While indie developer Terry Cavanagh has countless
games under his belt, he made a landmark impression on the community with the release of VVVVVV,
a challenging platformer that made gravity mechanics and excellent music its signature. Then, the lesser known Super Hexagon, while
smaller in scope, showed us an equally polished and jamming experience. Now, his latest creation, Dicey Dungeons is
here, which drops the player in a demented game show where they’re turned into dice
and forced to fight for their lives. What sets it a cut above is super adorable
artwork, an unbelievably bumpin’ soundtrack by Chipzel, and of course the fact that you
need to play it. Let’s talk about it. As you could assume by the clever title, the
gameplay is based around dice to deal damage, equip defenses or use special abilities, but
as you progress you unlock new characters that all play completely different from the
last. The Warrior is all about brute force - higher
numbers means more damage, but the thief is often the opposite - you can combine lots
of low numbered dice together to make lethal multi-use attacks. Further still the robot doesn’t roll dice
at all, but rather wins them like a slot machine and if you go over the limit, your abilities
are canceled, meaning each move and the order you take is very important. The inventor is unique in that you have to
discard a piece of equipment after every battle, and replace it with a fancy gadget that can
be used for free. So while you gain a lot of goodies on these
runs, you have to give up decent options just as often. The witch has a spellbook instead of item
slots and each digit on the dice is used to unlock them, so now every number is just as
valuable - this is probably the toughest character because you only have 4 open slots at a time. Finally the jester is much like a traditional
deck-based character where you gain many cards throughout a run, so you may want to delete
some of the weaker ones as to not be bloated and run out of options. The variety in these characters alone is insane. Each game consists of 5 floors of enemies
and a final boss on the 6th, but to stand the best chance you may want to fight every
monster to reach max level. I like that the experience and money is more
or less the same every run, it’s more of a formality than a regular leveling system
- Dicey Dungeons is about the build you create over time. Typically there’s an optimal way to proceed,
like fighting a monster guarding a free item or health rather than one that’s blocking
nothing, and often the battles feel this way too - since your leftover health carries over,
you want to make the most of every decision based on your skills and limit break abilities. That’s why items that manipulate your dice
can be very useful - from increasing the value, to rolling it again, or even flipping it upside
down. A neat combo you learn early on is the spanner,
which lets you combine 2 dice together and the hammer which inflicts shock damage if
you play a 6, they synergize really well together. What’s really cool is that there’s so
much more under the hood the deeper you get. You start to realize hidden mechanics that
aren’t explicitly taught to you, like how bumping up a 6 gives you an extra dice with
a 1 instead of maxing out and doing nothing. Or if you can throw the dice at an enemy for
1 damage, one that’s on fire will do 2. These little nuggets of resourcefulness go
beyond typical video game rules but they make sense within the game’s world, so you’re
encouraged to test the limits - you might find a cool new approach you didn’t know
about before. Status effects add a whole separate layer
of strategy and should not be taken lightly. In addition to making your opponent reach
0 hitpoints, you may want to weaken their equipment so they’re less intimidating,
freeze their dice to lower the highest numbers to a 1, or poison them to add extra damage
over time. They can fight right back with those effects
too though, and believe me they will. A lot. Sometimes they may even lock your dice making
them unusable or curse you, inflicting a 50% chance to fail an attack. Over the course of the game you’ll learn
which enemies are weak to certain elements and the correct loadouts to stand the best
chance of survival. These baddies are so creative by the way,
and they all have abilities that fit their personalities. Like a porcupine with a cold that sneezes
to do damage one spiky needle at a time, a kraken that shoots ink at you to blind your
dice, or a sharp-shooting cowboy that loads his six-shooter to deal massive damage at
once. One of the coolest things I’ve noticed is
that their strengths not only make sense logically, like a snowman being strong against ice for
example, but those powers show up mechanically as well - so if you freeze their dice down
to 1’s, their attacks are actually benefited by requiring an odd dice or even a 1 specifically. That is super smart design. As you complete challenges, you unlock new
episodes with special changes to make your runs even harder, like The Warrior having
a curse every single turn, or The Robot losing a dice instantly if it’s a number you already
have in your hand. Some of them are super fun, but most are really
really hard - they definitely make you think about the game in a different way which really
impressed me. There’s so many variables to consider and
it feels like the concept of a dice-based dungeon crawler is fully explored. You’ll use all of the different combinations
possible to try and stay afloat because of these switch-ups - maybe with The Inventor,
it’s better to keep getting weak equipment to waste instead of buying upgrades to what
you already have since he has to get rid of them anyway. If you have full health on the last floor,
perhaps you should go straight to the boss instead of potentially dying to more enemies. There’s 36 total episodes to try and I feel
like I’ve barely started to scratch the surface - you will be busy for a long time
with this game. A few final things that I thought were really
neat: every single item in this game, including the ones only used by enemies, had to have
upgraded and downgraded versions because all of them are playable in a couple episodes,
like “Finder’s Keepers” which allows the Thief to steal their foes’ attacks - and
if you think that’s a lot of work, consider that every character’s 5th episode is a
parallel universe in which all items are different or more complex, and statuses affect the game
in new ways. Here, freeze doesn’t lower a dice to 1,
it lowers all dice BY 1, and burn doesn’t cost 2 hp to put out, it makes an item unavailable
to use for 2 turns. So now you’re doubling the amount of equipment,
and having to consider what happens when it interacts with both forms of elemental attacks
- not only is that a lot for the player to take in, but just imagine how much time that
took to test and put together in development. There is a whole separate character with unique
moves and attributes dedicated to the one special case where you COULD use the Alchemist’s
spell to turn into a bear - just because it's possible. I am blown away by Cavanagh’s dedication
here - he wanted to make sure this was a worthwhile concept; it’s not an adventure that will
feel stale after just a few hours. Not to mention this game is only $15, I mean
seriously, this is a no brainer. I’ll leave you with my favorite encounter
I’ve had so far against an enemy called a Cornelius. I was on stream and had no idea what this
guy’s moves were, but I knew he was strong because there was an achievement just for
surviving against him. So I went in blind only to find out he has
100 health and one ability - nightmare which does 999 damage, but it requires 99 dice points
to activate - so it’s essentially a countdown to destruction. The trick is, he also gains a dice every turn. This run had a curse every turn as The Warrior,
so I thought there was no way I could beat it - here was my journey. "This is so insane, there's no w-, with a curse! There's no way I'm gonna kill this thing! Ah there's 8! Right off the bat, 8 down the road. Oh man! Yeah, good so at least I was maxed...yeah, good. IIIIIIII...might be able to do this. 1's and 2's, 1's and 2's! That's a lot of high numbers! Ooooh! Woooh! Taze, battle axe, we're gonna frickin' do this guys, we are gonna freakin' do this! Oh no! That's a lot! Oh, that's a lot. Okay he's halfway. Bump. Yes. Yesyesyesyesyesyes. *gasp* Oh, we're gonna win! That's a lot of dice, but it doesn't matter! Haha, woohoo! That was probably the coolest fight in this whole game that I've had. If you’re into dungeon crawlers or card-based
combat this should be an obvious pick up for you, but even if you’re not, believe me
when I say this game is incredibly intuitive. It makes you feel like a rockstar for figuring
out clever plays and it seems you could have infinite numbers of builds and still succeed
if you play well. I will say, there were some really brutal
deaths I’ve had on the final boss with 1 HP left and then dying to the RNG, but that
is the nature of the game - at least for me, it raises the stakes and makes each victory
that much more sweet: you know you overcame all odds to get there. The mechanics are deep and vast, but the unique
art style and straight bangers that come out of the speakers are what really sell it as
a complete product. It’s rounded out with a bestiary that unlocks
as you complete challenges, and an apparent story that unfolds the more you play. You get to spin the wheel after every run
and it always lands on the one bad space, but I’m positive that eventually it won’t,
I just know it! It looks like Switch and mobile ports are
coming eventually, but at least for now if you have a PC, you need to play Dicey Dungeons. If for nothing else, to say hi to this beautiful
little baby squid. You’re so cute, yes you are! I don’t want to kill you!
