Dicey Dungeons

[h1] Great, the game show host trapped me as an anthropomorphic die and I have to fight her minions in order to get out! [/h1] This is a game I bought many, many years ago and I like to come back to every now and then. It's a nice little roguelite that ramps up its difficulty over time [i] (I've only beaten till round 4 of hard mode till this point) [/i]. I do like the different playstyles between characters but all centre around the luck of the dice rolls. There are a ton of cards and playstyles you can work around and [b] I DISAGREE [/b] with people who say "you'll stick to a specific playstyle because it does the most damage. The whole point of a roguelite is to do things experimenting and finding the best cards within the run. You will be thinking the best approaches and your math will be tested [b] (so brush up on your addition subtraction, multiplication and division) [b]. While the enemies don't change their attacks with exception to certain modifiers, you can easily abuse the save scumming mechanics (which I've done) to make things go in my favour. If you want a simple roguelite that test your strategy and math, this game is for you.

I held off on getting this for a long time due to the surprising amount of negative recent reviews. And after finally pulling the trigger, I can say that it has little to do with the actual game quality itself but due to people's expectations of the genre and Steam's binary rating system. It's a expertly made game by a seasoned indie dev. But what I think is people's main sticking point is if you need a Roguelike to have abilities or builds that removes all difficulty. This game doesn't have that, you need to always play with strategy and that can make it harder to "win". But runs aren't that long to begin with so it's not like Darkest Dungeon 2 where losing a run is like losing a day, you restart and can win pretty quick. I saw a similar response to the game Pereelous (which I also love), when a Roguelike battler doesn't have broken unlocks you'll get a lot of people disliking it on that accord rather than on the merit of the gameplay itself. For me, I prefer my roguelikes to be more progression based and I don't need the ability to make game breaking builds. The base gameplay is genuinely fun and unique that it's keeping me very engrossed. What makes it stand out is that your dice work more like power power/ability points rather than rolls. You mix and match abilities that require different dice numbers for various effects and play them in turn based combat. In a lot of ways it's closer to a deck builder than it is a dice game. As well, Dicey Dungeons contextualizing everything in a fun narrative framework and requiring beating runs with various characters to unlock more things is great for me. Each new dice character offers a different type of abilities to make them distinct and there's writing and interactions with the whole gameshow in hell setting. But for many, they are looking for something more like Balatro, Cloverpit, or even Slay the Spire you won't get that here. Don't get me wrong, it shares a lot of elements with its contemporaries, but its roguelike elements are more part of the strategy rather than the ultimate goal.

"Dicey Dungeons walked so that Slay The Spire could run." Absolutely best game from Terry Cavanagh. I finished all challenges, all DLCs, and I wish there was more. This game is very atypical roguelike: it has quite a lot of a-ha moments, not unlike a good puzzle. I absolutely understand it might confuse and scare off some people, but you'll be in for a wild ride if you gradually master warrior and thief and move to other characters. For example, robot, [strike] please, let me go, I got family to feed, I can't gamble no more,[/strike] inventor (my boi did nothing wrong), and [strike] haha I'm at the end of my wits, please someone shoot this gоddаmn[/strike] witch. Music is an absolute bop (pun intended), the artstyle is pure art, the plot and atmosphere and silly character interactions always hit the spot. Plays like a charm on Steam Deck: pick your controls (both buttons and touch are easy to use) and blast away for hours on a single charge (game uses so little charge you might think your Deck is nuclear battery-powered). Anyway, doing my part in fixing the recent mixed reviews. Go get this masterpiece. P.S. Terry, please, add Ukrainian translation!

As far as deckbuilders go, this is a neat and simple one with standard (non-customisable) dice. Gameplay is tight, art bright and colourful. There isn't much strategy involved but I still had a great time hunting down the achievements, as sometimes you just needs a small game to wind down at the end of the day.

Будь проклято это казино, Фортуна отвернулась от меня, как кость шестёрка вверх ногами.

overflowing with charm, banger music, great and unique gameplay.

Simple and fun. Kept me entertained for awhile. Tries a lot of different gimmicks and almost all of them are fun, which is hard to pull off in a roguelike. Only character that frustrated me was the Witch, but every other one is super fun and uses the dice in unique and creative ways.