Have you ever tried playing poker or Yahtzee by yourself? You know, like when you roll the dice and draw cards for yourself and your opponent? This used to happen all the time when all you needed for amusement was a deck of cards. I recall that if I was the adversary, I would always cheat. The issue with this is that when played this way, the game loses much of its suspense and, thus, its enjoyment.

This issue is taken up by Dicefolk and used as the main gaming mechanism. I'll tell you right away that it does this.

Dark Wizards and Preserving the Earth

You learn that you belong to the unique Dicefolk tribe, who have the ability to control chimeras, via a stunning hand-drawn introduction. Additionally, this puts you in a situation where you are the only one who can stop Salem, the insane sorcerer who is attempting to wipe all mankind.

In the roguelite tactical game Dicefolk, two teams of up to three chimeras engage in combat. Each team has three dice, which represent several actions that each team's captain may do. Dicefolk are special because you get to decide which moves to make and in what sequence for both your team and the team you're battling. In essence, you are assigned a battlefield full with chimeras, each of whom has special skills that let you manipulate how the fight plays out.

Take On Your Own Defenses

During a normal round, you roll one of your dice to choose which offensive action to use with your leader. Next, you'll utilize the rotate action to move a tank chimera to the top of the leaderboard. Now take control of the other team and use their actions to assault your tank. Enemies controlled by a computer do not exist. Both sides are under your control. You begin a new round after all dice actions have been used.

Facing hundreds of distinct chimeras, each with their own special skills that activate at spawn, rotation, or any other dice action, provides tactical complexity. The ability to apply additional actions to dice faces and get new dice from the stores adds even more intricacy. By giving your chimeras artifacts that will give them additional skills or stat increases, you may further enhance them. The last decision you'll need to make is selecting chimeras to add to your squad. You may enlist up to four new chimeras in a single game, and the key to winning is figuring out how to best use the synergies between your team and available artifacts.

Don't Be Misled By Salem's Lot

Warrior, Storm, Wrath, and Pain are the four chimera tribes that must be brought to Salem's door in order to win the game. You'll unlock the Chaos Tribe and face Salem in an additional level when you defeat each of these. Should you triumph, you'll be able to access Trial mode, which adds more difficult game modifications. The goal of unlocking every chimera for every tribe and overcoming every Trials challenge—which is no simple feat—serves as motivation to keep playing.

When I originally began the game, my goal was to play for a short while. I didn't stop until I encountered Salem for the first time during a six-hour marathon session. I was intrigued by the easy-to-understand mechanics and had to complete "just one more turn" to find out where things were going. Finding out that switching around the chimeras on the team may be a successful offensive tactic or that assembling the ideal set of activation-based items can affect the game really pleased me.

No Unexpected Events

I was also a bit surprised at how soon we defeated Salem. Despite the game's immense intricacy, I thought it was quite balanced and really well-streamlined, so it wasn't too challenging. Much RNG is eliminated when both sides are under control. Everything goes well if you pay close attention to the chimeras' skills on both sides as well as who deals and takes damage.

About Trials level 3, I began to lose for the first time. This indicates that it will only take 5 to 10 hours to get the game's first conclusion, and it seems unlikely that it would take more than 40 hours to unlock everything.

Furthermore, while being advertised and touted as having a monster-catching system, the game is nothing like Pokémon. During the game, you will be able to enlist three more chimeras, either via shrines or a store. There's nothing to catch here.

It's also important to note that the game's visuals, which are mostly hand drawn, seem passable. Other than the brief hand-drawn animations that play when you first start and win the game, there are no stylistic surprises or noteworthy features. Either way, you're playing these kinds of games the wrong way if all you're doing is enjoying the visuals.

The X-Factor

There are several tactical roguelite games available. A couple of them stood out for having unique concepts. Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Inscryption, and Griftlands all brought something fresh and quickly won over fans. With its straightforward idea and self-fighting as the primary mechanism, Dicefolk does provide a novel idea. Nevertheless, I couldn't get rid of the impression that it was a lot like Slay the Spire. More than anything, this is most likely due to the parallels in how you defeat the final boss. I also recall playing Monster Train and Slay the Spire for hundreds of hours, so it was a little bit short.With Dicefolk, the player has greater control and may enjoy fast and simple gameplay that removes a lot of randomness. Fans of the genre will have something gratifying to tuck into, and it will last you for hundreds of hours. It was quite simple for me, although I did find myself in the "please one more turn, mom" zone, which is the most one can hope for.