I love games where you make increasingly bigger numbers. Games like Balatro, Luck Be a Landlord, and Nubby’s Number Factory have consumed immense amounts of my time. While many people this month have been eagerly awaiting the release of Resident Evil Requiem, the big February game I’ve been counting down to is the full version of roguelite deckbuilder Dice a Million. After having sunk about a dozen hours into the demo last year, I knew the complete game would enrapture me entirely, and I can now confirm I was correct.
It feels reductive to call Dice a Million “Balatro with dice,” but it does share a lot of the qualities that make the card game so hard to put down, and it’s affected my mental state in the same way, too. Just as my brain began relating everything to playing cards at the height of my Balatro love affair, so too am I now constantly consumed with thoughts of dice. Dice a Million is another solo dev endeavor as well, spearheaded by a creator that goes by countlessnights.
The concept of Dice a Million is very straightforward: build up a bag of dice that, over the course of the run, will eventually be able to rack up a million points. Like most games in the genre, point requirements are slowly ramped up each round, with shop visits in-between and the occasional boss, which the game calls Faces. There are various hands you can begin with that are unlocked over time, which determine your starting “deck” of dice.
The dice in Dice a Million aren’t just regular dice, though — there’s more than 120 different types at varying levels of weirdness and complexity. Some are simple, like a magnetic die that pulls others towards it, or one that only rolls even numbers. Others are more layered, offering gimmicks like multiplier buffs or proximity effects. Others are just plain ridiculous, like the Die of Dice, a sort of meta-die which will roll the die shown on its face.
