For those of you who have seen the "iconic" film Ace Ventura, you might remember one of the best (IMO) lines of the movie. Ace is getting ready to search the dolphin tank for a piece of evidence, but before doing so, gives fellow detectives a rather pointless but hilarious set of directions on how to proceed in his absence: "If I'm not back in 5minutes... just wait longer!"
This quote sums up a lot of my feelings about Dice Age's Kickstarter campaign and their handling of customer complaints.
As a bit of backstory, Dice Age was designed as a dice-centric response to Magic: the Gathering. Various iterations (dough models, polyester models, banal card versions) were produced, played, and shelved for various amounts of time. Fast forward to 2010: Creator Tristan Convert gets a flash of inspiration from a piece of art; by 2011 a tournament with the aforementioned dice was held, Tristan's friends enjoyed the game and encouraged him to put his product on Kickstarter with the hopes of producing the dice in China via steel molds and high end manufacturing tools.
As a relative newcomer to Kickstarter (at the time) and fan of dice games, Tristan's vision stood out to me as something innovative and fun. A three-headed snake die? A functional die in the shape of a castle?! Sign me up. And sign up I did, for one copy of the full alpha set. Throughout the campaign, Tristan kept his backers very well informed (almost too informed, if there can be such a thing). Fortunately, 500+ other people felt the way I did about the game and backed it to the tune of $34,000 (roughly 24K more than needed.) Dice Age was featured in numerous magazines, on podcasts, etc. It felt poised to be a great success. Then, things fell apart.
Miscommunications with Chinese manufacturers caused massive delays. Price quotations had been botched, language barriers made for many dice being produced incorrectly (Wrong colors, soft consistency, dangerous materials used, etc.). A refund from the Chinese manufacturer was promised, but never arrived. So, Tristan took the mantra of "If you want it done right, do it yourself." This lead to another hardship: to pay for the workers needed to crank out 300 dice a day, Tristan would need to sell individual dice to non-backers in order to help fund the dice for actual backers.
From a personal standpoint, I am horribly disappointed in this campaign and the way Tristan went about handling it, and maybe that will bias the review below. If you believe it did, PLEASE feel free to discuss it with me on here or on Twitter. My main complaint is that the campaign funded on June 20th of 2011. It is now 13 months later, and many of those 500+ backers have not received anything. Heck, I only received my copy of the game because I incessantly complained. After growing restless around month 12, I emailed Mr. Convert and asked for my money back, at which point I was told that, per Kickstarter policies, he was allowed to keep my money unless the campaign was abandoned. Okay...sure...he can legally keep my money, but he just shot himself in the foot on the customer service front and gained a very vocal and opinionated critic of his game. Congrats on that Mr. Convert.
All that aside, let me step off my soapbox and legitimately review the game...
Upon opening the package, the first thing you'll notice is the dice carrying sack: a brown piece of fabric with lace weaved throughout in order to help the bag close. The words "Dice Age" are also imprinted on the bag to let you know what game pieces are located therein (just in case you forgot). The quality of the bag is mediocre, but it does serve to give you the sense of being an archaic explorer in some fantasy land, so I do enjoy that.
The quality of the dice is... inconsistent at best (which is to be expected from hand crafted materials made by hastily trained workers, I guess). Some pieces, like the Rocket/Bomb and 3-Headed snake feel sturdy and durable. Others, like the white d4s, feel dough-like to the point that I instinctively roll them a big more gingerly in fear that they'll chip or crack. Still others, like the Volcano, yellow d8, and flying saucer/sobrero looking die feel chintzy, cheap, and much like the plastic figurines you'd find in a dollar store pack of dinosaurs or toy soldiers. Finally, I know these are "artistic" dice, but some of them seem to be horribly constructed (yellow d8, green d8 with 3 blank sides). On many of the dice, I can at least find some line of symmetry. The ones on which I can't just seem....awkward.
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| Oh... it's supposed to look like that. :-/ |
- All players roll a d6 (not included). The player who rolls the highest gets the privilege of being first player, AND gets to distribute the dice. To distribute the dice, roll all of the dice of a singular color and, in a clock-wise fashion, give each player the die that landed closest to him-her. (Why players can't just grab the die that landed closest to them at the same time is beyond me, but whatever). This process is continued until all dice are taken.
- Play commences by P1 choosing a die from his/her collection (known as the "Garden") and rolling it. if the die shows a symbol, the player takes 1 of 13 related effects based on the symbol showing (effects are located on the included rules sheet). If a number is showing, that is the die's value for that round. If the number rolled is higher than a previously rolled number, all dice belonging to the player who busted (i.e. rolled too high) are placed in the "Wasteland," (i.e. their discard pile). There are also certain effects called "Suspend" that can be banked and redeemed later in response to other effects.
- When a player is unable to play a die, he/she is out of the game. Thus, the winner of a round is the last player who is able to play a die.
So, the game, essentially, comes down to using various effects in hopes of continually getting the lowest number. This is fairly basal, but at least the cool dice can spruce it up a bit, right?
Sort of. Admittedly, there are some interesting dice abilities in the game: the square acts as a mind-control helmet of sorts. The Double arrow clones an ability, the hex (er, nut) is a limited counterspell, etc. There are others, however, that just seem out of place or make the game unfun: The X (er, cross) resets the game by wiping all dice from the playing area, the "Smile" icon instructs you to roll a d6 and smile (how quaint!); and, perhaps most frustratingly, rolling a blank side on any dice allows you to force any player to skip his/her next turn.
Aside from turn skipping being a particularly abhorrent mechanism in my mind, I had a few problems while playing. First and foremost is the fact that the die faces are pretty ambiguous. I was never really sure what constituted "blank." On the green dice, a blank side is easy to decipher because it's simply a straight/flat green side with no markings. On the more complex dice, it gets harrier. Does the three headed side of the snake die count as a blank (it doesn't have markings or pips) or does it count as a 3, because there are 3 snake heads? Does the side of the rocket dice with the ammunition count as blank, or does it count as a 2 because there are two visible bombs on its face? Other dice try to be overly aesthetic, with some d8s using a standard "7" on one half of the die with the other side using 7 pips. Still, other die use such a large number "10" that it expands past the face of the die itself, making the face relatively indecipherable at quick glance.
The other thing that detracted from my enjoyment of the game is that, with certain dice, it's incredibly easy to get the result you want if you just roll the die in a particular way. The volcano and the sombrero/spaceship are very easy to manipulate, leading to a blank side roughly 80-90% of the time you roll them. the tank, "fire engine," and 2-sided coin generally give you the result you want if rolled with the right grip and hand motion.
Overall, I found Dice Age to be more style than substance. I played a handful of rounds to get a feel for the game (and to do a review) but can't say that I ever want to play the game again. Frankly, I'm kind of sad I actually spent money for this game. At this point, I'll probably cannibalize the pieces to use in future prototypes or give the game to a fellow gamer so he/she can do the same.
For those of you looking to purchase this game, you're more than welcome to your preferences, but I would advise you NOT to. For those of you looking for a second opinion, feel free to read the excellent piece written by Josh Edwards
Sort of. Admittedly, there are some interesting dice abilities in the game: the square acts as a mind-control helmet of sorts. The Double arrow clones an ability, the hex (er, nut) is a limited counterspell, etc. There are others, however, that just seem out of place or make the game unfun: The X (er, cross) resets the game by wiping all dice from the playing area, the "Smile" icon instructs you to roll a d6 and smile (how quaint!); and, perhaps most frustratingly, rolling a blank side on any dice allows you to force any player to skip his/her next turn.
Aside from turn skipping being a particularly abhorrent mechanism in my mind, I had a few problems while playing. First and foremost is the fact that the die faces are pretty ambiguous. I was never really sure what constituted "blank." On the green dice, a blank side is easy to decipher because it's simply a straight/flat green side with no markings. On the more complex dice, it gets harrier. Does the three headed side of the snake die count as a blank (it doesn't have markings or pips) or does it count as a 3, because there are 3 snake heads? Does the side of the rocket dice with the ammunition count as blank, or does it count as a 2 because there are two visible bombs on its face? Other dice try to be overly aesthetic, with some d8s using a standard "7" on one half of the die with the other side using 7 pips. Still, other die use such a large number "10" that it expands past the face of the die itself, making the face relatively indecipherable at quick glance.
The other thing that detracted from my enjoyment of the game is that, with certain dice, it's incredibly easy to get the result you want if you just roll the die in a particular way. The volcano and the sombrero/spaceship are very easy to manipulate, leading to a blank side roughly 80-90% of the time you roll them. the tank, "fire engine," and 2-sided coin generally give you the result you want if rolled with the right grip and hand motion.
Overall, I found Dice Age to be more style than substance. I played a handful of rounds to get a feel for the game (and to do a review) but can't say that I ever want to play the game again. Frankly, I'm kind of sad I actually spent money for this game. At this point, I'll probably cannibalize the pieces to use in future prototypes or give the game to a fellow gamer so he/she can do the same.
For those of you looking to purchase this game, you're more than welcome to your preferences, but I would advise you NOT to. For those of you looking for a second opinion, feel free to read the excellent piece written by Josh Edwards
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