Cubitos is a light-hearted take on a racing-game driven by dice-building elements. Rolling dice will always be in fashion in the tabletop world. With several setup variations and a handful of different racetracks, there is plenty of value here. Players who love games with plenty of variety will thoroughly enjoy Cubitos.

Overall, the components of Cubitos are very solid. The featured attraction, the dozens of dice, are well-made and the colours really pop. The racers are cute and characterized similar to something like Root. The one glaring issue with the overall package is the dice-boxes. While they’re functional in theory and do a great job at holding everything in place when the game is packed away, they feel very cheap. The thin cardboard boxes with folding instructions are flimsy and unlikely to withstand heavy use. They also take up more space than necessary. It’s an unfortunate downside to an otherwise great package.

In Cubitos, players take on the role of participants in the annual Cube Cup race. Each player begins the game with a runner on the race track and support team, a set of beginning dice, a player board and phase board. One of the racetracks is selected and the 8 coloured dice are setup with a matching ability card. The starting player for the round is given a bonus starting die which they can roll in addition to their own dice.

Each round is split into two phases: the Roll Phase and the Run Phase. In the Roll Phase, players roll their dice according to their hand-size (starting at 9) and move any ‘hits’ (non-blank sides) to the Active section of their board. If a player wants to push their luck, they may re-roll any blanks. If a player has 3 dice in their Active section, and they re-roll all blanks, they bust. Their dice are discarded and they move one space forward on the Fan Support board. In the Run Phase, players move their runner as many spaces as they rolled. Players may also spend any coins or credits to purchase up to 2 coloured dice. The race is complete when one player crosses the finish line, and that player is declared the winner!

Immediately upon playing Cubitos I was reminded of another deck-building, push-your-luck type game in The Quacks of Quedlinburg. There’s the familiar catch-up mechanic for players who encounter unfriendly rolls. There are synergies between the various card abilities. Overall, it feels like the racing equivalent to Quacks. It’s not perfect, and it does feel like the lack of player interaction is more noticeable here. The Conflict dice is nice, but it would be great if there were more ways to sabotage your opponents. The fan support track also doesn’t feel that impactful or even thematic.

There really aren’t enough great racing games. It’s a tough thing to balance, especially when dice are the primary mechanic of the game. But Cubitos manages to overcome most of those challenges to deliver a game that feels enjoyable and unique to other games that occupy the same space. It’s also on the lighter side of intermediate-level games, and I could see kids as young as 8 enjoying it.