Diced Tomatoes

From BoardGameGeek:

Deceptively Simple Recipe For Fun! Enter the Inaugural Tomato Growing Competition and flex your horticultural muscles in the art of growing the red fruit. All sorts of chaos is happening in the garden so slipping your opponents the less attractive tomato dice or any rotten pieces will most likely go unnoticed... Or will it? Try to outdice, outsmart and outscore your opponents! Diced Tomatoes is an abstract game with a subtle tomato theme. A fairly light dice rolling and pattern building game for 2 to 4 players. Deceptively simple game with light strategy and some "take that" elements. While at its heart the game is very simple - roll and place - it features options that allow you to modify the randomness of the dice to your advantage. These elements are: Karma - for purchasing dice modifications Black dice - for lowering score value or eliminating low scoring vines and also Gold/Yellow dice - for raising score value but also for eliminating high scoring vines. Original attempt to publish the game failed due to the cancelation of the Kickstarter campaign. Since then the game has been updated with added components and improved rules to make it more engaging. Work is on the way to renew the Kickstarter campaign later this year (2021) Right now the game is available to play on the BoardGameArena for free. https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=dicedtomatoes INGREDIENTS 44 red dice 8 black dice 4 gold/yellow dice 12 tomato vines 4 hearts 4 player mats a dash of strategy a sprinkle of ruthlessness a smidgen of treachery PREPARATION Find 2 to 4 players. Give each of them 1 player mat, 1 heart token, 11 red dice, 2 black die, 1 gold/yellow die and 3 tomato vines. Have each player place the heart token on #3 on the karma track and all the dice in the common pull called the Bushel. Choose the starting player. Start rolling. DIRECTIONS Collect the most points by “dicing” tomatoes (completing sets of 4 dice per tomato). Select dice from your bushel, roll and place them to earn maximum reward. Complete opponents' tomato vines to collect karma points (hearts). Use the black and/or gold dice to manipulate the score values. WHAT'S THE APPEAL? Quick play time - you can enjoy 3 full games on your lunch break. Minimal setup time - open the box and start playing within 2 minutes. Super easy to learn - simple dice drafting and pattern building mechanic. High player interactivity - suggestive negotiation and defensive actions Deceptively simple - if you like a bit more depth than just rolling dice this game will have you Balance luck and tactics to achieve victory. Expansion opportunity - core game can be expanded to 5, 6 or even more players simply by adding more player sets.