Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEDicefolk
Wield magical dice and build a team of powerful Chimeras to stop a mysterious evil in this tactical roguelite adventure. As a Chimera Summoner, recruit and create your perfect team of mythical beasts and command them to victory using unique dice mechanics.
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Video reviews
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Community discussion
A tactical roguelite where you command a team of three Chimeras with dice-driven actions and, uniquely, also play out the enemy's dice each turn.
Dicefolk is well received: Steam shows Very Positive (about 89% of roughly 1,130 reviews), critics land around 78-79 on OpenCritic/Metacritic (generally favourable), and the Switch version scores slightly higher on Metacritic. Praise centres on the clever 'you control both sides' dice combat, charming hand-drawn art and deep Chimera/equipment synergies. The recurring complaints are that runs feel samey, the game leans simplistic and RNG-heavy, and unlocking the large Chimera roster is slow. It is not early access; it released 27 Feb 2024 and kept receiving content (a paid Will Chimeras DLC and a large free update), and Steam reviews from 2026 show an active player base.
What players praise
- Signature combat twist: you roll and resolve the enemy's dice too, choosing order, targets and who rotates in, so fights feel like a puzzle where mistakes are your own fault
- Synergy building between Chimeras, equipment and dice upgrades; 'busted' builds and one-turn boss kills feel great
- Hand-drawn art, animations, clear UI with hover text and relaxed music get consistent praise
- Large content pool: 100+ Chimeras (one review counts 129 with DLC), 100+ artifacts, 6 Tribes/classes, multiple challenge modes and difficulty tiers
- Ascension-style difficulty adds buffs as well as challenge, so progression feels less punishing than Slay the Spire for some players
- Less frustrating RNG than typical roguelikes: map always shows shops/upgrade nodes and the dice are manipulable
- Good controller and Steam Deck support; accessible entry point for deckbuilder newcomers
- Meta-goals like tracking which Chimeras you have won with and a compendium drive long play sessions (reviewers report 50-120 hours)
What players criticize
- Runs feel too similar; several reviewers quit after 3-10 runs because biomes, encounters and starting Chimeras vary little
- Chimeras feel disposable: you keep swapping earlier ones for later finds and they do not grow in a meaningful way, which undercuts the creature-collector fantasy
- Balance problems: some Chimeras and items are far stronger than others, and at high difficulty/modifiers some fights can become effectively unwinnable through bad random modifier combinations
- Heavy RNG and thin decisions for some players: synergies are luck-dependent, and 'safe common synergies' become the default strategy
- Battles can drag: long stretches of neutral actions and high Guard-dice uptime make many turns slow attrition
- Narrative and world-building are thin; critics (Hardcore Gamer, Softpedia) note the lack of a compelling story
- Some call it derivative or simplistic, with mediocre monster design compared with Pokemon or top deckbuilders
- Price ($14.99) seen as steep by several negative and even positive reviewers (who suggest $7-9 or wait for sale)
Distinctive features
- You play both sides of each turn: the enemy's dice actions must all be used, so you choose how to minimize damage to yourself
- Dice replace cards as the core resource; you upgrade and modify dice faces rather than build a deck
- Three Chimeras rotate in a circular formation with leader position mattering
- Creature-collector theming (shiny variants, shrines, compendium) fused with a Slay the Spire-style roguelite map
- Items that carry downsides or curses, including one-time items that hurt now for permanent buffs, plus ascensions that grant buffs
- Pokemon-adjacent cute aesthetic with non-pixel hand-drawn art
Divided opinions
- Controlling the enemy's turn: praised as a fresh tactical puzzle by most, but a few compare it to 'playing chess against yourself' and find it laborious
- Difficulty: some find it forgiving and refreshing (winning early), others find it too easy to beat on the first try and less replayable
- Replayability: 'endless' synergy experimentation and 100+ hour playtimes versus 'runs all feel the same'
- Value: great at a sale or bundle price, too expensive at $14.99 for some
Repetition and friction
- Grinding to unlock all Chimeras (one reviewer needed 10+ hours for the last compendium entry)
- Long fights from repeated Guard/neutral actions and the amount of healing across artifacts
- Repetition after the first handful of runs: same starting creatures and similar map flow
- Losing earlier Chimeras as stronger ones replace them, making early-game picks feel meaningless
- Randomly generated enemy modifiers and boss effects that can invalidate a build at high difficulty
- Some players feel the core loop becomes number-crunching 'math micromanagement'
Hoped-for improvements
- Make runs more varied: more distinct biomes/encounter types and more differentiated starting teams
- Let Chimeras grow or be invested in during a run (training/upgrading, or a catching mechanic) so attachment is not lost
- Speed up the unlock curve for Chimeras so experimenting with only three per run is not so slow
- Rebalance weak items/Chimeras and guard against unwinnable modifier rolls at higher difficulties
- Shorten combat (cut neutral-action padding, tune Guard/healing stacking) and add a faster animation option
- Fix map pathing annoyance (cannot change route once a destination is clicked), noted by MP1st, and add PC-specific options like rebindable controls (raised by one negative Steam review)
Released 27 Feb 2024 on PC (Steam, Windows only) and later on Switch; store listings also show iOS/Android. Critics were generally favourable at launch (OpenCritic 78, 80% recommend, ~24-25 reviews), with top scores from God is a Geek, Nintendo Life, TheSixthAxis and Gaming Nexus, and lower ones from Metro GameCentral and Pure Nintendo citing randomness and shortcomings. Metacritic user score is based on only 7 ratings (6.9), so it is not meaningful. The Will Chimeras Pack DLC (21 spellcasting Chimeras, 10 equipment) launched on Switch 24 Oct 2024 at $6.99 alongside a large free update (13-challenge special mode, 70+ equipment, four bosses, Fortune Talisman). Steam reviews through 2026 include 100+ hour players, and the store page shows ongoing art refreshes. Revenue estimates are rough (steam-revenue-calculator: about $237k gross, about $70k net; SteamSpy owners 50k-100k), not audited. A few negative Steam reviews call it a mobile port 'dumped' on PC and complain of missing PC settings.
Community sources
- Local Steam top helpful positive and negative English reviews (appid 1996430) ↗
- Local Steam store/review summary, SteamSpy owners, revenue estimate ↗
- Steam store page (Very Positive, $14.99, developer LEAP Game Studios / Tiny Ghoul, publisher Good Shepherd) ↗
- OpenCritic score 78, 80% recommend, outlet scores and verdicts ↗
- Metacritic PC Metascore 79 from 16 reviews, user score 6.9 from 7 ratings, critic complaint summaries ↗
- Metacritic Switch listing (81, 5 reviews per search snippet) ↗
- MP1st 8.5/10 review: both-sides dice combat, map pathing complaint ↗
- TechRadar review (search snippet): repetitive content, good in small doses, Steam Deck verified ↗
- God is a Geek review (search snippet; page blocked on fetch); 9.5/10 per OpenCritic ↗
- Will Chimeras Pack DLC and free update details on Switch ↗
- Revenue estimate (Boxleiter-based, approximate) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 3 (2025)
Dicefolk is a turn-based deckbuilding-style roguelike where you run a team of three creatures (chimeras) and roll dice each turn to decide actions and positioning. He likes its cute-but-serious art style and its distinct gameplay, and finds the synergy-building satisfying. He finds it forgiving and fairly easy once the mechanics click. The main faults are a slow start with throwaway temporary creatures and a repetitive back half once a winning trio is locked in. Overall he calls it really solid and rates it B tier.
What the creator praises
- Cute art style and vibe that still takes its story and characters fairly seriously
- Unique dice-driven gameplay that feels different from the very start
- Positioning of the three chimeras affects abilities, so switching and manipulating ally/enemy positions is strategic
- Most dice faces give some benefit, so you rarely get screwed by a bad roll
- Chimera abilities and item pairings allow very different builds; great feeling when a synergy comes together
- Strong replayability because each run's creature lineup feels different
- Plenty of content: events, berries, equipment, shops, new dice
Issues raised by the creator
- Slow start: you begin with temporary creatures you do not care about until you find your first real chimera
- Once you find your three-creature synergy (often by the second biome) there is no reason to change strategy, so the rest of the run is repetitive
- Somewhat easy and forgiving once you understand the mechanics, with weak enemy dice
- The enjoyable sweet spot in the middle feels too narrow; he wishes it were expanded
Design observations
- Dice faces determine your available actions each turn, and you can choose which die to use, including the enemy's dice
- Three-creature team with front-line positioning that interacts with abilities
- Builds revolve around chimera synergies, such as movement-triggered buffs or damage-triggered effects
