Dice & Fold Review: It's In the Cards...and the Dice
I’ve been a fan of the roguelike deckbuilding genre for a very long time. My first foray was Hearthstone which unfortunately became a pay-to-win game with the addition of buyable “card packs.” Thankfully, by the time my interest in Hearthstone fizzled out, many more heavy-hitters in the genre made their way to the scene. Since then, you can’t open up Steam without seeing a new deck builder. That doesn’t stop titles like Dice & Fold from rising above the rest and impressing.
Dice & Fold, from Developer Tinymice Entertainment, is a roguelike deckbuilding game where you play as a variety of characters each with varying abilities in order to beat the dungeons' different bosses. Players must utilize cards, coins, dice and items, to find what strategy works best for them along the way.
Roll with the Punches
Once players choose which character they want to play as each turn you roll dice that can be used in a variety of ways. What they’re used for most often is to “fold” an enemy. Folding is the term Dice & Fold uses to describe defeating a character. There are two types of dice slots that each enemy may have — an exact dice slot or a total dice slot. An exact slot dice requires you to roll exactly what is on the dice, a total dice requires to reach a certain number using any number of dice.
Dice can also be used to complete your gold set, which awards you one gold for completing or they can be spent towards unlocking your hero’s or your companion’s ability. If you’re unable to use your dice to complete any of the above tasks, they can be saved in your dice pouch for the next turn. Once you’ve had your turn the enemy will attack either your character or your companion. Your goal is to use everything the game gives you to defeat your enemies without allowing your main character's health to deplete to zero. After a few rounds, you’ll start to pick up trinkets which have a variety of uses and can change up how the game runs drastically. Trinkets are purchased in between rounds in the dungeon using coins that you’ve saved from defeating enemies or completing your gold dice set.
The sheer amount of replayability here is really impressive. Not only are there twenty playable characters to start with (once you unlock them all) there are fifteen more planned in the game's upcoming updates. There are four difficulty choices - Easy, Normal, Hard and Extreme (recently added in an update) as well as a variety of trinkets which are unlocked by defeating bosses and can be equipped on your character in order to be given a slight advantage. One trinket, for example, gives players extra health to start. Another starts your character off with a 4, 5, and 6 in their dice pouch. Each of these choices will help the player strategize how to play and win each time they delve into the dungeon.
Things Get a Bit Dicey
One of the biggest issues I found with Dice & Fold from the very start was how difficult it is. I started on normal difficulty as I’m an experienced roguelike player. I had a pretty easy time with the first two available characters so I felt confident when I moved onto the third character, The King. Unfortunately, it felt like there was a huge difficulty spike upon moving on to my third round. It took me fifteen to twenty rounds before I was able to beat a boss as The King and that was only after accepting defeat and switching to easy. It would make sense for difficulty to increase with each new character, but it seems like the difficulty remains the same no matter who you choose, the game is only made easier by the way you utilize each character's unique ability so if you’re stuck with a character like The King whose ability isn’t particularly helpful, at least for my playstyle, it can be a huge challenge.
Another problem is that certain bosses feel significantly more difficult than others. I’ve had the hardest time defeating the hydra. This boss has very large total dice slots who spawns four additional hydras that do not die when the boss hydra has been defeated. Other bosses feel ridiculously easy in comparison. There are definitely some balance issues that still need to be worked out in order to make the game more enjoyable all around. Mostly, each round I’ve played of Dice & Fold has been enjoyably challenging but rounds defeating even the easiest enemies felt impossible while others felt way too easy. This, of course, has a lot to do with the procedurally generated aspects of the game, but in general, a game like this should feel a bit more balanced. With that being said, Tinymice Entertainment have been regularly updating the game since its first day of release and it does seem like they’re very focused on fixing those balance issues.
Dice & Fold takes some of the very best elements of the roguelike deckbuilding genre and brings them together in an infinitely replayable, beautifully illustrated, fun as heck package. With loads of characters to try out, dozens of items to learn and use and plenty more content on the way, you might just find yourself spending hundreds of hours mastering its dungeons. It’s well-worth a try if you love the genre as much as I do and can appreciate that not all games worth playing get it exactly right from day one.
Breakdown
Game: Dice & Fold
Developer: Tinymice Entertainment
Publisher: Rogue Duck Interactive, Gamersky Games
Availability: PC
Reviewed on PC
Pros:
+ Unique roguelike mechanics
+ Huge roster of characters to master (with more to come!)
+ An extensive upcoming roadmap
+ Huge replayability
Cons:
- Needs balancing fixes
Final Thoughts
It’s difficult for roguelike deck builders to stand out in a genre with powerhouses like Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons. Dice & Fold is a really entertaining addition and one that I find myself continuously wanting to go back to. The Developers clearly listen to their players and are updating and fixing the game constantly and if things continue the way they’re going, with a few balance fixes, this title could stand proudly at the top of the genre.
Reviewed by Becca Smith