DICETINY: The Lord of the Dice

REVIEW: 6/10 (IIIIII----) "A Culdcept Fix" HIGHLIGHT: Decent Graphics and Animations, Fun Dice and Card Mechanics DOWNSIDE: A lot happening on-screen, some logic for cards is "iffy" Some older gamers may be familiar with a game (that originated in Japan and was ported to the US) over 20 years ago with an interesting dice and card hybrid combination called "Culdcept". The game was fairly well received in the US, garnishing praise for it's unique mashup of what could best be described as Monopoly owing child support to Magic:The Gathering. Several iterations and spin-offs were produced over the years on everything from the PS1 to Nintendo 3DS. It was a strange concept at first but it worked, and fits the bill if you're looking for something low-key and unique. Interesting useless fact, a Japanese man actually committed suicide over his obsession with the game when his system deleted his save file (or so the story goes). Dicetiny will certainly not have you at risk of the same ill-fated path. Although it is reminiscent of the aforementioned (and is a decent imitation in that regard), Culdcept this is not. Depending on your taste for and desired digestion of "board and dice" game mechanics, your mileage will vary. Overall, it has a very "Flash phone game" aesthetic and feel to it. That sounds terrible I know... but it does what it's supposed to do. If you can get behind the game flow, and understand the basics (after a few rounds of play you will), then it's a decent enough simplistic time waster. There are also a few niggling annoyances with descriptions of card affects not being up to snuff, and overall a lot of things happening on screen that tented to distract me from what was actually happening... it is a decent enough game that doesn't quite scratch the Culdcept itch, but it's close.

The core gameplay is decently fun, however the game has a few problems: Some cards do not function as they say they do, such as the warrior card that lets you jump to a space and deal damage, which instead jumps to a space and starts a combat. The card explicitly states it does not start a combat. The AI is really bad and consistantly does plays that make no sense, which makes the game pretty easy. Ive had an opponent play a card that resulted in his own death. There are numerous typos and misspellings in text. Finally the worst of them all is that the game crashes very often. I had to replay the same stage 6 times due to crashes and have still not been able to successfuly play that stage without crashing. Issues with crashing may vary for each person but for reference my PC is as follows: GTX 780, i7 4790, windows 10. I'd advise not buying this game, which is unfortunate because its a fun idea.

The saddest part of Dicetiny conforming to the ubiquitous “I know the reference” fanboyism hook is wasting some actually decent, cohesive art assets on parody content instead of developing Fakedice an IP to call their own--which would drop countless copyright infringements along the way as a bonus. Unfortunately it’s undercooked below surface level as well. Good ideas frequently don’t quite come together--at times because luck plays too much of a big role, at times for balancing/pacing issues, or even due to the eventual (sure as death and taxes) bug/crash hitting. When planets align, levels feel like a blast to play. More often than not though, Dicetiny frustrates and wastes the player’s time. @Substack: https://themagnificent7s.substack.com/p/dicetiny-the-lord-of-the-dice

just a dull, go around the square, dice game. Play talisman instead.

We need more games like this!

Game is dead. You can't even buy it anymore. It was half done and then left for dead.

Great little game. Had no idea what I was doing the first 'stage' but still won. A small idea for the 2nd, and then it all fell into place. Dev team suffered financial misfortune which you can read about in Discussion in a post from the former DT CEO. Running 64bit Win 10 on a new i7 build. Steam seemed to get the downloadables it needed and I had no bugs except rarely a persistent display of the '?' square I hovered over (game still playable by mousing over whatever teeny bit of visible square under it). Nicely drawn, silly story with all the tropes and homage, but fun. Get it for a buck. If it works you'll have 10-12hrs entertainment for a single char run thru. 100% achieves do-able but a bit laborious = 100 visits to the campfire (deck adjustment screen); 1000 rolls of the die; and run thru all stages with each type of char. Sorry to see the devs did not have greater success. High production values and less buggy than some in my library!

It may be in early access, however there is not a whole lot to keep me interested. This would be alright as a free demo.

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The game isn't well balanced, there's no tutorial and you never get a clue as to what the mechanics of the game actually are. It's a real pity as the theming is fun and has a lot of charm. If I hadn't given it 3 hours hoping the gameplay might level out I would be asking for my money back.