Dice World
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Mobile Gaming Month [part 4]
Dice World
If you had a 20 sided dice and you rolled it 100 times, What are the chances that the number 17 would come up 11 times? The answer is I don’t know and I don’t care. So what was the point of asking? Well dice.
Introduction
I just beat some fucker at some fucking thing on Dice World
If that sounds some what familiar it is because you have friends that play Dice World.
I’ll be honest I avoided Dice World for the longest time. Not for any real reason just it didn’t seem to be something I would want to play.
But when I started this Mobile gaming month I knew that dice world would get a feature.
Dice world was a game not originally designed to be accessible but was made accessible later. They have made it possible for Blind or Visually impaired peoples to play as well so off the bat props to them.
I would also like to take this moment to thank everyone who challenged me to games in the last week to help me try out this game.
What is Dice World
Put simply it is a collection of dice games that you can play on your phone. At the time of writing this article 6 games are available to play.
You can play against bot’s, other players, or friends. Before I talk about what I like and don’t like I will give a brief run down of the 6 games currently available.
Farkle:
Roll some dice and hope for good combinations. But if nothing is worth any points. you Farkle and you are out!
Yatzy:
You have to fill in your score sheet. From ones to six’s, full house and Yatzy.
Pig:
First to 100 wins. But if you roll a 1 your out. At least for a turn.
Threes:
Have you thought numbers were very arbitrary? Good then this is a game for you. Imagine 3 was 0, the other numbers from 1 to 6 stayed the same and the point was to get the lowest score possible. I don’t get it either.
Balut:
Yatzy on crack! Basically you have a score sheet but instead of lots of different categories you have just 7, but you have to fill each 4 times.
1-4-24:
You roll 6 dice. you need a 1. you need a 4. and then you need the highest score possible with the other 4 dice.
All 6 games are available to play against human players, however at the time of writing this article only Yatzy, Farkel, Pig and Threes can be played with bot’s.
Game Play
Dice games are something I have played on computer before but never on my phone. So I am used to the idea that you sit and play a game till it is finished. However this isn’t the way many people play dice world. Sure you can play like that. I did that once or twice but it seems allot of people play only every now and then. Taking a roll or 2 a couple of times a day.
This actually frustrated me a little at first but I found once I had a few games going it was nice 2 or 3 times a day to throw a few rolls and then go back to what ever it was I was doing.
The fact this game can be played both on and off line is nice as well. Easy when you are sitting on a train or bus to be able to verse bot’s if you don’t have human players to verse.
The actual functionality of the game is also reasonably good. The menus are straight forward and easy to navigate.
My only gripe is that sometimes when selecting dice it can be a touch finicky. More than once I tried to select 2 dice quickly and just ended up selecting and unselecting the same dice.
The actual games seem to work quite well. I have played all 6 in the last week and while I had 1 or 2 miner issues, these were simple close the app and reopen it type fixes and maybe have as much to do with my phone as the game itself.
The help and tutorials for games are also really nice. While I had played a few of these games before, Some of them I had never heard of. Even the ones I had played previously had slightly different rules than I was used to, But the tutorials were very easy to understand and got me up and running very quickly.
Pay up!
So I will admit I didn’t know paying for things was an option in Dice World. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised developers want to get money for the products they offer.
Looking at the prices for things in dice World first time around I thought they were pretty high but after playing for a week I understand that perhaps it actually isn’t to bad.
The main thing that you can buy is gold coins. These are used to throw bonus rolls in bonus games, a feature I will get to in a moment. The cost of gold is surprisingly high. In saying that it would probably last quite some time. I started this week with 500 gold I got when I started the game. Yet here I am a week later with more than 500 gold.
Gold can be made by winning games, logging in every day, sharing your wins to twitter or facebook and playing tournaments. This means for a casual player like me I don’t see any reason why in the near future possibly ever that I would need to buy gold.
A few other optional things can be purchased including the removal of ads and different dice. As the ads don’t bother me that much and I can’t see the dice anyway these hold 0 interest for me.
I guess what this comes down to is that I can’t really object to how they charge for this game. I doubt I would ever pay but if you want to, go right ahead!
Other Features
Bonus Games:
I was sort of interested to see how this worked when I first heard of it. It seemed like a cop out. So I roll the dice 3 times and if I am not happy I can spend a gold coin to get an extra throw of the dice. But this just means that you have to approach the games slightly differently. It can also make the games faster which can be quite nice.
Chat:
So the app has an in built chat client. It is extremely simplistic and the only time I used it was to test it to see how it worked. No one seemed to use it with me on any other occasion. But it is very simple and if you did want a way to communicate while playing this is effective. Just a basic text box and list of messages.
Social Media:
As mentioned above this game does have a link to social media. You can share your wins on Facebook and Twitter for 2 gold. This is actually brilliant. Advertisement for the game, a way for others to see your user name and challenge you and for you to earn gold.
What I like
Honestly this game does have allot going for it. From the fact that here is a company willing to make app’s they design accessible which in modern times is some how still amazing.
To the ease of using the app and playing the games using just voice over.
The way you don’t have to sit on your phone for hours to play.
This app is well designed and suitable both for the more casual player that just wants something to kill time here and there. To the person who wants to be level 100 and master of the dice.
If nothing else you can’t argue it does what it says on the box. It is called dice world. It has 6 dice games that function and are enjoyable to play.
What I don’t like
My only real gripe is the controls that do seem slightly unresponsive at times. I spoke above about trying to select dice and accidentally selecting and unselecting the same die. If that could be fixed I would be slightly happier.
Rating
Well I can’t argue I have enjoyed dice world and will likely keep the app around at least until I run out of gold. So I would give it:
8 out of 10
Final thoughts
If you like dice games, find yourself bored on public transport, want more things on your phone, hate socialising with actual people, love the sound of dice rolling, have a thing for dice, love numbers from 1 to 6, own a shirt that says fuck me for money or went through a tunnel on a bike and never came out again. You will probably like this game.
However if you are not any of those things than probably don’t waste the download.
seriously this game has its plus sides and if you haven’t checked it out feel free to do so. It is worth it in my opinion.
Conclusion
This game was fun to play but check back next week for the final part of Mobile gaming month. As I bring this month to a close talking about mobile gaming in a much wider perspective.