“Circadian Dice” by Sanny Syberfeldt, Erik Sjöstrand, Björn Berg Marklund, Arslan Tursic & Patrik Erlandsson.
“While the heroes and their dice are restored to normal after each scenario (whether they die or succeed), any upgrades, relics, abilities, and modifiers that you have unlocked persist – so your tools are constantly improving! The better you perform in battle, the quicker you will build your arsenal and progress through the game towards your ultimate goal to break the loop and save the universe.”
Last year, “Dicey Dungeons” already proved that dice and tactical game design do not have to exclude each other, and with such a refreshing attitude “Circadian Dice” was designed as well. Here we have to battle against waves of dangerous creatures in a turn-based combat system where our possibilities of fighting, magic and healing moves get decided by the roll of the dice. However, it is not all based on one single roll, as we are able to reroll our lucky charms in each round up to two times. Our enemies on the other hand follow linear patterns, making the whole scenario more predictable. Thoughts like “Is it wise to attack with three drawn swords right now, or should I reroll again in the hope of a shield to reduce the monster’s attack?” will be your steady companion on your journey.
“Circadian Dice” spices the whole experience up with gems and coins. The gems can be used to activate abilities, whose effects can be summoned multiple times – at least as long as you did not use them all and as long as you are not out of the gems they relate on. The coins on the other hand are used as money, which can be used for upgrading the dice. Each upgrade uses up two adjacent of a die and will erase the former ones.
The whole gameplay is fascinatingly deep and encourages the player to find their own strategy. Over time you will not only unlock more dangerous worlds as well as character classes, but also completely new game mechanics: Stunning attacks which will put your foes to sleep for a turn, chargeable elementary magic that uses up gems but doubles the strength of your attack, chain symbols for your dice, which will multiply your force for each other chain symbol in a roll and many other things. [PLAY]
