OOOH THIS LOOKS SO COOL! unfortunately i don't have a lot of dice (i have like ,,,, one) but if i ever have dice in the future i'll DEFINITELY play this. it looks so cool...

Great to see a physical game. Had a little play around but I think to do it justice it needs a deliberate game.

Ruleset is well laid out and including score targets for different dice quantities is a nice touch to give some context.

I have only a few of those tiny dice, so I can't play! But I really appreciate that you made a physical game, that's a personal goal for me. Only using dice makes it very accessible... that is if you have enough dice. :) The PDF looks professional as well.

Thanks for the raid earlier! (it was actually my first lol)
I got about half-way through my first playthrough when I realized I had one of the rules wrong (I was placing all 3 dice in my pool whenever I could). Second playthrough with a cube of 36 dice I got to 54 with 7 dice remaining when the pyramid fell trying to add the 6th layer. It's very tricky and very well thought out. The only adjustment I would request in the rules is a limited number of re-rolls. Having three 1s in your pool really hurts, especially early on. Overall though, excellent game and thank you for sharing it with me! EDIT: One thing I was wondering that wasn't stated in the rules: are three dimensional pyramids allowed? Creating a second pyramid with dice that can't help on your main one feels like a bit of a waste, but adding some thickness to the main pyramid can definitely add value (and give the opportunity to place 6s above the ground level).

@rein Thanks for the feedback!

There is no requirement to remain in a plane, nor is it even required to make pyramids. If you look at the photo on the itch page (which I mistakenly failed to include in the page here) you can see I had a non-pyramidal structure with a bit of a curve to it. You can absolutely make whatever shapes work well with the pips you have.

I'll think about the three 1s problem, thanks for pointing it out.

I played with a few friends and its really fun to play! A really interesting entry for the jam.

Currently don't have lots of dice with me and the d6's I have are quite small, so not sure how well they would work for this, but seems like a fun risk/reward game.

Finally made it to 90 (exactly) with 36 dice on the fifth attempt. The dice I have are pretty rounded so it was a challenge. What ended up working for me was to build the tallest, narrowest, shittiest tower I could as quickly as possible (ended up being 5 high), while using the dice that didn’t fit into it as the foundation for a tall enough tower to let me coast to 90 with the remaining rounds, then sat the extra dice from the last few rounds around the base so as not to disturb anything. The points boost from the early tower allowed me to not have to build the main tower as high as I attempted on previous tries. 

What a neat concept! It's always refreshing to see print-and-play games, never mind one that doesn't actually need any printing! Alas, I don't have enough dice at home to try this. Nonetheless, the dot counting mechanism is clever.

Have you thought of turning it into a 2(+) player game by taking turns over the same tower? With some restrictions on the ground level placement, you could end up with a more strategic alternative to Jenga.

I've always wanted to make a print and play game for LDJam. Really enjoyed this!

@DaleP I'm really impressed by what looks like a 4-3-2-1 tower on the top of that. I'm not even sure I can get a 1 on a 2 on my reference dice. Very cool!

@dk5000p for reference, I did most of my playtesting with a set of 12mm Chessex dice with rounded corners; you might be surprised.

Quite an interesting idea, I think something that might be missing is a description of the size that your gamespace should be like. I played with 12mm on a post-it note as to not be able to build long lines, but I did not get much further than 30 points before my clumsy hands would knock the tower over. Really cool and different Idea though. And the instructions are nice and short and explain the whole thing very well.

Cool idea ! Not used to boardgames, so that was fun to read ! I'll try it :)

This is a really fun game. I played it multiple times with some borrowed dice. I never made it to 90. Yet. But now I am going to order some dice so I can play it some more, cuz I currently have like 4 dice. A steady hand is a must! Haha. Thank you!

This was a fun twist on the usual game jam format! I have tried and sadly only made it to 4 dice tall, but as you had seen, my dice were a supply of D&D dice which were of slightly different sizes. Also having to "guesstimate" the location of the pips led to some mental confusion XD. Great entry!

I don't have that many dice, but, I don't know why, seeing all these piles of dice, it makes me want to throw (angry) birds at them ... and why not add, say, pigs ... ;-)

It's rare enough to come across a print-and-play game in Ludum Dare (especially a solitaire game, so that I can actually play it), but this impressed me further by utilizing dice as both a random number generator *and* a physical object (including incorporating the position/shape of the pips as a gameplay element!). Nice to have a game that justifies my desire to handle large piles of dice (although I unfortunately don't have that many available at the moment). It's a shame you opted out of Audio so I can't give you 5 stars for the satisfying sound of dice rolling.

Also, hurray for LibreOffice. Reminds me of when I did the level design for my first LD game with a conditionally-formatted spreadsheet in LibreOffice Calc.

My best score currently with 14 dice (of 3 different sizes) is 36.

Also, thanks for playing my game on stream earlier!

Very Innovative!
It deserves higher ratings, for its curiosity :)

This is a fantastic design centered around a crazy innovative idea. I can't believe I've never seen the idea of having to stack dice and cover up pips like this, it's genius. I am really just blown away by that mechanic. It doesn't just fall into the trap of being an interesting gimmick mechanic, because it actually is also fun, I love the mix of strategy on deciding how to build your structure/which dice in your pool to use along with the dexterity of actual executing and never toppling your tower.
I usually despise dexterity games but I really appreciate how this one can still be played without a need for incredible precision.
I also really like the scoring system, it encourages you to build risky and tall while still appreciating the value of survival.
I can not stress enough how good the design of this game is, this might become a staple game I attempt when I have a spare few minutes since I always carry a bunch D6 with me anyway (for making decisions). As a fellow board game designer I would love to hear about the process of making this game, since the end result is so elegant and beautiful it would be very interesting to see the journey of how the game progressed throughout the weekend.


My primary problems are involving the rulebook.

Firstly you did not clearly define the lose condition. It would have been nice for a line to directly and clearly state that the game ends when your tower topples. More importantly you must define what a topple is. Obviously if the whole structure collapses that's a topple, but what about individual pieces falling off?. (If individual pieces don't count what's the threshold for counting?) If I hit dice off with my hands accidentally does that count as a topple or only actual structural failure causes dice to fall? If dice get significantly moved, but none have fallen off the structure completely and somehow the pips are all still legal is that a topple? If your tower falls while rolling/planning for next round do you still score last round (which gave you a delayed failure)?
I had all of those questions while playing, which need to be cleared up by a very explicit rules section on the lose condition/ definition of topple.

Next the example graphics and diagrams are not the best. They are really hard to read, although with some effort I was able to interpret them. I would recommend using 3D diagrams, either made in some 3D program or with real life pictures. Additionally your examples heavily suggest that you are limited to a ~line, when in fact you have a whole plane of a surface area. There should be an example showing a more spread out build.


Finally I really like the freeform nature of this game, that spawns a bunch of variants. You can vary the surface area size, amount of dice, size of dice and get different experiences that still all maintain the core of the game. It really suggests that this can become a like a game that gets passed around because there isn't any strict playing requirements, rather it adapts to what you have on hand (assuming you have at least a reasonable # of D6). It would have been really cool for the rulebook to have some kind of chart that standardizes scores (or just suggests scores to beat) across all these vastly difference playing conditions, but that would have been really hard to do and highly testing intensive. I think it does end up being fine that your first play sets up the standard of how hard playing in your specific conditions are, and then you just try to beat your score.

i believe this is a very innovative game.. it sounds so interesting.. too bad i dont have 36 dices laying around but it did remind of the days i had sacks full of glass marbles :smile:

Awesome game concept! I love that you did something unique, anything that is not computer game made for LD is amazing. Too bad I have only 5 dices :(

Great and unexpected take of the theme! I like board games, especially those with simple and clear rules but involving interesting strategic moves, and this one is certainly this kind of games! Much more, physical entries are rare on LD's - in 25 LD I've done, as I remember this is only the second time I can rate one :sweat_smile: - so well done!