Review: FIBBER!
Publisher: Maruca Industries, Inc.
Year: 1986
Tagline: The game that makes it fun to fib!
Players: 2 to 4

A family of four from the 80s in lively play over the board

how we met

FIBBER! was a recent post-pandemic purchase of mine at thrift. Bill was okay with the purchase because FIBBER! can maybe sell for a few bucks online (not much, but a few). I was happy with FIBBER! because the pieces were delightful and the cover is a lot of fun.

The four dice shakers have cartoonish faces and names via sticker
Here’s a closer look at our heroes

how it plays

In FIBBER! each player has a private dice shaker with a fun character on the front, like Tricky Tracy or Bluffing Billy. On their turn, a player shakes their dice shaker and looks into the hole to see the result of their die roll. They then announce a number that their pawn will move.

Looking down into the shaker you see a 4 on the die
My trusty die, ready for me to weave my lies. I can say I rolled anything, but I’m only guaranteed forward movement if I say 4.

If another player thinks the player is lying (ie fibbing) about their die roll they say loudly and clearly, “FIBBER!” The player reveals their die roll by removing the top part of their dice shaker. If they were truthful, the accusing player must move their pawn backward the number of spaces on the actual die while the player moves ahead. If they were fibbing, the player moves their own pawn the number of spaces on the die backward while the accusing player moves their pawn forward. Again, you only move pawns based on the actual die and not what was declared.

This is just a look at how the two pieces of the shaker fit together

There are a few special spaces on the board:

  • Double and triple point places. If you land on these by exact count then on your next turn you can double or triple your movement (unless, of course, you fib and are called out)
  • Lose turn. These spaces cause you to lose your next turn. You can move away from them by making accusations prior to your next turn.
  • Slide. If you land by exact count on a Slide space then you can immediately move to the end of the slide.
The board background is blue with mostly pink and orange spaces, a few blue and purple
A look at the board as we were starting out. Fun, right?

These special spaces demonstrate that if you fib about your roll, you might not always be trying to make it higher. You might be trying to land somewhere beneficial to you.

NOTE: Even though the pawns are oh-so-stackable, pawns can’t share a space. If you would land where a pawn already is, you go behind it instead.

The four pans stack easily on top of each other. They resemble pieces from Topple
These are begging to be stacked.

The first player to land on the Finish space by exact count wins FIBBER!

how it went

We played four player with our regular game group. FIBBER! is a simple game, so we were off and running almost immediately. I am a terrible, horrible, can’t-stop-laughing bluffer. But I think that actually served me well. I was constantly getting accused of fibbing when I really just roll sixes a bunch!

The inside of the box has spots for everything
Satisfying, is it not?

It helps to keep a close eye on where your fellow player pawns are. They are not likely to risk their own skin accusing you if they are on a Double or Triple, for instance. You can always do the obvious bluffing stuff like examining the game board before you state your die roll. There are lots of ways to mislead, but the game does not move any more quickly as a result.

We had a pretty good time but there are a few drawbacks to this game.

  1. You will likely see this in other reviews and comments on FIBBER! but the gameplay gets a bit monotonous. That road to Finish is a long and winding one.
  2. If you decide for whatever reason not to fib or accuse people, you have a pretty good shot at maintaining a strong lead. Even if you roll small numbers sometimes, you are guaranteed to move forward and not backward.
  3. In our game, we all stacked up at the end. I would assume this is common. Even my little pawn, pulling up the rear for most of the game, managed to catch up and sit in line waiting for the perfect die roll. So in the end I had just as good a shot as anyone at winning.

You would have to be nuts to fib on your final die roll to make it to the end. So we just had a few rounds of people rolling and then passing. Finally Bill was able to get his perfect roll and Bill won FIBBER!

3 of the 4 pawns lined up before the Finish space
Here we are in line at the end. It looks like my pawn wasn’t there yet, but I promise I got there.

BGG users frequently describe FIBBER! as Liar’s Dice Light or Liar’s Dice with a board. That seems fair, if they mean very light. I don’t think I’ve played Liar’s Dice since Red Dead Redemption, but I remember it as an elegant game where the rich get richer. Liar’s Dice adds an element of the unknown to play that FIBBER! is missing. Lying about my own roll is fine, but having to lie about yours too? That is interesting. I can probably even do it without laughing.

play or pass

Pass. Despite the cuteness of the cover and the dice shakers, FIBBER! is not immune to the drawbacks of roll and move. I bet it would be a fun game to grow up with, but I thought that our one play-through was enough.