Dice With Death

I enjoyed *Dice with Death*, but after about 14 hours, I’d pretty much finished the game. I’m not interested in PvP, otherwise I could have kept playing for a while longer. I really liked the dialogues because they were funny and had a slight philosophical touch. Unfortunately, the game lacks long-term appeal for me.

If you absolutely love deckbuilding, it's a recommend; otherwise, you can skip this one. Pros: Aesthetics Mechanics of adding dice/relics to your pool Cons: Slow, even on 2x speed Gets repetitive quickly Gameplay forces you into certain types of play depending on character choice, which isn't fun, especially for a roguelike. Too few dice/relics at the beginning Unlocking relics is more of a punishment than a reward From what I played, you can only have one die of each type, which means you can't truly customize to your heart's content Tried to ham-fist story into it, which overall felt weak to me. But the most egregious thing about the game: referring to a singular die as dice - every single time. How do you have a game about dice, and not know that the singular form of 'dice' is 'die' not 'a dice'. SMH. In all seriousness, the most egregious thing about the game is probably the fact that my second run was almost exactly like my first run because I hadn't unlocked many of the relics/special items yet. I truly find it unfun that a roguelike could have an almost exact replica of any run, much less your second. To get the same relics/dice and end up reconstructing my first deck was a hard no for me. I did keep playing, but once you start unlocking relics, you then dilute the pool of relics you can choose from. For example, there's a relic I really liked, but once I started adding more, I wasn't able to get that relic again - so unlocking relics felt more like a punishment than a reward. Then, once you start playing through various characters, you unlock THEIR special relics, which feel slightly stronger than the regular ones. I ended up feeling like I had to take my character's special relic, but then, again, I was just playing the same build over and over. I get that it probably sounds like I'm contradicting myself in the above paragraphs, but it's something I've seen being done in roguelikes more and more often. I like the way Hades and Dice and Pool did their relics, as compared to this game and Cult of the Lamb. I think it's because you get to choose which relics you play with at the beginning, as compared to then having a pool from which you select. It just hits different and not like you're being punished for playing the game. I also want to say having to sit through Death's rounds is very slow. It's not like you can avoid anything he does to you once he starts going, so I'm not sure why we can't have a skip button and just allow the punishment to come to us. In the later rounds, Death's turns can take a very long time. I thought about going and timing it, but then decided I'm just done with this game. But, without exaggeration, I'd wager Death's turns can take anywhere from 10-15 seconds, maybe even 20 seconds. It may not sound like a long time, but when you're just staring at dice flying into the air over and over, it can feel like an eternity. If anyone ends up timing Death's rounds, let me know. I'd be interested to know how close I was. Finally, I just want to add what's unlockable in this game is sort of.... unfun? It's just the same stuff you unlock during the main story, just for a different game mode. Very odd.