I just discovered this game a few days ago and I picked it up because I have always wanted a Western style martial arts game. Reading through it was interesting. So tonight - after my normal game imploded due to life - me and one my regular victims decided to test it out. It was great. Odd at first but the flow was nice. Once we were getting into the groove the fights were a lot of fun. There were reversals and knock downs and a surprising amount of drama generated by this honestly slick bit of game design. As someone who has boxed and kickboxed - many moons and pounds ago - this has that fight rhythm. I have some interesting ideas for this system down the way.

The only change I would make is for the head to head rules for using Bonus Dice with hiding dice under your hand. I would go with a bidding war mechanic. Like how Legends of the 5 Rings does duels. But that's honestly a minor quibble at worst.

I must admit I approached this title with reservations after the first read, but it has pleasantly surprised me. The step of creating a boxer is pretty exciting, with many random traits being disadvantages that will affect your strategy. Granted, some are worse to cope with than others, but all in all it gives you the feeling that you are creating realistic boxers. You may even be a charismatic devil that gets points just out of charm!

As a dice chucker, it has a lot of impredictability. It is indeed easy to lose control of the fight if you are not careful with the bonus dice. It will force you to calculate carefully every move, especially during the first few rounds, which can be vital for the development of the rest of the fight.

The only weak point for me would be that the AI will sometimes eat through these dice like candy, leaving the reminder of the match entirely to pure luck, with mild advantages over your stats, though this is easily fixable with some house rules (in my case, I just refill the bonus dice at the beginning of each round, substracting one from each fighter's pool).

All in all, a very solid boxing game, fun, quick to set-up and play. Very addictive. Recommended!

If you're in the mood for a boxing game, this is a great way to fill the time.

Up front, If you're going to play solitiare matches you need lots of dice. A whole lot of dice.

The rules themselves are fairly quick and easy to pick up. Once you've got the core loop the play is extremely quick and exciting. Due to the way the stats function, even AI boxers tend to fight differently.

Special notice should go to the Bonus Dice mechanic that allows players to gain advantages on any roll. These work really well during multiplayer matches because they add a real stategic aspect to the dice-chucking fight.

This just fall a bit short in solitaire because the AI tends to blow their energy in the first couple rounds. It feels a bit easy to exploit this fact, though it hasn't dulled my enjoyment at all.

I'll just likely house rule some things to let the AI recover between rounds. This will keep it fairly unpredictable and hopefully work as well as the multiplayer fights.

If you want to recreate the excitement of a good boxing match, this is your go-to game.

First up, you need a boxer character. A system conbining some die rolls and some free choices let you design a boxer in terms of strength, stamina and fighting style. Then you... well, fight. You can fight boxers generated by other players or there are a whole bunch of pregenerated ones against who you can fight using the rules (which provide for 'automating' boxers when there isn't a player controlling them) - so this game works whether you are on your own or playing with friends.

The whole match is controlled by die rolls, mostly against tables. These cover manoeuvering around the ring as well as the chance of landing a blow and the results of each move. There are two levels of detail that you can choose from, depending on whether you want a blow-by-blow account of your fight or are more interested in just who wins. There's even a table to work out the judges' decision, should a knock-out not occur. And the winner gains Fame which, amongst other things, determines who he will fight next.

For those who want more, there are optional rules for training boxers and for being a fight promoter - running a stable of boxers and managing their careers.

Oh, and if you want, you can always use these rules to moderate a boxing match that the characters in a role-playing game get involved in, or even just go to watch. It's a specialised ruleset for boxing matches, use it whenever you please!