Dice Crypt

A fun casual little game, grab a few friends and have fun throwing dice at their heads! That being said, it's not going to give you hours and hours of enjoyment, as the game play loop does get a bit stale after a bit. I think a few things could be done to drastically improve it without any massive changes: # Simpler Things 1. Improve the perspective of the dice sling-shot when aiming left or right. It's so hard to figure out how far the sling-shot is angled in those directions. I think being able to zoom-in or zoom-out would help a bit. Maybe have multiple "snapped" camera configurations from different angles. 2. Randomize the object locations in the rooms. The objects are great obstacles when rolling, but you get used to where to aim after a bit. 3. Add more monsters for variety. Maybe some monsters with mechanics so they can roam around the different squares - or maybe they go to the most landed-on square or something like that. 4. Give players (or maybe just the host) the options to speed everything up. I'd like the animation speeds to be about 2x as fast after the first 2 games. I'd like the player prompt for card selection to be 1/3rd as long, and I'd like to cut the timer on the die roll down a bit too. Being able to customize this would make rounds feel less tedious after they've gotten used to the mechanics and want to push through games at a more frantic pace. 5. Every player should draw a random (non-points giving) card at the beginning of each round. This will ensure everyone in the game always gets SOME card. We played several games where I never got a single card, which is a bit disappointing (even though I won during those rounds!). It just feels like I have a little less agency as a player and am almost entirely at the mercy of luck. 6. Add some more simple cards for variety using the existing mechanics... Some things like "Play this card for a free-roll" where you don't actually get any points from it, but you can roll the die and try to hit other players, or monsters, on the board to try and trigger their effect or steal money. Or maybe a card that resets all of the rooms and resets them so they're undiscovered and re-randomized again. Just small things like that which wouldn't be too complex. # Hard Things Some larger things that could potentially make it WAY better 1. Add more maps for variety. The one map gets a bit dull after a few rounds. Having different shapes for the arena and for the outskirts could go a long way. Maybe a honeycomb map like a bee-hive, where the walls all have holes that if entered spit the die out from a different hole. Maybe a tower configuration (like a dice tower!) where your die falls through holes to get to each room instead of just on a grid (taking more advantage of the 3d space), and so on. This variety would immediately increase my excitement to play again in the future. 2. I don't think I saw anything I would qualify as an "event card" each round as described in the description, but I like the idea. Having some random change to the gameplay each round would definitely spice things up! Maybe something like "your die is made of rubber and bounces twice as much!" or "You can no longer see your cards, play them at your own risk" or "All rooms are dark and cannot be discovered, but you can trigger their effects" etc etc. There's tons of potential here! 3. More card variety! There's just a really limited number of cards, more cards would be really cool. I put this in the "easy" above, and also here since I think using the existing mechanics adding some dice should be pretty easy. However adding some mechanics that don't exist yet would also be awesome. Maybe something like a card for "Big Friendly Tankard: Choose a player to get drunk! While drunk, the dice slingshot isn't still, it's constantly wobbling and the power doesn't wind up and down smoothly, it's random and sporadic"... Or maybe something like "Constable: If this card is in your hand and a player hits you with a die, you take as much gold from them as they would have taken from you (discard this card once its effect has been triggered)". Ooor "Bard's Lute: Play this card to choose a player. During their next turn, you can influence their slingshot somewhat (you can push left to push the slingshot to the left at 1/4th the strength that the player themselves can exert)" Things that are a bit more out there and probably take more testing and thought than just re-using existing mechanics. 4. Add more monsters! Just like the cards, I think monsters could get way crazier. Maybe add a raid-boss that all players need to participate to defeat within N turns or get their points,gold,and cards all reset to 0. You could have 2 rounds to slay the raid boss where it has like 20 HP and instead of either win/lose, each time a player rolls against it they both take damage and deal damage. Maybe they take less damage if they roll high enough? Something like 1=2 dmg, 2-3=1 dmg, 4-5=0 dmg (with a chance to dodge for all of them still like normal). You could have an enemy which gives no victory points, but drops a LOT of gold on death. Or an enemy which gets weaker the more players are in the room: like if there's 1 player it is a 5/4, 2 players it's 4/4, 3 players it's 3/4 and so on. You could also make this monster move rooms every round if there is one or more player in the room so it can "escape". You could have a monster that summons more monsters onto the board as long as its left alone. There's pretty much an endless amount of variety! # Polish (Non Mechanical) I think the core of this game is a really solid idea, and I think the execution (for the current price) is plenty good enough. However, there are some things that could really spice it up. 1. More unique animations. The first time I hit my buddies with a die was amazing. I saw the "oof" on their little avatar's faces and was THRILLED. Having more little touches like that would be awesome! Some ideas: - PCs greet each-other when entering the same room (variety of greetings from happy wave to hostile glare) - PCs get scared when BIG monsters show up - PCs get excited when good things happen (land on the card, pushing your roll over into defeating the enemy) - PCs are upset when bad things happen (You NEARLY hit the card, pushing your roll over into defeating the enemy, but miss) 2. More sounds. I think the sounds in the game are okay, but they get pretty dull and repetitive after a while. Adding some variant sounds would spice it up quite a bit I think. 3. More tension. - When I was down at 1 heart and fighting, I didn't feel all that much more tense than when I was at 4 hearts fighting a monster. Adding some effects to remind the player YOU'RE IN DANGER would go a long way. Bleeding edges, heart pulse sound, that kind of thing. - When you're CLOSE to hitting a card which will be the difference between defeating a monster and not defeating it, slow the shot down, zoom in, and maybe blur the edges of the screen a bit and have a drawn out sound or something to indicate the tense moment. Then have a pay-off reaction depending on the result (personally I'd love the pay off reaction to be at least partially in the form of PC reaction animations... But it could be something like a party confetti popping, or a "wah wah wahhhh" on failure just as easily... Just something to make those moments special. 4. For the love of God please add player names! I don't know HOW many times we played a game, got used to who was what character, then decided to all swap colors... And now we're just sitting their like "uhh whose turn?!" We players are a very dumb breed, please help us out a bit :'( 5. Secrets!! Maybe there are already secrets somewhere and we just haven't found them yet... But for example the first time I rolled out of bounds and hit the store in the corner, I was SO excited. I thought "oh my Gosh! I just found a secret area! What will this do!?" but I was just sad :(

Very cute game! Easy to learn and highly recommended to play with friends. Love being able to blast my dice across the screen and just hoping that it lands in a square. Bonking everything with my dice is a bonus too. Like other reviewers, some variety and speed-up options would be great. Playing multiple games became slightly dull when the maps are exactly the same each time, and watching every animation while I waited for my turn wasn't super exciting. Very fun for the price though!

It's a good game, but the controls need to be more intuitive. Several aspects of the game such as fighting and how rolls work in general were not explained. I like the concept of the game play and the art style, but it just needs more polishing. It is a play once and then never again game.

It's a lot of fun with friends... Now I just need to find friends ;~)

I hope this serves as a comprehensive review and a few things to note, Here we go... Hopefully some QoL upgrades. This game has the bones for a cool unique game to play between 4 friends (although there is no reason it could not be 8). Fix the matchmaking between friends, make it easier to just join and go. This could do with a more streamlined game play so there is less animation/downtime (who cares what door they run through! Make em poof they're magic!) between turns. Should be able to view all rooms (the entire, top down, map) at all times during wait. Should allow viewing of cards, items and store during wait periods - maybe a card hand style. even make pre-turn card choices during wait. The game needs more accuracy for the dice throws (think angry birds). It's wildly unstable and random. The angle or viewpoint of the slingshot is board obfuscating and extremely difficult to get a correct shot, making the chance based 4 rolls per room game-play mechanic seem very underutilised. (an example is in 15 rounds with 4 people we only had 1 - 2 slots per room activated, leaving much of the board empty and unused, not because we didn't want to but because we couldn't hit the rooms we wanted.) The game needs to be able to share the turn adjustments (from 10 to 15 to 20) to each player. If I choose 20 turns. everyone still shows 0/10. then 11/10 then 20/10 you get it. it goes over the counter. It also needs to properly share the other players power choices when throwing. I was noticing massive power throws but it was weak, on my screen it was a huge bar and throw, but they said no I chose smaller. So some Sync issues there. The game needs to remove the applied card buffs between rounds (snake pet on a room, damage buff card on a room continued over rounds). We have to currently entirely exit the game between rounds to wipe the board, In short, Consider a larger die, QOL, and turn speed and cancellation mechanic and you've got a fun party game on your hands. Cheers! neat game, would caution because its broken. Hopefully the Developers heed my advice.

it is a very fun game at first but gets very boring after you're first couple of rounds.

Rolled a 5, broke the game

The game was very fun. I enjoy trying to hit those closest to me in this world with dice so that I may steal their moneys. It has the right amount of luck of the dice while feeling like you need to get good at shooting for the rooms. Over all liked the game and would like to see more features added. maybe classes,monster tactics? maybe their can be a fifth player that controls monsters when they are brought out? but love the chaos and this will be a repeat game.

This is a nice game to play with your friends!!

Finally a good board game for PC