In the world of Dicey Dungeons you will face off against the hardest enemy of them all: Lady Luck. You face her both literally as part of the story and figuratively, as luck has a lot to do with your success. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools in your arsenal.
Transformed by Lady Luck into a living, walking die, you must use your dicey hero’s skills to make your way through procedurally-generated dungeons. Given the option to pick one of six different characters, you set off in search of loot and the exit. With its cute cartoony art style provided by Marlowe Dobbe and amazing Chiptunes tunes provided by Chipzel, the Dicey Dungeons characters and their dice-rolling adventures are sure to delight and bring a sense of childish wonder to all.
Terry Cavanagh is no stranger to unique games that have charmed the world. His megahits — the ‘one more try’ arcade game Super Hexagon and the intelligent and innovative VVVVVV — have showcased a smart sense of design and a penchant for fun, easy-to-learn gameplay.
I had a chance to check out the game at PAX South and played through a couple of levels as a Warrior. One of the first things I noticed was the charm of the overworld. Large enemies and plump, tempting treasure chests litter the randomly generated land. Dots and paths connect them, sprawling out in a tree-like formation and offering multiple paths to the exit with some harder than others. With a sword in one hand and a potion in the other, I set off into the dungeon.
Dicey Dungeons uses dice — you get more as you level up — to activate your weapons and abilities in turn-based battles. As an example, if you drag one of your rolled dice to your sword then you do whatever damage number you rolled once per turn. If you want to, you can then take your spare dice and throw them on your potion, which requires a number threshold to activate — each die lowers it by its amount. After bringing it to required number, that ability — in this case the potion — will activate, healing you. Additionally, Dicey Dungeons allows you to reroll your dice, up to three times per turn, just in case. It’s overall a very clever system that makes it so you rarely feel like you are wasting dice.
Opening treasure chests on the map will often give you abilities or weapons, but you don’t have to take them if you don’t want, which I feel adds to the ‘player first’ feel of the game. There are six levels in each dungeon and six dungeons per character, with a boss at the end of each. Each character has their own means of fighting, but no matter who you choose to play as, you’ll have a randomly generated experience each time.
I loved the art, dug the amazingly perfect chiptunes tracks and was excited to play more. It shouldn’t be long either, as Terry confirmed that we should see the final release of Dicey Dungeons a couple months from now — in Spring 2019.
Dicey Dungeons is currently in alpha on itch.io and available to wishlist on Steam. Check out their website and follow Terry on Twitter for more information.
