Image credit: countlessnights/2 Left Thumbs
Dice A Million is a delightful dice-builder from countlessnights and 2 Left Thumbs, tasking players with rolling their way through branching maps and building up a vast collection of unique dice.
The dice in question aren’t just regular dice, either. While you can find regular dice like a D6 or D20 on your travels across the map, you’ll also encounter magnetic dice that act like a black hole, nesting dolls that crack open, and post-it notes that add boosts to your round score.
Storywise, the player is trapped in a dice-rolling facility and needs to pay their debts to escape. There’s a mysterious voice that calls the player between rounds, demanding payment in dots or pips, with the target dot score for each stage increasing progressively.
There are special boss rounds at the end of each level, where a unique debuff or quirk will be applied. Dice may all be obscured in shadows, for example, or there may be a complete removal of even numbers from final scores. They’re simple but effective boss fights that reward creative builds.
To complement the variety of dice on offer, there are rings and cards for players to work with. Cards can provide handy bonuses, like extra draw power or a free reroll, while rings apply a myriad of buffs, like enhancing specific types of dice.
Something that I found utterly compelling about Dice A Million is how much creativity it gives players with builds.
There are well over 100 unique dice on offer in the game, meaning no run ever felt the same. In one run, I might focus on dice placement and manipulating where the dice land, while in others, I might focus on evens or odds. The selection of rings and cards further enhanced this.
Colorful and vibrant
While I found the simplicity of Dice A Million’s concept delightful, it’s important to note that the gameplay still had plenty of depth.
The enchantment mechanic is a good example of this; enchanting a die adds a new quirk to it, like causing it to trigger its effect twice or making it not count towards the total number of dice in your hand.
Being able to enchant your dice and also draw enchanted dice from booster packs obtained from the shop helps to keep things interesting. I found it often acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card when I was playing a run that felt doomed, allowing me to reshuffle my strategy and play with a different style in mind.
There were plenty of moments throughout my time with the game that felt like a fresh start. If I started struggling to hit the target number of pips in a round, I could refresh my hand easily by enchanting dice, unlocking treasure, using spell cards, or obtaining new rings to wear.
Visually, Dice A Million is an absolute treat. It has a simple but vibrant art style – and the Steam page notes that the developer drew each asset in Paint – with a staggering number of unique dice, items, and designs.
Performance-wise, I found Dice A Million to be smooth and responsive during my time with it, with no notable quirks, bugs, or flaws. It was also easy to pick up and get the hang of, too, with intuitive controls and a clear interface.
I completed some of this review on PC but played the bulk of it on my Steam Deck. While it’s only listed as ‘Playable’ on the Steam page, I found the Steam Deck experience to be smooth and easygoing overall, with no notable issues. The text was a little small in places, but this wasn’t a major issue.
If you’re a fan of dice-builders and deck-building roguelikes, you’re going to fall in love with Dice A Million. As someone who spends an unreasonable amount of time in the roguelike genre, I found this game to be incredibly fun.
FAQs
Dice A Million was developed by countless nights and published by 2 Left Thumbs.
Dice A Million is currently a PC-exclusive title. Steam Deck users will be able to enjoy the game with no issues, too. I’m hoping we’ll be able to enjoy it on the Steam Machine.
Dice A Million can be played on Steam, Itch.io, or Xbox Cloud Gaming.
Yes, Dice A Million shares similarities with Balatro, including its deck-building gameplay and map layout.
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