Ranking of Roguelikes #3: Dicey Dungeons

The third installment of Ranking of Roguelikes is here, and it's Dicey Dungeons!

Dicey dungeons is roguelike Yahtzee, pitting you against Lady Luck and her dangerous dungeons.

Time Spent: a little over 6 hours

Completion: Finished first two chapters with each character

Platform: Switch

I made a thread about my intense dislike of the art in this game, which turned out to be a controversial opinion. I stand by that, but I won't be rehashing that here. It put me off from purchasing it until it was on a steep (almost 90%) discount, which is a shame because the game is quite fun while it lasts.

I appreciated the tight focus it had. There's very little filler in the game, everything is more or less focused on making an entertaining, challenging, completely bonkers version of Yahtzee. It hit some very specific pleasure centers for me, because my family has always played dice games when we get together. Yahtzee, Liar's Dice, Left Right Center, Bunco...some of my favorite family memories are wrapped in the soft rattles of dice on the table.

Sadly, Dicey Dungeons didn't hold my attention like I thought it would. It's perfectly serviceable, and entertained me for a few hours, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

How well does it reward experimentation and improvisation?

Each character plays quite differently from all the others, and you have to learn a new way of playing with each one. There's a significant amount of experimentation involved in understanding how best to use the special abilities and unique equipment of each character. The Warrior wants high dice rolls to maximize his damage, while the Rogue does best with smaller numbers; the Witch needs to carefully decide what abilities to bring into the field during each battle, and needs the whole range of numbers to be effective.

In addition, each character has six "episodes" of their story that change the game rules and force you to rethink how you approach everything. Some of the rules changes are quite clever subversions of how you would usually play.

Beyond that, there aren't a lot of surprises. You can check the abilities of your enemies at any time, and strategize accordingly. The special effects of some abilities (freeze, shock, burn, poison, and blind) are straightforward and don't interact with each other in any way.

Some effects are clearly better than others, too. I almost always chose Freeze over anything else, since it changed the highest enemy die to 1. Many abilities do damage based on the number on the die, so this helps you survive longer. Shock was a close second, because it locked a piece of equipment and forced them to sacrifice a die to unlock it. I could rarely get enough Poison or Burn stacked to want to use them over the others.

Your ability to experiment is further hampered by the random dice rolls. You may never get a chance in a battle to use that new piece of equipment because you didn't roll the correct number or combination of numbers. This restricts your choice space, and pushed me to rely on a smaller set of abilities and strategies than I would have liked to.

What's the risk/reward calculus?

It leans far more towards risk than reward. While you can theoretically skip battles to save your health, you won't be as prepared for the final fight of each run if you do. Winning battles is the only way to gain levels, and each level gained gives you one more die to roll on your turn. The more dice you have, the more options you have. The game is tuned so that you'll reach the maximum level after clearing out the first five floors, and the boss fight is on the sixth floor. The bosses are difficult and dangerous, and you need every advantage you can get against them.

The battles themselves have quite a bit more of this. You have a limited number of options each turn, and success or failure very often hinges on what you play and in what order you play it.

You have a limited amount of money you earn during any given run. You can't buy everything, and you can't equip everything even if you did. Spend too much early in the run, and you won't have enough money to buy more powerful equipment later.

How well does it teach you from your failures?

It's quite good here. I could usually see what I needed to do differently, whether it was using equipment in a different order so that I could maximize the effects of my dice rolls or skipping a difficult fight even though it would have left me weaker for the final fight. You also see new enemies and equipment each time, giving you a chance to try things out.

Enemies follow the same rules as you do, so watching them use their skills helps you understand how to use yours. One painful learning experience I had was about the power of freeze. I lost to a low-level enemy who spammed it constantly and kept me from doing any real damage while she whittled away at my health. It wasn't fun, but it taught me a valuable lesson that I brought with me in all my future runs.

What's the "just one more run" factor?

In the beginning, it's huge. You're unlocking a new character every run, giving you new and different ways to approach the game. You're seeing different enemies, equipment, and map layouts each time. There's something fresh and exciting to experience each time.

Once you've unlocked each class and played with them, a lot of the novelty wears off.

After a few hours, my desire to play another run after a failed one dropped off a cliff. I was left with something that just wasn't all that interesting to me. The randomness of the dice rolls led to too many failures. It didn't feel "tough but fair," it felt unfair. After I finished a run with each character, I didn't see much value in continuing. I know that there must be some sort of "true" ending if you can complete each character's episodes, but I wasn't having the kind of fun that pushed me to do it.

Where does it rank?

I'm going to put it at #2, above Crown Trick but below Has-Been Heroes. It's going to be a controversial decision, but I think there is just too much randomness in Dicey Dungeons. Like Crown Trick, it doesn't let you overcome that randomness with clever or skillful play. It's a good game, just not the best roguelike.

Thanks for reading this far! I've made a list that I'll keep updated here.

As always, I welcome your feedback. How can I make the series better? Let me know in the replies.

@laughingman: I actually just finished this game for a piece that I will do a writeup on later, so I was very curious as to your thoughts. While I agree that the game can certainly come down to randomness not just with the dice rolls, but also with enemy and apple placement on a map, I found it more forgiving then a lot of other games of similar ilk. I certainly died at enemies I shouldn't have, but my takeaway for those fights were usually relying too much on a single piece of equipment that wasn't hitting. All told I beat MOST runs in only 1 or 2 attempts.

Like you said each character plays differently and needs its own strategy in order to succeed, but I think there is multiple viable options to each character. There is a 6th character you can unlock if you fully complete all characters. That character operates like a deck builder which i found pretty fun to play around with.

What's nice is in the options you can edit the progress file and mark some doors complete even if you have never tried them. It's great if you are intrigued by the end or are really struggling on a run.

I will say that some later runs for each character really changes the game.. not in a way that you need to revisit, but there is a run where all status effects act different, runs where each floor adds a random modifier to the game, and others that make you have to keep coming up with new strategies.

I liked it, played through ever chapter, but the hit or miss came to me on a very character by character basis. I loved every minute ad the robot and inventor, and hated every minute of the thief. So my engagement waxed and waned based on which character I was playing at the time.

@imunbeatable80: Just a small correction, but you unlock the 6th character after completing half of every other character's challenges. That one was honestly one of my favourites, but it was also a pretty easy deck. I also recommend checking out the halloween episodes which came out not that long ago if you haven't. Most were so-so but the witch (easily the most frustrating character to play as originally for me at least) had a really fun puzzle challenge. Overall I agree with pretty much everything else you both are saying. The game hit for me but unless you are a completionist interesting in seeing every challenge (a lot of which are quite fun) the game doesn't have a whole lot propelling you forward.

@imunbeatable80: I agree with a lot of what you say. It is forgiving in a way that a lot of these kinds of games aren't. I never had too much trouble getting to the bosses, and once I did I think my completion rate for them was around 60%. It's just that after finishing the first two chapters for each character, I had seen just about everything in the game and it wasn't compelling enough to keep going.

The robot is a fun twist on the basic formula, and I enjoyed him a lot. The rest of them were fine, but none really stood out to me as more or less fun.

@nuttism: I'm definitely not a completionist, but I understand the compulsion. That may be why it didn't grab me in the same way as so many others. Thanks for articulating that, it's a helpful frame to keep in mind for future games in the blog series.

@laughingman : May I recommend linking the relevant blog posts on each listing on your Ranking of Roguelikes? Create a central hub for anyone who stumbles across a posting or the list.

Enjoying the Roguelikes blogs as I learn more about one of the many roguelikes I haven't come across and enjoying the opinion of a roguelike I have actually played. Looking forward for your future posts! Thanks!

@spiketail: Thanks for the recommendation! I'll make sure to do that for these and future entries. And thanks also for the encouragement. I've been working on the next entry, a personal favorite of mine, and I'm excited to see what people think of it.

ETA I can't put hyperlinks directly into the list entries, but I'll see what I can do to put them in the description text.