There’s a specific kind of noise King of Tokyo makes. It’s the sound of a kid scooping up six dice, hurling them across the table, and immediately yelling about what they got. And you can go wonderfully greedy with the attacks — roll three attack symbols, re-roll and lock in two more, then on your third and final roll land the last one you needed. Congratulations: you’ve just flattened the biggest, baddest monster in Tokyo, the one who was sitting pretty on six health a moment ago, smugly certain he’d earned his keep up there.
Somebody’s a mutant lizard, somebody else is a giant robot, there’s an argument about who gets to stomp whom, a groan when the dice betray you, and a cheer when you barge into Tokyo and dare everyone to knock you out. For a game that’s honestly simple to pick up once someone shows you — no poring over the rulebook required — it generates an astonishing amount of table volume, and in this house, that’s the highest compliment I can pay a game.
So it’s no surprise that once King of Tokyo gets its hooks in, kids want more of that exact feeling: chuck the dice, push your luck, mess with each other, laugh a lot, all done inside half an hour. There’s no shortage of good dice games out there — but that reckless streak is the rarer thing, the giddy mix of blind luck and real decisions where you’re cackling at the table one second and coldly weighing whether to push your luck the next. That’s the combination I went looking for, and I stayed strict: every game below delivers that luck-and-nerve rush, plays fast, and works with a mixed-age family, not just the grown-ups.
What is a Yahtzee-Style game? (Roll, Re-roll, and lock)
A quick word on what actually ties these together — worth knowing if you’re the kind of parent who likes to hunt down the next good thing. That roll-and-re-roll move you just read about is a real, named mechanic: board gamers call it “re-rolling and locking,” and Yahtzee was one of the very first games built on it. You roll a fistful of dice, lock the ones you want to keep, re-roll the rest, and push your luck a couple of times before you commit. King of Tokyo is one of the purest, most riotous examples going. Most of the games below run on that same engine; a couple are close dice cousins that chase the same thrill a slightly different way. I’ve flagged which is which, so you always know what you’re getting.
8 Games Like King of Tokyo (Yahtzee-Style Games) – List
King of Tokyo’s roll-and-lock engine, pointed straight at your neighbours. You roll five dice up to three times, locking arrows, dynamite, guns and beers to shoot the players either side of you, heal, or dodge — but secretly you’re a Sheriff, Outlaw or Renegade, so half the game is working out who you’re even meant to be gunning for. It’s fast, loud and gleefully mean, and the hidden-team twist gives it a “wait, whose side are you on?” wrinkle King of Tokyo doesn’t have.
If it’s the sheer joy of hurling a fistful of dice your kids love about King of Tokyo, Cubitos is that turned up to eleven. You roll your whole pool, lock the hits you want, then decide — bank it, or push your luck for one more roll and risk busting entirely. Those results race your runner round a track and buy you better dice, so your handful grows sillier and more powerful every game. It’s a notch meatier than King of Tokyo, but the rules click fast and the table noise is identical.
This is the closest thing on the list to King of Tokyo’s core fantasy — two combatants, dice, and a straight brawl to knock the other’s health to zero. You roll and re-roll to match your hero’s attacks and abilities (it’s been fairly dubbed “combat-Yahtzee”), then spend points on cards that buff you or sabotage your opponent’s dice. Each hero plays completely differently, so it stays fresh far longer than King of Tokyo’s near-identical monsters.
Same roll-lock-reroll heart, none of the shouting. You take a die, slot its colour and number onto your scoresheet, and chain little bonuses into satisfying combos — then hand the dice you didn’t take to everyone else, so no turn is ever wasted. It’s the one to reach for when you want the dice-and-decisions itch scratched without a war breaking out, and it plays beautifully solo, which is rare and genuinely useful on a rainy afternoon.
Take King of Tokyo’s frantic dice-rolling, point everyone at a common enemy, and set it to a ticking soundtrack — that’s Escape. There are no turns; everybody rolls their five dice at once, locking keys and gems and re-rolling like mad to explore a crumbling temple and all get out before the music runs out. It’s ten minutes of glorious, shrieking teamwork, and the pick for when your kids would rather win together than turn on each other.
The beloved co-op Pandemic, rebuilt around dice — and it’s a proper push-your-luck engine. You roll your role’s dice, lock the actions you want, and re-roll the rest chasing the perfect turn, but every biohazard you turn up drags the next outbreak closer, so greed has a price. Working as a team to cure four diseases before they spiral is tense in the best way, and it’s the meatier, more thoughtful of the two co-ops here.
The loosest fit here, and worth it. You roll a big handful of dice and commit them to casinos to grab the cash — but tie an opponent on a casino and you both get wiped off it, so every roll is a gamble and half the fun is torpedoing someone else’s payday. It’s not strict roll-and-lock — you commit rather than re-roll — but the dice-chucking, take-that, push-your-luck spirit is pure King of Tokyo, which is exactly why it earns a spot.
The dice version of Sushi Go, and the gentlest landing on this list. You roll a little conveyor belt of sushi dice, keep one, re-roll or swap using menu and chopstick tokens, then pass the rest along — building tasty sets as the belt goes round. It’s more dice drafting than pure roll-and-lock, but there’s genuine re-rolling in the mix, and it’s an easy, charming way into dice games for the younger end of the family.
Closing Words
If you’re buying just one, here’s my steer. For the closest thing to King of Tokyo’s monster brawl, Dice Throne. For the same dice-chucking joy at its purest and cheapest, Bang! The Dice Game. If your family would rather link arms than throw elbows, Escape. And if you just want to laugh, Cubitos — nobody stays serious with a cube of cheese in lederhosen on the table.
A quick, honest word on the obvious omission, too. King of Tokyo has its own family — King of New York (which bolts a whole city board onto the same dice engine), King of Tokyo: Duel (a two-player version), and King of Monster Island (a co-op one). I’ve kept them off the list above, because they aren’t really games like King of Tokyo — they are King of Tokyo, just more of it. King of New York especially shares the same designer, the same dice, the same monsters; players genuinely argue over whether it’s a different game at all. So if you simply want more of the exact thing, grab one of those.
Here’s the thing, though: not one of the eight is trying to be King of Tokyo, and a few are simply better games than it. What King of Tokyo owns is that one reckless, monster-stomping itch — and if that’s the exact feeling you’re chasing, nothing else scratches it in quite the same way. But Dice Throne goes deeper, Cubitos is more of a riot, Escape will have your whole family screaming at a soundtrack. Pick by the night you’re after, not by which sits closest to King of Tokyo. Any one of them gets that same fistful of dice flying across your table again, and the same happy racket with it — which, in this house at least, is the entire point.
Keep the dice rolling
- 8 Family Board Games Like Sushi Go — the card game Sushi Roll is built on, plus more family favourites.
- Best Board Games for Family Game Night — building a rotation the whole table looks forward to.
- Best Cooperative Board Games for Kids — if the co-op picks here are more your family’s speed.