Pöydällä on 4 200 pistettä – otatko ne?

4,200 points. Just lying there.

That’s the moment I love most in Ten Thousand (Zehntausend), the dice game I learned years ago in Switzerland. When the player before you banks, you may inherit their round: take over their points and their leftover dice, and keep rolling. Or bust and lose it all.

Recently, playing with my wife and kids, one round just wouldn’t die. I inherited it, added my share and banked. Then it turned into a piranha feeding frenzy 🐟: my wife took it over, then my son, then my daughter, everyone biting off a little more and banking. My daughter pushed it from 3,600 to 4,200. Back to me, second chance to inherit. I took it, rolled, and… nothing. Not one scoring die. A full lap around the family, 4,200 points, and I was the one who ended it.

The rules in 30 seconds

• You roll 5 dice. Each roll, set aside at least one scoring die, then roll the rest again or bank your points.
• A 1 is worth 100, a 5 is worth 50. Three of a kind is the face × 100, and three 1s are 1,000.
• Score with all 5 dice and you get to roll all 5 again.
• Roll nothing that scores and the round’s points are gone. Three busts in a row halve your total.
• Inheriting: when the player before you banks, you can take over their points and their leftover dice instead of starting fresh. This is where it gets exciting.
• First to 10,000 wins.

From the table to the phones

After that evening I wanted the game on our phones, so we could play anywhere (and I could practise). One thing led to another.

Local is one phone passed around the table, or you against the computer. The CPU comes in three levels; the hardest one plays the mathematically best move, and yes, it also weighs whether an inheritance is worth taking.

Empire is for when everyone wants their own phone. Start a game, the others scan the QR code and they’re in. Lose the connection and it puts you back in your seat.

It runs in the browser: no app to install, no account, free. English, German, French, Italian and Finnish (and one more, if you find it).

Under the hood

A tiny game server on Cloudflare’s network rolls the dice, so nobody can cheat by “rolling” on their own phone. Each game lives in its own small room on the server, close to the players, and costs next to nothing to run.

It’s the same kind of work we do for our clients’ websites: fast, secure, and no bigger than it needs to be. Just more fun.

Feeling luckier than me?

Want something built for your own site, a game or not? Ota yhteyttä.