Dicey Dungeons (2019)

First Impressions - Dicey Dungeons

So I played the first warrior run and managed to finish it blind, which only ended up being just one of the episodes. But even though that was probably rigorously designed to be easy for a firsttimer I was fucking floored by the gameplay. It's very reminiscent of Slay the Spire's design in a way in terms of building your kit for relevant dice decisions instead of card combos, but the game is such a love letter to anyone who enjoys statistical probability problems. And that's just so fucking up my alley that I loved it. It's very well tuned too, good renditions built around managing your dice and the enemy's. My only real issue is Innate abilities not being shown before a battle starts although you can run away in the first turn and rebuild if the innate fucks you over. God I felt so giddy playing this, can't wait to work on finishing it at a later point.

The art is cute. The soundtrack is on point. The theme of the game is great. They were even really clever with the basic mechanics of the characters and alternate ruleset challenges.

I just didn't find it fun all that fun. Without writing an essay, I found that even though the mechanics were clever, I still felt limited in strategic and tactical choices. The early runs were far too easy, and some of the later runs had somewhat common no-win scenarios on the first couple of floors. That's just the inherent danger of making a game that directly uses standard 6 sided die to determine outcomes. I put in about 15 hours and finished 3 or 4 episodes per character, and felt that the game had overstayed it's welcome. All of that said, I did have fun figuring out how to play the Witch well, and a couple of the alternate rules scenarios (Thief dice rolling all 1s, then all 2s, etc.) were fun to figure out.

I think my gameplay preferences just didn't line up with the game's design at all, so others will probably enjoy it more than myself-- the game definitely has a great atmosphere.

This game is fantastic. I've been thirsting for something else like Slay the Spire, and here's the next best thing. Gameplay loop is addictive and satisfying, a perfect blend of RNG and skill. I didn't like the art style at first, it turned me off originally but now I get it and really like it.

The soundtrack in particular is phenomenal. It's actually kinda reminiscent of the soundtrack to VVVVVV, which is no surprise since it's the same dev. Also the dev behind Super Hexagon. Once again we have a winner on our hands. Whack on your headphones and get a load of this:

There's also an absolutely ridiculous amount of content and replayability with this thing. Six unlockable character, each with 6 dungeons to explore. I can see myself putting hundreds of hours into this. Each run lasts about 30 mins, so it's perfect for having a quick little burst. Love the weird little creatures and the sense of humour of the game too, seems to cheer my soul.