Dicey Dungeons

Started off loving Dicey Dungeons — clever dice mechanics, cool equipment combos, great pick-up-and-play feel. Then the game pulled a “surprise, you lose!” moment where a boss can only be killed with one random item… that the game might never give you. Imagine building a perfect run, playing smart, and then getting hard-stopped because you didn’t bring a wooden stake to a vampire fight you didn’t know was coming. It’s not “challenging,” it’s just dumb. If you enjoy roguelikes that reward skill and planning, be warned: sometimes this one punishes you unfairly and wastes your time with a gimmick.

This game is incredibly addicting and replayable. Well worth the $5. There is one bug I noticed while playing where the screen completely whiffed on where I had tapped and sent the input to the opposite side of the screen multiple times until I closed the app. This will hopefully be patched out and once it does this game will be elite as it has no other glaring issues. It’s simply fun.

There are a lot of roguelike deckbuilders on the market and many of them are quite good! Slay the Spire, Dream Quest, Dicey Elementalist, Dark Mist, loads of others on various platforms. And yet this is my favorite. I played it first on Switch when it first released in 2019 and have put hundreds of hours into it since. The combat is quick and decisive, the art is the best in the field, chipzel’s music continues to evolve and delight, the writing and characters and little plots are witty and clever; everything about this game displays attention to detail and a care and craft that is sadly forgotten or much further down on the list of priorities, especially in the realm of deckbuilding roguelikes. A+, 10/10, I stan every person involved in this game.