I thought about starting this review with the classic Pokemon joke. Bright, cutesy creatures being thrown at each other in horrific, gladiatorial fights. That’s essentially what Dicefolk is. Cute critter carnage. I feel like Dicefolk takes it further though. The ‘bleed’ mechanic, for instance. Difficult to maintain the idea that this is just a cute round of fisticuffs when the smell of metal is rapidly filling the air. No, I think the Pokemon comparison is a little too loose.
While Dicefolk is about collecting critters, it’s more about synergy. It’s not a core group of competent lads, who get swapped out based on element. Instead, to get ahead, Dicefolk requires all your boys to work together. It’s a decent system, paired with a bright and colourful world. I’m quite smitten with Dicefolk, though it does fall prey to some of the pitfalls of the genre. Namely, loose plots and wonky difficulty curves.
Dice With Death
Dicefolk opens with a familiar scene: humanity getting the snot kicked out of it. The snot-kicker in this case is Salem, a big monstrous witch-like beast. They rule the land by controlling the world’s creatures – or chimera, as they’re known. Fortunately, humanity is thrown a curveball in the shape of Alea, a Dicefolk who can befriend chimera and, via dice, fight back against the darkness. Well, the chimera fight back. Presumably, Alea sits around eating popcorn for most of it.
The chimera system itself is really rather good. It kicks off by choosing a talisman. These dictate the overall flavour of chimera. Wrath is more focused on direct damage, for instance, whereas pain lets you re-roll dice, with the risk of hurting yourself. Once picked, you can scoop up chimeras at shrines. You can have three at a time, arranged in a ring formation. Each chimera has its own unique skill, which you can pair with others. There are lots of great combos and finding a winning formula feels great.
To set them against each other, you’ve gotta use your dice. You and your opponent roll together but, in an act of blatant cheating, you get to choose when every die is used. Dicefolk turns every fight into a gentle game of strategy. Only the lead chimera can attack but there are skills that only come into play when you rotate, for instance. One winning strat of mine was to bleed opponents, which damages them when they rotate, then spin them like a fruit machine. The chimera, and their abilities, add enough to the dice mechanic to keep it fresh. There are more than enough chimera to keep you stumbling on new strategies for many hours.
Battlin’ Across The Land
I’m dwelling a lot on Dicefolk‘s combat because there isn’t too much going on around it. That’s fairly par for the course in the genre. Before I start picking small holes, I will say that I like Dicefolk’s map. A lot of roguelikes subscribe to the Slay The Spire method of map design, where it’s essentially just a straight shot through to the boss. Dicefolk gives you a little map screen to explore. It’s not huge, but allows you to decide whether you want to hit the boss or explore the corners. I appreciated that.
I do wish it would bring a bit more life into its world, though. It sets things up well enough through a wonderful looking intro cutscene. There are multiple biomes, many creatures and a protagonist with a nice design. All we get of actual worldbuilding, though, is a handful of brief scrolls, tucked away in a sub-menu. I maintain that roguelikes are pretty poor at building their worlds and I’m not sure why. The odd text-based choice or exploration of our character’s thoughts would do wonders. As it is, I rapidly forgot who I was fighting and why.
The other issue is a rather strange one: I feel like Dicefolk‘s difficulty is a little wonky. You need to complete a run with all four talismans before the final boss unlocks, but I reached Salem in under nine hours. In most roguelikes, that’d just be a small sample. I think it comes down to us having the same critters as the AI, but more control over the battlefield. So if you’ve got decent synergy by the second zone, you’re all but guaranteed to fold the rest of the bosses into pretzels.
Dicefolk – Smart, Pretty And Fun
Sliding back over to the positives, I want to say that Dicefolk looks gorgeous. I knew I was in for a good time when a fully animated and voiced intro cutscene played. That signals that some real effort went in. It’s also a bright, pleasant artstyle and there’s a whole host of chimeras to play with. They’re all designed with care, to the point that I was memorising abilities just by looking at them. Gotta love when art is complementing design. It also has a bestiary, which is a plus for me.
I must confess, when I heard the name Dicefolk and read about the dice system, I was a little wary. I’ve seen very good examples of this before – and it’s fresher than using cards – but I’ve played a lot of these games. Usually, they grate on me after the first few runs. Dicefolk has yet to grate. Hell, I ended up taking my Switch to bed to finish off a run. That’s quite the endorsement. Dicefolk is a game that’s worth the risk of a sleep deprivation headache.
