Dicefolk

When I first saw the trailer for this game, I waited in anticipation to get the opportunity to get this game. As a huge fan of creature collecting games, I often think about how in games like these, the creatures are characterized, what traits are being highlighted about them and/or grants the creatures their unique charm. In "Dicefolk", most of the cartoony, rougelite gameplay is rolling dice to whittle down your opponents. The dice themselves can be taken advantage of by any "Chimera" in your party. The dice have a set of actions that can be comprised of different types of attacks, shielding, rotations that effect leading and non-leading "Chimeras", healing, taunting, mirroring the opponent dice, and etc. As you proceed in a run, there is always an opportunity to win a battle or go to the "Dicesmith" to add different actions to existing dice or getting more sets of dice later from the "Dicesmith" as you proceed to the next area. This leads into a factor of the game I think is one of the best parts of "Dicefolk": everything in this game is telegraphed and when you make a mistake, it feels like you are punching your own face. You are granted a limited party of three "Chimeras" and you can always obtain more "Chimeras" but the party size always remains the same. These "Chimeras" have stats and "Effects". These effects grant many "Chimeras" their abilities and unique charm. Your "Chimeras" and the antagonistic "Chimeras" you are going up against have every single stat laid out for you to see and read. After the dice are rolled, you take your turn at the same time as your opponents, and can be very deliberate about who can take what action during that turn. While luck is a huge factor in terms of what rolls, items, and "Chimeras" you get during each run, there are a number of ways to rein in that probability to turn things more in your favor. In other creature collecting games that involve combat, the key factors in those might be strength and accuracy. A creature in some other game would get moderately stronger attacks with high accuracy, or a powerful attack with decreased accuracy. In those types of games balance like that is perfectly understandable for those games. In "Dicefolk" no singular attack is unique to any "Chimera" so what makes them standout is their "Effects", these passives can immensely turn the tide of combat and end many battles quickly when paired up with different types of items and "Chimeras". Some "Chimeras" grant status conditions, others can influence the start or end of a turn, and other "Chimeras" have modifiable "Effects" and you can increase the stat associated to the effect with one-off stat boosting items and ones that grant stat boosts when held onto which can turn some mild ability "Chimera" into a powerhouse. Some items that don't grant a stat themselves but are better suited with certain "Chimeras" can improve an already existing "Effect", like if a "Chimera's" passive rotated enemy "Chimeras" when attacking, and you put an item that does damage onto enemies based on enemy rotations it improves that "Chimera" significantly. Another aspect of this game I enjoy are "Iridescent Chimeras", in appearance they are effectively what "Shiny Pokemon" are: a rare form of a creature with altered colorations with gleaming and shimmering effects. However, that is where the similarities differ, the distinction in gameplay here is that "Iridescent Chimeras" have an improved version of their "Effects" which renders them more valuable to be sought out. For every expectation I had for this game, it bested it and I have thoroughly enjoyed this and will continue to enjoy this game even after getting all the achievements and doing all the special modes, as I get immense joy out of playing this game. For those who are considering purchasing this game I want to preface that "Dicefolk" is mostly gameplay, the intro and ending sequence and your character's animations are beautifully animated, the music is synergistic to the pace of the scenic areas of the game, seeing the animations and hearing the cries of the "Chimeras" is pretty cool but it is mostly traversing a map that unravels an event as you move across it and thusly leading to eventual combats against "Chimeras". It's an excellent game and I hope to see more out of these game developers and/or this concept.

Fun game, not so challenging but really cute and has some variety of builds

Extremely fun game. Lots of cute creature designs. Very replayable. I let my little sister do a dumb as a boglin run because I was getting back into the game after a while of not playing and kept failing and the sheer joy upon defeating Salem together somehow was amazing. My little sister's review: "a very calm game that does not make you want to throw what you are using to play across the room"