At the beginning of this year, the Texas Hold'em-based roguelike game "Balatro" became popular after its release, which also led to the emergence of roguelike DBG games. Some of these products have made unique gameplay, such as the mahjong-themed "Blue Tianjing" and the dice-themed "Dice Number Player".
Dice are a gameplay element that is worth digging into. Compared with poker and mahjong, dice are relatively simple and intuitive, and there are already many prototypes of existing gameplay. If you're looking for a balance between threshold and depth of gameplay, starting with dice may be a good choice.
Dice-based games are popping up on the market, and the next Balatro may be hidden among them.
A classic gameplay from nearly 70 years ago
If you're looking for a popular way to play dice, Yahtzee should be the number one player to play.
Yahtzee was first born in 1956 and was later introduced to the market by United States businessman Edwin S. Lowe (who promoted bingo) and has been popular ever since. As the classic board game was adapted into a mobile game, the product that benefited the most was Scopely's Yahtzee with Buddies Dice. The game was launched at the end of 2017 and has remained in the top 80 best-selling iOS lists in United States since the following year.
The large audience that Yahtzee has accumulated in the European and American markets in the past is now not outdated as a basis for gameplay innovation.
The highlight of Yahtzee's gameplay is that players don't rely purely on probabilities during the game, but instead make decisions based on randomly generated outcomes. From this point of view, Balatro also provides the player with room for choice by providing players with more than 5 cards in their hand. Yahtzee does just that in its most primitive gameplay.
When playing Yahtzee, players roll 5 dice and get points based on the type of dice. Players can keep any dice for reroll up to a maximum of 2 times before their score is credited. After completing the roll, the player must select one of the dice types in the points table to count towards the score.
There are a total of 13 dice in the game, and each dice can only be scored once. When all dice have been scored, the player with the highest total score wins the game.
In addition to rolling the ideal dice shape, it is also crucial to choose which dice type to score. Because in subsequent rolls, it is possible to get a higher score by passing the same dice type, and it is also possible to get a score of 0. As the number of rounds increases, so does the fun of randomness.
World Games 51 - Speedboat dice
There are 13 types of dice in Yahtzee, divided into 6 basic dice and 7 advanced dice types.
The base dice range from "one point" to "six", and the score value is the sum of the corresponding points of the die. For example, when a player rolls a combination of "3-3-3-2-4", a "three-point" dice will be counted for 9 points (3+3+3), a "two-point" dice will be counted for 2 points, a "four-point" dice will be counted for 4 points, and other base dice will not be scored.
Advanced dice types include "Three of a Kind", "Four of a Kind", "Full House", "Small Straight", "Big Straight", "Yahtzee", and "Chance". The "Three-of-a-kind", "Four-of-a-kind" and "Chance" dice scores are the sum of all the dice points, and keeping the dice for rethrow may change the score; "Hulu", "Little Straight", "Big Straight" and "Full Pressure" have fixed scores, and unless there is an opportunity to change the shape of the dice, the rethrow will not cause a change in the score.
For example, when a player rolls a combination of "3-3-3-2-2", 25 points will be awarded for a "full house" dice and 13 points (3+3+3+2+2) for a "three-of-a-kind". If you keep "3-3-3" and recast "3-3-3-6-6", then the "full house" dice will still be worth 25 points, but the "three-of-a-kind" dice will be worth 21 points (3+3+3+6+6).
Yahtzee also has 2 rules that provide bonus points for basic and advanced dice. At the end of the game and the total score is calculated, if the player has scored a total of 63 points or more through the base dice, they will be rewarded with an additional 35 points. If a player rolls an "All-in" die, and the All-in dice has already scored in a previous round, they will be rewarded with an additional 100 points.
Dice can also be used to inflate values
On the basis of Yahtzee's gameplay rules, indie games have begun to add condiments, and more or less changes have been made around the scoring rules. And as DBG games, they can't do without the roguelike element.
1、《Rogue Rollout》
At the moment, the gameplay design of Rogue Rollout is relatively rudimentary. The game retains a lot of Yahtzee's original content, with the slight difference that Rogue Rollout has made some changes to the numerical design.
There are no changes to the scoring rules for the basic dice in the game, but the rules for the special dice have changed. For special dice types, all dice are scored with the exception of "Pick All (Any Dice Set)". Among them, the basic scores of "Three of a Kind", "Four of a Kind" and "Five of a Kind" have been increased to 20 points, 30 points and 55 points, while the scores of "Little Shun", "Big Shun" and "Hulu" have not changed.
Rogue Rollout has increased the value of throwing "three-of-a-kind", "four-of-a-kind", and "five-of-a-kind" dice as a whole, mainly because DBG's gameplay framework requires that the goal score of each round be increased, which can reduce the difficulty of breaking through the early level to a certain extent.
The game also retains the design of bonus points and reduces the difficulty slightly. Players who earn 60 points on the base dice will receive bonus points for the current level. Each level gives a different bonus point, but is 20% of the current level's target score.
Complementing the roguelike elements, Rogue Rollout introduces the concepts of "artifacts" and "curses". After successfully clearing the level, players need to choose "Artifact" to increase the score multiplier, and select "Curse" to increase the difficulty of breaking through the level.
However, although the game has the concept of breaking through and growing, it is all based on the score multiplier and the probability of dice, and there are no changes from the dice construction. Strictly speaking, Rogue Rollout is just the beginning of DBG gameplay.
2, "Dice Player"
The DBG framework of Dice Player is close to that of Balatro, and the gameplay design is more mature as a result.
"Dice Player" has the deck-building content that DBG should have. The player has a dice box, which is equivalent to a deck in other DBG games, from which 5 dice are drawn each turn to be rolled. Players can get more dice through level rewards and store purchases, and by default they can only hold up to 20 dice, after which they can choose their own dice to be eliminated.
The game is designed with different dice, each with a special scoring effect. The vast majority of these dice can be equipped with at least one buff, which can be freely loaded and unloaded by the player. In the later stages of the game, players can also delete and duplicate the dice, so as to further build according to the effect of the dice, and form a specific genre in the process of the game.
Unlike Yahtzee, Dice Player can only be scored 10 times by default. Moreover, in the subsequent development, players can spend in the store and increase the number of times a certain dice are filled, which not only increases the decision-making content, but also means that the advantages of the current build can be amplified. From the point of view of DBG games, the design of Dice Player has been relatively rich.
The Yahtzee-based gameplay of Dice Player has also been changed to special dice types. The difference is that "Dice Player" has changed in the direction of "paying more attention to dice points".
In Dice Player, the player's dice score = (dice base score + plus components) * multiplier corresponding to the dice type. Among them, the additive can be provided by the effect of the dice, and the multiplier has a greater impact on the score. Unlike Yahtzee, the base score of all special dice in the game is the sum of the points of all the dice, except that each special dice has its own score multiplier.
Both the basic dice and the "Pick All (Chance)" dice in the game have a 100% multiplier. In the special dice type, the magnifications of "Three of a Kind", "Four of a Kind", "Gourd", "Small Shun", "Big Shun" and "Harmony (Full Pressure)" are 130%, 300%, 200%, 150%, 250% and 400% respectively. Players can continue to increase the dice multiplier in the game (equivalent to buying planet cards in Balatro), so that they have the opportunity to get more than 1,000 or 10,000 points at a time, and the gameplay is more refreshing.
Under the influence of the dice effect and various bonus buffs, players can sometimes roll more than 5 dice and count towards the score, and sometimes they can obtain bonuses through a large number of summons. Coupled with the ever-increasing score multiplier, Dice Player, like Balatro, has the same statistic expansion characteristic.
3、《Pip My Dice》
Pip My Dice still has a hint of Yahtzee's gameplay, but with more changes and a more specific gameplay than the previous two.
The game interface can be divided into throwing and counting zones. In it, all of the player's dice will always appear in the throw zone. After rolling the desired number, the player needs to move the dice to the section and select the corresponding dice type to score (the dice that do not make up the dice will be automatically rejected). In fact, just like Yahtzee, players are choosing the type of dice that are scored based on the number of dice points, but in a different form.
Toggle the type of dice
There are a total of 3 scoring slots in the division, and the calculated score for each slot = the base score of the dice * multiple. The basic score and multiple of the 3 slots are counted in turn, and after the total score is calculated after the statistics are completed, it will be counted as completing 1 round. Players have 3 rounds of scoring opportunities in a round, and if they do not reach the target score, they will be deemed to have failed the level.
For example, if a player's score in the upper slot is 40*6 and the score in the middle slot is 10*3, then the final score of the round is (40+10)*(6+3)=450.
The scoring rules for the base dice in Pip My Dice are different from those for Yahtzee.
The base points a player receives are based on the type of dice, not the number of dice points. There are no longer basic dice in the game, and instead the conditions of special dice are more lenient. For example, 2 dice of the same value and 3 dice connected can form a dice and score points, including the gourd dice in addition to the regular 3+2, but also 4+3 (e.g. roll "1-1-1-1-2-2-2") or even more.
In addition, when there are 2 or 3 times of the same dice in a slot, such as 2 "pairs" and 3 "triple straights", then the base points of that slot will be multiplied by 3 times and 6 times respectively.
Additional multiplier = the number of dice in the slot + the maximum number of dice in the slot. For example, when a "2-2-2" dice are placed in that slot, the base multiplier is 3+2=5.
After each slot settles the score, the multiplier for that slot will be permanently +1. So the split of the dice is one of the highlights of Pip My Dice.
As another example, when a player rolls a "6-6-6-4-4" die, they can be scored according to the "Full House" dice in 1 slot, or they can be scored according to "3-of-a-kind" and "1-pair" in 2 slots. In terms of the multiplier growth of the rounds, the former makes the multiplier of the subsequent total score +1, and the latter makes it +2.
In Pip My Dice, players can not only buy more dice, but also customize them, including adding extra abilities to the entire dice by color, or adding points or other buffs to one side of the dice. As you can see from the promotional image of the game, the number of dice is no longer limited to 1~6 points, and can be increased to tens or even hundreds of points through cultivation.
Pip My Dice has even more inflated stats than Dice Player. Players don't need to streamline their builds, but rather keep adding or changing effects for each dice they have on hand. Moreover, the settlement gameplay of three times in one round also allows players to maximize the role of each die, so that the gameplay can bring a refreshing feeling of multiplication in the later stage.
epilogue
Although an ordinary dice has only 6 sides, it seems that there are not many changes that can be produced, but there are still more chemical reactions that can occur under the DBG framework. What's more, the dice are not only designed to be 6-sided types, and there is still a lot of room for further innovation.