Let This Free App Explain How to Play the New Board Game (so You Don’t Have To)
Learning or learning a new board game can be challenging and maddening in equal measure. Either you are trying to explain the rules to an apathetic crowd, or you are “taught” and every smallest detail is expected from a monotonous lecturer . If you’re fed up with every game night starting the same way, there’s a better option for board game teachers and students alike.
Dized is a free app designed to introduce players to new board games with fun learning content created specifically for each game. (The program’s developers launched Kickstarter in order to bring their vision to life, though I first saw it thanks to this gamesbymondo TikTok .) After some success with backers, the experience runs on iOS , Android , and the web , albeit in limited capacity. Let’s check it out.
When you first select a training, you see an initial summary screen that includes the estimated length of one game, the number of players who can play at the same time, and the corresponding age rating. You will also see a summary of the game and be able to read the tutorial or the rules.
Let’s focus on the tutorial as this is the real selling point of the app. After downloading the tutorial, you will be greeted with a splash screen with the game’s logo and cover, accompanied by music. An engaging voice-over introduces the game you’re about to play and asks how many players are involved, so it can tailor the walkthrough to your specific setup.
From here, your board game and all of its components (cards, boards, pieces, papers, etc.) appear on screen with their respective voice-overs and instructions. The game is fast-paced: the instructions stop to give players time to inspect them and grab all the required supplies before one person taps the screen to move on.
The tutorials are well prepared and definitely more fun than listening to one person read the rule book while everyone is half paying attention. I tend to have a hard time learning a new game without playing it first, and these animated walkthroughs help fill that gap. I could definitely understand the rules of complex games faster using Dized.
For example, looking at the Tiny Epic Pirates tutorial shows that this is indeed a very difficult game. If I only played this game by the rulebook, I would be in total disarray and it would probably ruin game night.
However, the only real downside to the app is the lack of tutorials. There are currently 39 games in the app’s tutorial catalog, which certainly requires a significant amount of time and energy, but given the huge world of board games, it would be great to see more games. Here’s what’s available at the time of this writing:
- 7 wonders
- Agemonia (Teaser)
- Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood of Venice
- Clap!
- Bayou Bash
- Carcassonne
- Cartographers
- cerebria
- chess
- Bones miner
- Dragomino
- Farm Rescue
- Fidget Factory
- Flux
- iron forest
- King of Tokyo
- kingdomino
- Latvijas Neatkaryas karsh 1918–1920
- Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest
- munchkin
- Paleo
- Pigasus
- Potion
- Robinson Crusoe
- Roll Player
- Spit
- Shobu
- Snowman Bones
- splendor
- Super fantasy brawl
- TEAM3
- night cage
- Secret neighbor party
- time destroyer
- small epic dungeons
- Little Epic Pirates
- tokyo helper
However, there is a more extensive list of game rules; while these aren’t the fun tutorials that make the app unique, they are a nice addition, especially if you’ve lost the original rulebook. If you need to refer to a rule at any point in the game, these organized guides should make it easier to find the rule. To keep up to date with the latest suggested guides and rulebooks, follow Dized on Twitter here .