Blasted Dice

Short review: Its fun and worth your money u can get an easy 30-40 hours of fun, the combat is fun and has and an addicting gameplay loop especially when you're trying to figure out optimal builds or just doing wacky things that work. Long review: there will be a bit of spoiler so please be warned. There is a lot of RNG its still fun to play dont get me wrong but my lord sometimes your build is so good but your RNG makes you lose, there is nothing worse than everything going well then all of a sudden you're hit with a 1,2,3,4,5,6 dice selection on an enemy attack making it so u cant block enough damage and u just lose. Of course there are ways to counter this e.g going with only up or down dice, having the yellow diamond, having actives that let you take a hit without dying. These methods are fine I guess but it makes you feel forced to play in a certain way which I dont like. There is a certain purple keepsake iykyk that makes this forced play style just go away however you only have 2 chances to get it per run so multiple times I have just abandoned a run because I didnt get it. Im not saying change the keepsake although I do have an idea on how to make it a lil weaker but sti…

It's cheeky and unusual, not in its ideas but rather its execution, like the power scaling and balance. For that reason, I might be happy to recommend it, assuming it was in fact balanced well. Unfortunately, I didn't play enough to know whether it is in fact balanced or not. The main issue is it is extremely punishing for not knowing all of the mechanics, it doesn't have enough UI tips to help make the game more accessible. Compare this to Balatro, where it will tell you before you lock in your hand whether it is a pair or full house or straight or whatever. In this game, a single 1 dice counts as "something", and therefore disqualifies it as "nothing". If your have an item that only procs on "nothing", you might lock in a 1 and not realize you just screwed yourself because you're now blocking for 24 instead of 360, and you instantly die. Of course, many of these things can be learned over time, but it is frustrating to lose games over this kind of issue, especially when there is no quality of life to help. No undos, no pre-calculations, nothing. You either know what you're going to score, or you don't. Sometimes roguelikes give you this moment where you hit an absolutely massiv…

Picked it up on a discount so wasn't too disappointed, but If i picked this up for full price I would be fuming. The game is very unpolished with very few animations and very repetitive music throughout the game. The build variety and content is pretty light, i only saw maybe 5-6 different dice types in a 1h+ run and there wasn't much to differentiate them. the balancing on the relics is poor, most of them feel like they have close to 0 impact on the game. It just feels really lacking in depth and is to be honest, pretty boring

Honestly give it a go, cheap and the combos are fun

A little over an hour in and I think I'm going to refund this. As mentioned in the other negative reviews, the game just does not provide enough information to figure out how the attack/defense numbers are being calculated. One turn I have a big number and the next a small number and I have no idea what is making the difference. It would really help if the game would display the calculation before I commit to the attack, so I could try making adjustments and see how the numbers change as a result, but the dev has already said that he has no plans to make this change. The game feels too random to be fun when I don't have enough information to plan my moves or my build strategy.

Balasted Dice (get it?) is a fun little game. The early and mid game are much more fun than the late game - you get to actually calculate and try to optimize, but at some point it just becomes too much and you go by vibes which is less satisfying, as well as just clicking the defend or attack button and next level. Also, you generally get limited to a certain strategy (that seems to repeat in most runs...) eventually to get to the higher scores. Still good fun in a solid tribute to Balatro and dice games. I hope for a sequel with better design, balance, strategy, content (more dice..) and ways to control the RNG.