I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yahtzee

By Nathan Stout

We call it ICBINY for short. The name is really a misnomer. It’s nothing like Yahtzee at all. Yes there are some dice, yes you roll them in an attempt to score some points but that’s about all.

It’s such a fun little game that I have decided to share the rules with you.

But first some history:

ICBINY was a shareware game. Where it was before that is any one’s guess. It’s actually kinda difficult to find nowadays. I did track down a working site that had the game but it’s a very primitive program. Several years ago Chris told me about this game he started playing called I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yahtzee. He remembered the rules and we played it in ‘real life’ (with real dice, not on the PC). We did have to refer to the program a couple of times to get some instructions but we figured it out and played it a bit (between our many games of NetRunner).

It’s been awhile since we played last and I suggested we play it one night but Chris was unsure about the rules. I decided to look them up but could only find that old game. I have installed and and will endeavor to transcribe the rules for you to play at home. Enjoy.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Yahtzee

Object of the Game: Roll dice and be the first to reach 10,000 points.

Rules:

• Players take turns rolling 6 dice.
• You may collect 1’s which are worth 100 points or 5’s which are worth 500 points.
• You may collect 3 of-a-kind which is worth 100x the number.
• You may collect 3 1’s for 1000 points.
• You may collect 3 pairs for 1500 points.
• You may collect a straight (all six dice) for ?
• If you are rolling the last single die and you roll a 1 you get 500 points.
• If you collect 2 dice then you only roll 4 dice (if you decided to keep rolling). That is to say once you collect dice, then those dice are moved off the board.
• If you collect all 6 dice you may continue and you then get to roll all 6 dice again.
• You may roll the dice as many times as you want. The points you collect during a turn are only temporary. If you roll the dice and are unable to collect any of those dice your turn is over and you lose your temporary score.
• So then, the idea is to get a good score and then pass the turn to the next player. The temporary score is then added to your main score.
• You can only collect up to 3 dice at a time (per roll).
• If you are on your last die and you DO NOT get a 5 or a 1 you get to re-roll it one time.
• If you roll four 2’s you lose ALL your saved up score, you go back to 0.

That’s all! It’s basically a ‘push your luck’ type of game, do you keep rolling to increase your score or do you play it safe and collect small amounts of points and build up???