"Dicevaders" Might be my Next Roguelike Obsession! (Preview)
Rolling for initiative? I'm rolling to invade!
Ever since 2024's Balatro, I've come to the realization that I enjoy games where numbers go up a lot. Imagine my surprise when I came across a demo for Dicevaders, a tactical roguelike deckbuilder that tasks you with the mission of building the ultimate alien army.
To say this game has 'invaded' my free time is an understatement!
Dicevaders is a dice-based roguelike deckbuilder about leading the ultimate alien invasion. Set in the StarVaders universe, draft and manipulate the dice row, build an unstoppable army, and unleash adrenaline pumping combos through powerful synergies and strategic play.
What is a Dicevaders?
If you've played StarVaders, then this game will look very familiar to you. Dicevaders is set in the same universe, so naturally it shares a lot of visual and mechanical properties including grid-based combat and the endless replayability.
In Dicevaders, your battlefield is a grid. While you start out with one row, the field can expand into 3 cells per column as you progress. Your objective in every act is to roll dice and rack up enough attack power to obliterate your target in 4 turns. The units you place on the grid cells are your main source of gaining attack power, provided you are able to activate them with a proper dice roll.
You roll 3 dice at the start of your turn, and the numbers you land on determine which columns get activated. So if you have some good units on cells 1, 4, and 5 but roll a 2, 3, and 6, you're kinda out of luck. If you're not in favor of your roll, you can also spend 'Budge' to increase or decrease a dice's number by 1, or spend 'Chrono' to reroll entirely.
It's a satisfying loop, but the tools don't stop there. On the top row, there are slots for artifacts to go which can manipulate your units to deal even more damage. Effects can range from making units activate their abilities more than once to adding a multiplier to your attack power. Once you find a solid combination of the right artifacts, units, and dice rolls, your combos can be devastating!
What got me Hooked?
There is an extensive degree of strategy to be discovered in Dicevaders. Each commander you choose to play as can shift what resources you pay attention to and how to achieve a high attack score. I found myself entranced by making combos that caused units to swap places and achieve more points for doing so. The game definitely rewards taking your time to strategize with what you have on your field, and the payoff is immense when you get it just right.
In addition, Dicevaders rewards you for experimenting through multiple runs, as certain gameplay milestones will unlock new permanent boosts to your commander's abilities. Once the full game comes out, I can easily see myself playing for dozens of hours trying to unlock everything just to get more powerful on each subsequent run!
If you're the kind of person who enjoys deckbuilding strategy and doing "just one more run" in games like Balatro, I highly recommend trying out the demo for Dicevaders. While it only has a 2026 release window, the demo is more than enough of an intro to hold you over until the full launch.