Dice Forge
Pros
- completely customization dice
- turns go by quickly, minimal downtime
Cons
- lack of player interaction
- cards could have been better
Dice Forge is a dice-crafting game for 2 to 4 players. Roll your dice, collect resources, earn victory points. Sounds like your typical dice game right? Well, this isn’t your average dice game, this is a dice-CRAFTING game.
Overview: Dice… Crafting?
 |
| Player dice with removable faces |
So, what exactly is dice-crafting? Dice Forge uses brings to the table an innovative mechanic where each face on a die is removable and can be replaced with another one. At the start of the game, everyone starts with the same two dice. On each player’s turn, every player rolls their dice and collects resources. The active player can now take an action; buy a new dice face with gold or buy one of the Heroic Feat cards with sun/moon shards. New faces give you more resources in future rolls while cards give you bonuses and victory points. Repeat for 9 or 10 rounds (depending on the number of players) and the player with the most victory points at the end wins.
Unique mechanic, but is it any good?
The bulk of the game is deciding what to put on your dice. It’s a little gimmicky but I like it. Being a dice rolling game, luck plays a major role in the game and the dice-crafting mechanic allows users to somewhat mitigate this. Players may decide to add a dice face with more gold, replace a gold face with a sun or moon shard face, or perhaps go for straight victory points face. You can change the distribution of resources on your dice in any way you choose to suit your strategy.
Looking past the dice, my excitement for the game starts to die down. There really isn’t much else to do after you build your dice. The cards generally give you some bonuses to help you along the way but doesn’t really make the game any more interesting. The actions aren’t really game changers and I felt the cards are only there to convert shards into victory points. After my dice was complete, the game devolved into a race to get the most cards.
![20170718_195412[1]](https://i0.wp.com/meeplesreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20170718_1954121.jpg?resize=376%2C212&ssl=1)
A big disappointment for me was the lack of player interaction. To take an action, you place your pawn on action spaces. This, however, does not stop other from taking it on their turns; you are simply removed from the space and get to roll your die a second time. As for the cards, there is only one card that forces your opponents to lose some resources but this was at best a minor inconvenience.
Final Thoughts
My main concerns on the game really only applies if you’re looking for a deep gaming experience. With game length being just under an hour and an interesting dice-crafting mechanic, I’d say Dice Forge is a nice little gateway game. Even for a more experienced player, it is somewhat satisfying to see how well your dice performs against the other players.
