Idle Dice: Rolling Too Many Bones
Idle Dice begins how one would expect it to, with the player rolling a singular die for points based upon which face comes up.
Either manually or waiting for the auto roll seen on the bottom of the menu, you roll the dice and gain a number equal to the number of pips on the die’s face times a multiplier. This multiplier can be increased by leveling up the die in exchange for the points you’ve been accruing. Upon reaching level 100, the dice cannot be leveled up anymore and you gain the option to ascend the die.
Ascending the die resets its level with an “#a” beside the level, representing the amount of times you have ascended that die, but the multiplier at level 100 becomes the new base multiplier. Upon getting enough points, you can buy a second die that starts with a higher multiplier. This goes on until you have bought 4 additional dice, at which point you can buy a multiplier die. While the first five dice provide point additively, the multiplier dice multiplies that sum total and starts out as a different kind of die. Leveling up doesn’t increase the multiplier of the multiplier, rather it upgrades the amount of sides it has, going from a D2 to a D4 to a D6 to a D8 up to a D100 where you can ascend it like the regular dice, resetting it back to a D2 with a multiplier flipping between time 100 and times 200. Another factor that modifies points gathered are secondary multipliers based on the results of rolls.
As you gain dice, additional multipliers will stack upon the results such as two faces matching or having an ascending count of faces. You can upgrade the multipliers just like dice, however they have no cap. Aside from upgrades, ascending dice also provides something known as “card progression.” When the card progression bar is filled, the player can choose one of three playing cards from a full deck.
These cards have an effect from increasing the amount of card progression ascending a die gives, to additional multiplier dice, to a collecting a set of four cards for a huge multiplier as seen with the king of spades. Every card number has a set effect that stacks, so queens that grant additional multiplier dice will grant another for each one you possess. From this point, the player has a goal of obtaining all 52 cards in the deck and enters a loop of upgrading dice, ascending them, upgrading multipliers, and drawing cards. However the costs of upgrading is likely to surpass what the player is capable of earning in a timely manner which is where prestiging comes in.
With prestiging, the player resets back to one die and loses all upgrades and drawn cards. However, the player gains a percentage based multiplier based upon the total amount of points obtained to the point where the player prestiged. The cycle gains a new step of occasionally prestiging to increase points gained as the player works towards gaining all 52 cards in a single go. Once again, the player will run into a mechanic that changes the cycle yet again with roulettes.
Once you reach one quintillion points, you unlock the roulette wheel and can spend those points to spin it. You can bet if it will land on a red or black space and gain chips if you are correct. Chips are use to exchange for focus, meaning the next spin will land on a specific space type you select, or to level up the roulette instead of waiting for it to land on the upgrade space. However, spinning increases the price by a factor of ten so the next spin will cost ten quintillion and then 100 quintillion. As the roulette levels up, it gains more spaces and options contained. Outcomes can increase card progression gained from ascending, increase a die’s multiplier value by a factor, or fast forward in time. This mechanic is extremely luck based and while useful due to the ability to control outcomes, the nature of progression being ties to something completely out of your hands is a negative I see with Idle Dice. Back to cards, once you finally collect all 52, you unlock a new mechanic called decks.
You gain the option to reset all your progression, including your prestige multiplier, and convert it into “luck.” The currency is used to literally cheat the odds in your favor by forcing higher rolls, giving you a chance to roll your focus in the roulette without spending chips to rerolling dice rolls. In addition, you gain the ability to gild a card, automatically granting it to you and not having to wait to draw it. The goal changes slightly from collecting all 52 cards to that being a step in gilding all 52 instead. Collecting cards alone seemed less a goal and more just part of the process, but gilding cards removes the middle man of drawing cards entirely. To guild another card, you would need to collect all 52 yet again. This is where the name, “Idle Dice”, becomes a misnomer. Upgrades like “slow but strong” and having to constantly draw the ungilded cards requires a more active playstyle is required. While I enjoyed this, the idle aspect can be the draw for some and its essentially toss out due to future progression requiring more gilding. While obtaining all 52 gilded cards felt amazing alongside bending the odds in your favor, the next progression system sucked out the fun for me.
This is the Casino, where you trade away all your gilded cards and luck and essentially pull a hard reset. You see, when you initially gild a card, you have a large amount of prestige multiplier to convert into luck for upgrades that allow you to progress faster and faster. Casinos make you throw that away. You lose your gilded cards, your luck upgrades, even your current prestige multiplier. All in exchange for skill points, a multiplier to luck gained from gilding, and a debuff to card progression. It’s like spending a week climbing a mountain, gaining experience and improving your climbing gear, only to be given $5 once you reach the top, kicking you back down, and making you wait to improve your gear. The payoff for buying a casino feels so lackluster compared to the cost of sacrificing all your progression speed. At this point the previously mentioned roulette becomes useless, not due to casinos but rather the achievement system.
Achievements follow standard goal-based landmarks with things like leveling a die, pulling certain cards, spinning/upgrading the roulette, and so on. Unlocking an achievement also grants a buff such as increasing a die’s multiplier, granting bonus card progression, making the auto roll faster, or unlocking a new mechanic or function such as auto rolling the roulette when you have enough money or automatically drawing cards. Once you unlock enough, the buffs will give you enough inertia to draw all 52 cards without using the roulette at all. Another mechanic that becomes useless are the outcome multipliers. Achievements make constantly upgrading these multipliers obsolete as well by granting constant permanent multipliers to buffs and roll totals.
The only method I could gain BP in the web version is through unlocking achievements and using a daily login which grants an increasing number of BP until you reach 10 BP every day you log in. In the premium shop, you initially start with only the options of increasing the combo multiplier, prestiging without resetting your current progress, and increasing card progression. The first two quickly become a useless sink as you reach high prestige multipliers easily and outpace combo multipliers. Another sink lies in the ability to draw three new cards in the draw screen, which also becomes useless as you commonly draw every card. The menu containing the BP shop also leads to a Google Play Store version of Idle Dice with IAP. Considering what’s on offer here and how quickly the previous progression system becomes a common cog in the next one means that there really is never a good reason to buy any BP upgrades, much less buy BP.
Even considering my gripes with the late game progression, Idle Dice is still a fun game. Obtaining all my gilded cards once more is fun and as enjoyable as it was the first time. It’s just the ease of which all that progress is wiped away for a reward that doesn’t seem enough to compensate. If you commonly have about 5–10 minute chunks to spend every day, I would suggest Idle Dice as the perfect time killer as you can upgrade quickly and perform gildings and the like before exiting out.