Available on PS1
Devil Dice is a PlayStation title published by Sony in 1998. Normally a completely normal fact that seems mundane and not worth noting, right? Well, not in this case. The game was developed and distributed on the very primitive early internet by a Japanese team known as "Shift". Sony was so impressed with this game that they reached out to buy the publishing rights to the game. Now that's impressive. Let's have a peek at the indie game so hot, Sony had to have it.
There's no story mode or campaign in this game, so let's just dive right into the gameplay. Devil Dice is a puzzle game, with pretty simple rules. You control a little fairy standing atop dice. you roll the dice around a grid in an attempt to match numbers together to clear the dice. For example, you roll a die with the 2 face up next to another 2 to clear them, and you roll 3 dice together with all 3s facing up to clear them. It's very simple, but damn it fucks with my brain. The game requires a lot of focus if you're not used to "thinking in 3D".
sets of more than the face value also count.
The player earns the total number on the faces of cleared dice as points, multiplied by how many additional dice they add to the chain as it's clearing. This is also how the player clears all face up 1s on the board. In the 1 and 2 player exhibition modes, play gets faster and faster until the player or players cannot keep up and the board fills completely with dice. At game over, players can enter their initials and save their score and final rating, pretty standard arcade mode stuff. I personally think the game shines in 2 player co-op like this, where you can almost work in shifts if you have to.
If competition is your game though, Shift has you covered too. There are 2 different vs modes: First is a frantic party style 4 player race to 99 points with an extra A.I. player tossed in, just to mix it up; and the other is an intense head to head game of stealing sets. 2 Players run around a small board attempting to make sets like normal, but rather than racing for points, they attempt to make uniqe sets, and if one player makes a set after the other, he'll steal the set. Gameplay continues for 5 minutes, until one player makes 4 sets or the time runs out, at which point the player with more sets wins. It's a really good spin on the main game mode, and makes for some intense shouting matches.
Also included is a bonus puzzle mode with a hundred or so pre-made boards where the player has to clear all the dice. There are a nice adidtion for those of us who prefer solo play. All the other game modes can be played with the A.I. as well, save the co-op mode.
Overall, Devil Dice is a solid PS1 title. Decent variety, fun gameplay, multiplayer modes, and (most importantly) a great puzzle concept come together to form a pretty good puzzle game for the PS1. I'm not sure I'd drop 30 bucks on it, which is what Ebay's asking; but I would buy a didgital version on PSN or something.
Hey, check it out! It costs the same for a new copy as it did when it came out! :D
