VVVVVV

August 20, 2019 6:45 AM

Dicey Dungeons is a new roguelike deck-building game where you're a walking dice from Terry Cavanagh, a single-person game developer best known for VVVVVV and Super Hexagon. Terry shares the Girls Aloud-adjacent inspiration behind Dicey Dungeons and unfinished game prototypes going back to 2002.

• King of Hexagon: A Game Creator’s Furious Fight to Keep His Own High Score (Wired)
• Terry Cavanagh on why he believes Dicey Dungeons is his best game yet (RPS)
• Holly Gramazio on writing for Dicey Dungeons
• Chipzel Captures the Sound of a ‘90s Game Show in Dicey Dungeons (Cliqist)

Thanks to Two unicycles and some duct tape for the post suggestion!

posted by adrianhon (12 comments total)

I paid for Dicey on itch.io on a leap of faith during development. I like dice games, but this is far from a standard dice game. This game does not disappoint. I've already had a lot of fun with it, and the finished version is that much better than all the betas I played.
posted by deezil at 6:54 AM on August 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

It's getting a lot of buzz! I do love my decklike roguelike. Slay the Spire just came to Xbox (though I have it on PC) and it's so relaxing. Sadly this is only PC for now or I'd snap it up.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:54 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

Ooh, I wasted so much time on one of the prototypes when it came up previously... I'm probably lucky it costs money now, or I would immediately be wasting hours more right now, instead of putting it on my wishlist to waste hours on it at a later date.
posted by brook horse at 7:08 AM on August 20, 2019 [6 favorites]

I've been playing this off and on since 0.4 or something and .. it's fun! I do tend to fall into playing just one or two characters and in one or two styles, but I guess the 1.0 version has some endgame stuff that will encourage me to play all the characters.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 7:34 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

I feel justified in that I said in the last thread the game reminds me of Dream Quest, the deckbuilder. And here we are years later and the game launches and in the interviews Cavanagh cites Dream Quest as inspiration. A great place to borrow from, btw, very tightly designed mechanics in both games. Slay the Spire goes maximalist with a bunch of weirdo cards and sprawling options. Dicey Dungeons focuses on just a couple of core interactions between your cards and dice and yet has enough complexity to remain interesting
posted by Nelson at 7:46 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Terry Cavanagh also made Don't Look Back [previously], which is my favourite ever Flash game. I play it every few months, and it always makes me cry.
posted by Nossidge at 8:00 AM on August 20, 2019 [1 favorite]

OK, ok, I'll play it already! How many of my feeds can this show up in? I know I have to buy it; I'm going to love it. But there's so much out there to play and I could really just play Slay the Spire from now until the heat death of the universe. It's Sofa King good.
posted by The Bellman at 8:30 AM on August 20, 2019

I'm a fan of Chipzel's gameboy inspired chiptunes, so I was all on-board to buy this just for the soundtrack. (Seriously, listen to Only Human and Formed in the Clouds, also Focus, which is that track from the Super Hexagon soundtrack)

The game itself is pretty compelling, refining the deck-building gameplay that's recently become the new new-thing in indie gaming circles. It has a surprising amount of content that unlocks as you play, but that has lead to a number of reviewers playing just the first three levels and declaring that it's too easy!
posted by Eleven at 8:36 AM on August 20, 2019

Yes! It's so good! I know I already showed my hand (or, uh, dice?) on this last year but I've been checking in on it periodically ever since and it has just kept coming along really nicely. It's been a really good study in the move from a very good fundamental design concept and gameplay prototype to a genuinely polished and satisfying game experience.

The design is great, Portland-local Marlow Dobbe's art has been a huge huge addition to how fun and complete and characterful the finished game is, chipzel's music is great.

I've had less time to dive into it since release than I'd like, but it's nice seeing my old dice friends again and seeing them sitting in Lady Luck's nefarious narrative framework now. Had a close loss with the witch yesterday, which might be my favorite class at the moment just for the weird little explosion of combinations of possibilities with her spell slot mechanic. It's hard to pin down an optimal strategy there, which is good. But I do also love that dang robot.
posted by cortex at 9:46 AM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

I somehow read that as "Disney Dungeons" ...
posted by twidget at 5:41 PM on August 20, 2019

Oh man, the one thing protecting me right now is that this isn't available on, like… anything but computers. Once it gets a console and/or iOS port, I am doomed.
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:26 PM on August 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Just bought this. It's absolutely dope.
posted by Quackles at 1:25 AM on August 23, 2019