These cards represent the drinks that they want from the active player, an innkeeper who rolls out barrels to see how many drinks he can deliver. The active player can either stop or roll the barrels that were lying on their sides; he can also choose to reroll any special barrels set aside. If the innkeeper ever rerolls and no barrels are standing, then his turn ends and everyone else scores as many points as the sum of the cards they played.
When the innkeeper stops rolling, he decides how to apply any special barrels, then announces the sum of drinks available. Everyone then reveals the cards they played. If the sum of these cards is higher than the drink total, the innkeeper scores points equal to the drink total, the greediest player (that is, the one who played the highest card value) loses points equal to the value of his cards played, and the least greedy player scores points equal to the amount lost by the greediest player. If the drink total is higher than the sum of all the cards, every opponent scores points equal to their cards played and the innkeeper scores any remaining points. As soon as one player has 75 or more points, the game ends and the player with the most points wins.
I tried a four-player game of Polterfass on press day in the Zoch Verlag booth, and the game is a great take on the "prisoner's dilemma", with each individual player wanting to score as much as possible each round — but if all the individuals are too greedy, then those players score nothing (well, very little) and the innkeeper keeps everything for himself. Being able to play one or two cards is a nice touch, as you can play low numbers to try to trick the innkeeper into thinking you're thirstier than you really are. Meanwhile, the innkeeper needs to decide how greedy or vicious he'll be. Does he throw back Xs to try to score more so that he can keep the excess? Throw back doublers to lower the score, stiff everyone, and keep it all for himself? Apply a doubler to a high or low number for the same reasons? Keep rolling for a higher total at the risk of gaining nothing?
The lone woman in our game destroyed her three male opponents, zooming to 73 points, then playing a lowly 2 in the final round to secure her victory no matter what happened; us guys each had between 20 and 40 points. While walking around the fair on a different day, I saw her playing Polterfass again and went over to check out the game. She was again the lone female and had again crushed everyone else. I asked how she did it, and she said, "I think of what all the guys will do — then I do the opposite."
Demo game on press day, with designer Klaus Zoch at left and Polterfass champ at right
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