I fully support Wendy's Pass the Pigs selection. The pigs are a shaped randomization item where each way a pig lands means something else. Sounds like dice to me. Official definitions seem to only acknowledge six sided dice with pips, so that is not helpful.
Well, as Chris teased, not everything you throw in a "roll" type action, can be called a die. Apart from a traditional D6, I feel like most "dice" are some form of polyhedron. Other than the throwing them on the table, I would say that little plastic pigs have nothing in common with dice. But, since this list is about unique or interesting ways to use dice, I guess I sort of get it. I don't know Camilla's background. She seems very well versed in many hobby games. I'm getting a kind of vibe of being a rather "difficult" individual though. I've noticed her sort of curtness or just kind of ... I don't know, not always nice? Anyway, I was 100% with her on her response to Wendy's (mom's) pick. Haha But, this is just a fun list. Everybody is entitled to their viewpoints, obviously. So it's interesting to see everyone's choices.
@lemiless What about odd shaped dice sold as, well, dice? Are they not "real" dice? One example that springs instantly to mind are spherical dice. If you take dice to be "small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions often used for generating random results" the pigs fit. Other than not being polyhedral the pigs are functionally identical to dice
@@lemiless IMO "dice" in the context of games is literally anything you roll onto the table in order to generate a random result from a table of possible outcomes. The Pigs definitely count! People at the table joked "is my *phone* a die if I roll it?" Literally yes- it's a d2.
Love the Dice Tower and their growing slate of presenters. It would be great to have more crossovers between the two teams. I miss Zee ragging on Roy; would love to see Tom's reaction to some of Wendy's and Camilla's picks.
Blueprints is a neat dice game. The dice are the building blocks for your buildings. Different colours are different building materials. Eg, clear dice are glass.
I really like how Beyond The Sun uses dice: you can use them as humans to research, as spaceships of various levels of power to try to conquer planets, and as loaves of bread for resources (I know that’s not what the rulebook calls them). You don’t roll the dice but because they often swap from one type of worker to another, it just makes sense to use dice.
Great job Wendy!!! Pass the Pigs is a great call back for this! The dice are certainly more unique than other games on this list where you roll a thing and see what you get. I just wish the game had as much “legs” as the dice ;)
100% with Wendy on Pass the Pigs. If I actually logged plays of it over the years, it would undoubtedly be my most played game of all time thanks to playing it on various flights or train journeys over the years. Another game that almost immediately sprung to mind was Crystal Lake where the dice are your workers which you place in a pretty typical worker placement fashion, however the fact you choose the die faces at the start of the round which you then have to pay for and determines turn order and worker resolution order depending on when they're placed. Other games I thought of were Artemis Project, Dice Hospital, Street Masters and Biblios.
I can't believe in a list of 40 games about clever and unique ways that dice are used, Quantum didn't make an appearance. I almost have to think the only way this is true is that none of them have played it. EDIT: Oh, I found the bit where they all say they haven't played it.
Great list guys and gals! Here are my top 10 that I didn’t see mentioned here: 10. Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot 9. Blueprints 8. Mosaix 7. Poseidon’s Kingdom 6. Grog Island 5. El Gaucho 4. Genotype 3. Macao 2. Sentient 1. Oracle of Delphi
I'm really looking forward to see the Z-Team do this list...I think for the most part they were missing the point of the list (or maybe I had a different interpretation of the title)...these picks ARE mostly great in my opinion but I was looking forward to see more wild ideas about using dice. as great as some of these games are, they use dice the way they're supposed to...no wow effect to them
Mike is probably only one who would have included my top pick - Merchants of the Dark Road. Randomized Dice market to manipulate, dice drafting during travel, a dice placement movement/bonus system, and enough bonus dice types to replicate most of the other actions in the game.
Nice lists! Want to check out Santa Maria, Unsettled & Monsters on Board. My top ones are Dice Forge,, Teotihuacan, Sagrada, Rajas of The Ganges, Roll For The Galaxy, Tumblin' Dice, Dungeon Fighter, Coimbra, Roll Player & Wolfgang Warsch's Clever series.
How the hell did Too Many Bones not make this list? It is one of the best dice games hands down and it’s an awesome mechanic that your fail rolls can still be used in your favor.
@@john-qz3fu You use the custom dice to gain new abilities. You use dice to mark initiative. You use dice to upgrade your stats. You roll the custom dice you gained to attack and activate a ton of unique abilities and sometimes get bones to activate different backup plans. You use dice as shields. You roll dice to search for loot. You use custom dice to mark status effects. You roll dice to play a mini game. And I'm missing some. So, which of these ways are the garbage ones? All of them?
@@brianle4063 what is unique is what the dice can do, in fact, they are almost all unique except for the defense and attack dice. You even "transform" some of them in minions/robot/beasts to fight for you. I mean, what more do you want?
Too Many Bones. I love that failures can be used in successful ways, and some of the Gearlocks by rolling failures. Brilliant mechanic for people who hate skill checks and random failures.
Really happy to hear Champions of Midgard mentioned by Roy as his #8 game. And I'm especially pleased that he mentioned the expansion. The "dice as Viking warriors" in the base game is already pretty cool. When you "assign dice" at the end of a round, prior to combat, it really feels like you're the Viking leader telling your men where to go and who to fight. But the Valhalla expansion adds a whole new and interesting layer to it where it's not bad if some or even most of your warriors die. Getting their "tokens" after they die and using them again as the fight even more monsters in Valhalla practically doubles the complexity and strategy of the entire game!
Also: Tummple, where the die dictate what you wl add to the tower and which orientation it has to take on. Seasons, where the die you draft will impact your capacity, resources, and how quickly the seasons change. The dice also change with the seasons. Roll Player, where the dice activate special abilities, meet or fail criteria for bonuses, and interact directly with your stats in a unique way.
Oooo cool idea for a list. In no particular order off the top of my head I'd mention Dice Forge, Castles of Burgundy, Formula D, Blueprints, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Quarriors, Strike, Floating Market, Seasons, and Can't Stop. I'm sure I have more especially in my collection that's just what came to mind.
Wow, I didn't think this would be such a big category, but rare that I have zero crossovers. My top three were Poseidon's Kingdom, Camel Up (dice color, number and _order_ matter) and an old game called Die-check where you pieces are dice that move by turning one face at a time.
A lesser known game from like 6-8 years ago was called dungeon dice where it's a competitive kinda dungeon crawl but the entire game is dice with the exception of the player board. No boards no chits. Each die is custom, and some have special powers.
Special mention for the rubble die in This War of Mine, a quirky thematically styled asymmetric 'push your luck' die. I'm surprised there aren't more asymmetric / unknown % dice to really mess with gamers' minds.
Blueprints is also a good choice... that is the one where you have to stack dice in certain configurations to complete patterns on cards... when you view your structure from certain angles. Definitely a different way to use dice. :-)
I don't think many of these games early on are what Tom had in mind. Now to be fair this might have been a bridge to far for the A-Team right now until they all have played a few hundred more games.
I maintain that Pop-O-Matic deserves an honorable mention. C'mon, how cool was that little bubble with the die in it? That thing was uber-cool back in the day to a little kid! :-) I know they truly aren't great for randomization, though... Geoff Engelstein did a segment on it once analyzing how good their RNG was and they weren't great.
@@KabukiKid It also has my favourite designer comment on BGG - it finished with "Alcohol may have been involved!" And yeah, because of the bag, I leave the game in the Living Room as curio rather than on the game shelves. It's just such a fun object to start discussions which is a bonus to being a good little push your luck game
John D. Clair took the mechanic from Pass The Pigs and put it into Rolling Heights. You roll meeples to determine what resources you get, depending how they land, and can bust, sort of like Cubitos.
Quantum is my absolutely favorite game! I love the chunky dice. So satisfying! But also, I think it's super cool howa lower number die represents a slower ship, but also moe powerful in combat. That makes for such good decisions. I also like when games use an "exploding dice" mechanism. One of the top 3 games I own is Firefly The Game, from Gale Force 9. The dice are a basic D6, except that in place of the six pip side, there's an icon of a Firefly ship. If you roll that face, it's called "Thrillin Heroics", and you get to count 6 towards your ski check, and roll again adding more power to whatever skill you're rolling for. It's cool, because even if you don't have many icons in your crew and gear, you always at least have a chance to succeed any test
I would have crossed over on Dice Forge, Segrada, Formula D, and Unsettled. My list would also include Quantum, Dead Men Tell No Tales, Merchants of the Dark Road, Genotype, Steampunk Rally, and maybe Masmorra: Dungeons of Arcadia. I may also make the case for the sheer fun of casting the runes in Call to Adventure, which I guess would lend credence to Pass the Pigs!
I kind of feel Pass the Pigs arguably counts more than Teotihuacan. Clearly in Teotihuacan, if you removed them from that game, they are dice, but within that game, they’re never used as dice. Mechanically, they could be dials or a set of tokens which you switch out - whereas in Pass the Pigs, rolling them makes them dice. That said, I’m happy with having your cake and eating it, and including both types of reasoning - but I’d pick Beyond the Sun over Teotihuacan - mainly because I like the game more.
The pigs in Pass The Pigs are basically 6 sided dice. They can land in 5 unique ways, one (on its side) can be "rolled" on either side. So they're d6s. End of!
First game I would think of is KERO. Fun 2 player game with great components where you have to throw dice as fast as possible while your hourglass-kerosene truck is getting used. And refueling is the best part of the game!
Love Alien Frontiers! Surprised it wasn't on all 4 lists. Glad to see Manhattan Project: Energy Empire get some attention as well...a very underrated game!
Rajas of the Ganges is one of my favorite games with dice. Love it. Our 6yo has been loving a random older Gamewright game we got locally for free - Go Nuts. It has Zombie Dice vibes with a squirrel theme and a quick real-time situation that gets triggered. Lots of fun, even for mom and dad.
I was sorta hoping someone would include Apocalypse Chaos. A coop dice game where you can pass your dice to other players to help them get actions while going up against the aliens. The rules are a bit vague but I really enjoy it. And FUSE is one of my favorite games, so glad it got mentioned.
Thank you.... I worked while listening to this, so maybe I missed it...but feel Steampunk Rally Fusion was worth a mention here..... I know it is just rolling dice, but the different resources and how you vent the dice is really fun.
I will offer Fool's Gold and Artemis Project. Although the dice involved are just reguler "pip" dice, they are used interestingly. In Fool's Gold, the dice are not for the players, per se. Rather, the dice are used to setup the initial game state for each round...determining which mines are open and what the initial costs will be for bidding priority. There is also a single die used in a third, optional phase which is a simple push-your-luck choice for all players involved in that phase. Artemis Project is a worker placement (i.e., the dice are the workers) game akin to Alien Frontiers where you roll your dice and decide where to place them for the various actions. However, I like the particular mechanic that, on two of the main resources, lower value dice go ahead of higher-value dice. However, their "production output" is lower ...but this means that a couple of lower value dice may leave nothing for the higher value dice remaining.
Some super unique ways to use dice: Space Cadets Dice Duel since everyone has their own unique set of dice that work together as a team. Rallyman for how you use them to actually plan your movement out per turn. Quantum for how they represent different kinds of ships - their speed and strength. Tavarua for how they determine wave size for your surfers to surf. Panamax you don’t even roll half the dice, you set a number based off a card and the dice are just cargo on ships. Spartacus due to how you lose dice as your gladiator gets more and more injured in combat.
Two I thought of not mentioned: IDW's Adventures system (Ninja Turtles or Batman, take your pick). Each hero has a set of three dice with unique distributions of symbols for choosing actions. The cool part is based on how you choose to align your dice, because you get to borrow the outer symbol from each of your neighboring players and vice versa. It creates a lot of strategy where you have to figure out the best way to share your dice with your friends. Second pick would be Steampunk Rally (and Fusion). Dice are drafted along with vehicle parts, each dice color represents a different power source, and once used, there is a cleanup mechanic, where you have to reduce the pips on the dice until you can clean it off your machine. So, that 6 you rolled will give a great boost now, but you will spend a few turns getting it off to reuse the component.
How could you not enjoy Coimbra Chris 😩, Coimbra is my 4 favourite game of all time. (But at least you didn’t forget 😉) Coimbra was my first thought and is my number 1 choice 😁 Also like: Pulsar 2849 Ganz Schon Clever Troyes Manhattan Project Energy Empire CV Beyond the Sun The Journal’s of Lewis & Clark Marco Polo Fórmula D Grand Austria Hotel Champions of Midgard Roll Player Red Cathedral Cubitos Quantum
It's currently out of print, but Have You Heard has a unique set of custom dice. It's basically a set collection game, where you need to collect tiles of all the farm animals to win. Not a high rating on BGG, but I think it's a charming little dice game!!
I saw they were discussing Top 10 ideas in the chat ... Might be time to do a Top 10 Dice Tower bloopers I'm sure they have enough footage over the years to make a really funny video
We post a video of funny moments at the end of each year. The call usually goes out to the fans to send in their favorite moments, and Chris compiles the best of the best.
Would be really fun to have a "real time month" at the dice tower where the team would play a lot of real time games - could then culminate in a "real time top 10" video
Yeah the first one that came to my mind was Elder Sign. My mind was blown by that as I'd only ever really played Yahtzee and D&D up to that point in terms of dice. I'd also played a lot of Risk so that helped me grasp Elder Sign's dice mechanic a bit, but still.
A lot of good games, but I wouldn't necessarily say all of them "use dice in interesting ways". It may have been a better list for the Z-team because Tom and Zee likely played some more lesser known games with interesting dice mechanisms.
DiceWar is a really nice asymmetric two player game from a small swiss publisher. Highly recommendable. And also Cube Quest a had a lot of fun playing with my son, as you build castles with dice-units to protect your king-dice and then flick dice at your oppenents construct.
Don't know if it was mentioned or not...NINJA DICE! Not the greatest of dice chuckers, but I enjoy how the mixing, tumbling and orientation of dice after rolling can have affects on outcomes for each roll. I have EVERYTHING for that game. :)
Mythic Battles: Pantheon - Dice can be removed to bump another dice by 1. Dice that are 5 (dice are numbered 0-5) burst so that their value is added to 5. This allows players to hit high defense values that are bigger than what can be rolled. It's a really cool combat system. Any of the dungeon crawlers that use fate dice like Blackstone Fortress or Big Trouble in Little China. It's cool for there to be a pool of dice that any player can use for their actions. TMNT (or Batman: Shadow of the Bat) where the players action selection shares one die to the player on their right and one die with the player on their left. Masmorra (I know Roy mentioned it at the end), but it's really cool how each die is effectively 6 different monsters. And, there's different dice that can be pulled from the bag. So, you can get a ton of monster variety simply from dice faces. Each die is like the equivalent of 6 standees. Fuji Koro which lets you chuck a die of the matching color for every cube in your weapon. It's a cool idea where the materials used in the crafting are reflected with by the die. I'm less a fan of the weapon durability aspect. Still, it was a cool idea. Kemet is just kind of a silly/clever one. The dice are never rolled, but it was still a clever way to represent pyramids with the face indicating how much of the pyramid has been built.
Great lists! So many good options. I’m with Chris on Coimbra although I do also enjoy it a lot. Some other options that might have made my list are Jamaica, Cupcake Empire, Biblios, Kingsburg, Nokosu Dice, Dice Hospital, and the Red Cathedral. Also same as Chris I’d want to consider Troyes Dice but I’d probably leave out Roll and Writes overall.
Strike is fun, but our preference is the Impact version which is similar to the Harry Potter one. I haven’t played Blueprints or Tumble Town, but using the dice to build structures in those games is pretty unique.
I don’t quite get the similarities between Las Vegas Royale and Bang the dice game. Maybe if you include it on the next list you can spend more time to explain…
1:09:56 Yeah - analogously, for example, I am not a fan of pure deckbuilding, just to build your deck. It has to have another element of actually doing something with your upgraded deck - therefore, I feel the same way about this issue in Tidal Blades - at least you are using your upgraded dice to fight off the monsters (or you don’t upgrade all of your dice and use one of those against the monster).
Dice are meant to be rolled. I understood Camilla's point that Pass the Pigs does actually use dice, but after the Unsettled pick, I'm gonna have to revert my opinion. Pigs that you roll are much more dicelike than cubes that you don't roll :)
1. Y'all clearly need to call in the boss and have him fire this new intern. This "Tom" or whoever is clearly not professional enough for the Dice Tower team. 2. Obviously, the pigs count. For millenia, dice were literally the oddly-shaped knuckle bones of certain animals. Yes, there were even 2-sided dice (marked flat sticks) used for games and divination, so your phone joke isn't that far off. The way the pig rolls are described (i.e. wide side, narrow side, etc.) and specific results are given names, is very similar to the use of knucklebones in ancient times. The flat, narrow side up might mean a certain thing and have a specific name, while the wide, curvy side would have a different meaning and name, etc. Using this kind of thing instead of numbers or pips is the original form that dice-play took. 3. I now know that "pipping" is a word that exists. Thank you, Dice Tower. 4. You know a video features at least one Yi when it includes the phrase "this cool spreadsheet." 17:05
I fully support Wendy's Pass the Pigs selection. The pigs are a shaped randomization item where each way a pig lands means something else. Sounds like dice to me. Official definitions seem to only acknowledge six sided dice with pips, so that is not helpful.
Definitely a kind of dice, you roll it to get a result.
Well, as Chris teased, not everything you throw in a "roll" type action, can be called a die.
Apart from a traditional D6, I feel like most "dice" are some form of polyhedron. Other than the throwing them on the table, I would say that little plastic pigs have nothing in common with dice.
But, since this list is about unique or interesting ways to use dice, I guess I sort of get it.
I don't know Camilla's background. She seems very well versed in many hobby games. I'm getting a kind of vibe of being a rather "difficult" individual though. I've noticed her sort of curtness or just kind of ... I don't know, not always nice?
Anyway, I was 100% with her on her response to Wendy's (mom's) pick. Haha
But, this is just a fun list. Everybody is entitled to their viewpoints, obviously. So it's interesting to see everyone's choices.
@@lemiless agreed on Camilla.
@lemiless What about odd shaped dice sold as, well, dice? Are they not "real" dice? One example that springs instantly to mind are spherical dice. If you take dice to be "small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions often used for generating random results" the pigs fit. Other than not being polyhedral the pigs are functionally identical to dice
@@lemiless IMO "dice" in the context of games is literally anything you roll onto the table in order to generate a random result from a table of possible outcomes. The Pigs definitely count! People at the table joked "is my *phone* a die if I roll it?" Literally yes- it's a d2.
Love the Dice Tower and their growing slate of presenters. It would be great to have more crossovers between the two teams. I miss Zee ragging on Roy; would love to see Tom's reaction to some of Wendy's and Camilla's picks.
Yea so true!
Blueprints is a neat dice game. The dice are the building blocks for your buildings. Different colours are different building materials. Eg, clear dice are glass.
I really like how Beyond The Sun uses dice: you can use them as humans to research, as spaceships of various levels of power to try to conquer planets, and as loaves of bread for resources (I know that’s not what the rulebook calls them). You don’t roll the dice but because they often swap from one type of worker to another, it just makes sense to use dice.
Really hoped Biblios made this list just for the irony, of having some of the best chunkiest dice that you never roll during the game.
Konquest has 2 inch/5 cm (?) dice which are not traditionally rolled in its game
Biblios was one of the first games I thought of.
Great job Wendy!!! Pass the Pigs is a great call back for this! The dice are certainly more unique than other games on this list where you roll a thing and see what you get. I just wish the game had as much “legs” as the dice ;)
Or rather, Wendy’s mom!
100% with Wendy on Pass the Pigs. If I actually logged plays of it over the years, it would undoubtedly be my most played game of all time thanks to playing it on various flights or train journeys over the years.
Another game that almost immediately sprung to mind was Crystal Lake where the dice are your workers which you place in a pretty typical worker placement fashion, however the fact you choose the die faces at the start of the round which you then have to pay for and determines turn order and worker resolution order depending on when they're placed.
Other games I thought of were Artemis Project, Dice Hospital, Street Masters and Biblios.
Pass the pigs was such a perfect choice! I don't know why Wendy was such a sourpuss, it fit the bill perfectly
Quantum would be my number 1 for this list. Can't believe it has been out of print for so long.
I can't believe in a list of 40 games about clever and unique ways that dice are used, Quantum didn't make an appearance. I almost have to think the only way this is true is that none of them have played it.
EDIT: Oh, I found the bit where they all say they haven't played it.
I was also certain Quantum would appear here.
Great list guys and gals! Here are my top 10 that I didn’t see mentioned here:
10. Rattle, Battle, Grab the Loot
9. Blueprints
8. Mosaix
7. Poseidon’s Kingdom
6. Grog Island
5. El Gaucho
4. Genotype
3. Macao
2. Sentient
1. Oracle of Delphi
Dice Forge is way better then Dice Realms. I agree with Roy. Great pick Roy!
Also Dice Forge looks way better.
I'm really looking forward to see the Z-Team do this list...I think for the most part they were missing the point of the list (or maybe I had a different interpretation of the title)...these picks ARE mostly great in my opinion but I was looking forward to see more wild ideas about using dice. as great as some of these games are, they use dice the way they're supposed to...no wow effect to them
me too
Mike is probably only one who would have included my top pick - Merchants of the Dark Road. Randomized Dice market to manipulate, dice drafting during travel, a dice placement movement/bonus system, and enough bonus dice types to replicate most of the other actions in the game.
You know, I didn't think of Merchants of thr Dark Road. The dice mechanism is unique.
Yeah I would have mentioned this one too.
Nice lists! Want to check out Santa Maria, Unsettled & Monsters on Board. My top ones are Dice Forge,, Teotihuacan, Sagrada, Rajas of The Ganges, Roll For The Galaxy, Tumblin' Dice, Dungeon Fighter, Coimbra, Roll Player & Wolfgang Warsch's Clever series.
Pass the pigs is an old game. I was playing it like 30 years ago. What a throw back!
How the hell did Too Many Bones not make this list? It is one of the best dice games hands down and it’s an awesome mechanic that your fail rolls can still be used in your favor.
It doesn't use dice in a neat way. It uses it in a garbage way.
@@john-qz3fu You use the custom dice to gain new abilities. You use dice to mark initiative. You use dice to upgrade your stats. You roll the custom dice you gained to attack and activate a ton of unique abilities and sometimes get bones to activate different backup plans. You use dice as shields. You roll dice to search for loot. You use custom dice to mark status effects. You roll dice to play a mini game. And I'm missing some. So, which of these ways are the garbage ones? All of them?
You roll the dice and place them somewhere. Nothing unique about it.
@@brianle4063 what is unique is what the dice can do, in fact, they are almost all unique except for the defense and attack dice. You even "transform" some of them in minions/robot/beasts to fight for you. I mean, what more do you want?
Too Many Bones. I love that failures can be used in successful ways, and some of the Gearlocks by rolling failures. Brilliant mechanic for people who hate skill checks and random failures.
Really happy to hear Champions of Midgard mentioned by Roy as his #8 game. And I'm especially pleased that he mentioned the expansion. The "dice as Viking warriors" in the base game is already pretty cool. When you "assign dice" at the end of a round, prior to combat, it really feels like you're the Viking leader telling your men where to go and who to fight. But the Valhalla expansion adds a whole new and interesting layer to it where it's not bad if some or even most of your warriors die. Getting their "tokens" after they die and using them again as the fight even more monsters in Valhalla practically doubles the complexity and strategy of the entire game!
Also:
Tummple, where the die dictate what you wl add to the tower and which orientation it has to take on.
Seasons, where the die you draft will impact your capacity, resources, and how quickly the seasons change. The dice also change with the seasons.
Roll Player, where the dice activate special abilities, meet or fail criteria for bonuses, and interact directly with your stats in a unique way.
Oooo cool idea for a list. In no particular order off the top of my head I'd mention Dice Forge, Castles of Burgundy, Formula D, Blueprints, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Quarriors, Strike, Floating Market, Seasons, and Can't Stop. I'm sure I have more especially in my collection that's just what came to mind.
No Troyes?! Nice list. The short of it... there are a lot of cool ways dice are used. :-)
Wow, I didn't think this would be such a big category, but rare that I have zero crossovers. My top three were Poseidon's Kingdom, Camel Up (dice color, number and _order_ matter) and an old game called Die-check where you pieces are dice that move by turning one face at a time.
Camel Up is a great choice I think would be very high in my consideration too!
~Chris
A lesser known game from like 6-8 years ago was called dungeon dice where it's a competitive kinda dungeon crawl but the entire game is dice with the exception of the player board. No boards no chits. Each die is custom, and some have special powers.
I play dice masters every week on webcam! One of my favorite games
Special mention for the rubble die in This War of Mine, a quirky thematically styled asymmetric 'push your luck' die. I'm surprised there aren't more asymmetric / unknown % dice to really mess with gamers' minds.
Dang no cubitos! I’m shocked. I feel like the way cubitos uses dice is so cool!
Euphoria was the first one I thought of ... Great use of dice.
I was waiting for this one to be mentioned. Defiantly a favorite of mine.
Chris is so wholesome. His hearty chuckle reminds me of Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop.
Pass the Pigs for the WIN!! Love it. Lol.
Blueprints is also a good choice... that is the one where you have to stack dice in certain configurations to complete patterns on cards... when you view your structure from certain angles. Definitely a different way to use dice. :-)
I don't think many of these games early on are what Tom had in mind. Now to be fair this might have been a bridge to far for the A-Team right now until they all have played a few hundred more games.
I maintain that Pop-O-Matic deserves an honorable mention. C'mon, how cool was that little bubble with the die in it? That thing was uber-cool back in the day to a little kid! :-) I know they truly aren't great for randomization, though... Geoff Engelstein did a segment on it once analyzing how good their RNG was and they weren't great.
Kabuki - I mentioned Ninja Dice in the chat, I've added a comment detailing why I think it should be on the list if you're interested
@@CaptLoquaLacon I just looked up Ninja Dice... I love that box/bag the game comes in! heh :-) I should research this game.
@@KabukiKid It also has my favourite designer comment on BGG - it finished with "Alcohol may have been involved!"
And yeah, because of the bag, I leave the game in the Living Room as curio rather than on the game shelves. It's just such a fun object to start discussions which is a bonus to being a good little push your luck game
Dungeon Fighter would be my #1
If too many bones isn't listed, I'm deleting youtube. I hate dice rolling but love TMB turning "bad" rolls into power via bones
John D. Clair took the mechanic from Pass The Pigs and put it into Rolling Heights.
You roll meeples to determine what resources you get, depending how they land, and can bust, sort of like Cubitos.
I love Pass the Pigs. Also Bitoku. Sagrada was very novel for us and we enjoy it from time to time, though got burned out a bit.
Quantum is my absolutely favorite game! I love the chunky dice. So satisfying!
But also, I think it's super cool howa lower number die represents a slower ship, but also moe powerful in combat. That makes for such good decisions.
I also like when games use an "exploding dice" mechanism. One of the top 3 games I own is Firefly The Game, from Gale Force 9. The dice are a basic D6, except that in place of the six pip side, there's an icon of a Firefly ship. If you roll that face, it's called "Thrillin Heroics", and you get to count 6 towards your ski check, and roll again adding more power to whatever skill you're rolling for.
It's cool, because even if you don't have many icons in your crew and gear, you always at least have a chance to succeed any test
I came here to champion this game. This definitely feels like the list for it to shine!
I think we need a Zee-Team of this list. Most of the games I thought of were not on this list, but I'm sure that the Zee Team would mention them.
Camilla is Zee 2.0. Not an insult but they tend to like very similar games.
@@dbungart3044 NP. I was actually referring to the whole team of Tom, Mike and Zee. I thought they referred to themselves as the Zee Team.
I would have crossed over on Dice Forge, Segrada, Formula D, and Unsettled. My list would also include Quantum, Dead Men Tell No Tales, Merchants of the Dark Road, Genotype, Steampunk Rally, and maybe Masmorra: Dungeons of Arcadia. I may also make the case for the sheer fun of casting the runes in Call to Adventure, which I guess would lend credence to Pass the Pigs!
great lists everyone! a couple that I would add are Reckoners and Roll Player.
I kind of feel Pass the Pigs arguably counts more than Teotihuacan. Clearly in Teotihuacan, if you removed them from that game, they are dice, but within that game, they’re never used as dice. Mechanically, they could be dials or a set of tokens which you switch out - whereas in Pass the Pigs, rolling them makes them dice.
That said, I’m happy with having your cake and eating it, and including both types of reasoning - but I’d pick Beyond the Sun over Teotihuacan - mainly because I like the game more.
I used to play Pass the Pigs!
No one mentioned Dungeon Fighter. I thought Roy would choose this as well, maybe he hasnt played it?
I really like how dice are used in Circadians: First Light.
The pigs in Pass The Pigs are basically 6 sided dice. They can land in 5 unique ways, one (on its side) can be "rolled" on either side. So they're d6s. End of!
First game I would think of is KERO.
Fun 2 player game with great components where you have to throw dice as fast as possible while your hourglass-kerosene truck is getting used. And refueling is the best part of the game!
Love Alien Frontiers! Surprised it wasn't on all 4 lists. Glad to see Manhattan Project: Energy Empire get some attention as well...a very underrated game!
PASS THE PIGS!!! I've got your back on that one Wendy.
I expected Quantum, but it isn't on anyone's list.
Absolutely. One of my favourite games and the use of dice is so unique.
Same amazing game love to see it back in print
The whole table at the end mentions that none of them have played it, so it's absence makes sense in that context.
Too many bones, cubitos, roll player, railroad ink, dice forge!!
Rajas of the Ganges is one of my favorite games with dice. Love it. Our 6yo has been loving a random older Gamewright game we got locally for free - Go Nuts. It has Zombie Dice vibes with a squirrel theme and a quick real-time situation that gets triggered. Lots of fun, even for mom and dad.
"Pass The Pigs" is a completely legitimate choice here!!
I was sorta hoping someone would include Apocalypse Chaos. A coop dice game where you can pass your dice to other players to help them get actions while going up against the aliens. The rules are a bit vague but I really enjoy it. And FUSE is one of my favorite games, so glad it got mentioned.
I was just about to ask about the sound when they fixed it lol
Thanks for the good lists, I was surprised Black Angel didn't make a list : ]
Thank you.... I worked while listening to this, so maybe I missed it...but feel Steampunk Rally Fusion was worth a mention here.....
I know it is just rolling dice, but the different resources and how you vent the dice is really fun.
What?! No Red Cathedral?😳 that’s odd, but I respect Your choices… the way you use dice in this game is a blast however😁
I will offer Fool's Gold and Artemis Project. Although the dice involved are just reguler "pip" dice, they are used interestingly.
In Fool's Gold, the dice are not for the players, per se. Rather, the dice are used to setup the initial game state for each round...determining which mines are open and what the initial costs will be for bidding priority. There is also a single die used in a third, optional phase which is a simple push-your-luck choice for all players involved in that phase.
Artemis Project is a worker placement (i.e., the dice are the workers) game akin to Alien Frontiers where you roll your dice and decide where to place them for the various actions. However, I like the particular mechanic that, on two of the main resources, lower value dice go ahead of higher-value dice. However, their "production output" is lower ...but this means that a couple of lower value dice may leave nothing for the higher value dice remaining.
Las Vegas Royale is so good. Probably my favorite dice game.
I'd add Troyes, Fantastic Factories and Poseidon's Kingdom.
Nice list! I thought that Fantastic Factories or Merchants of the Dark Road would be mentioned
We need a top 10 list of Chris Yi’s Top 10 Sound Effects
Some super unique ways to use dice:
Space Cadets Dice Duel since everyone has their own unique set of dice that work together as a team.
Rallyman for how you use them to actually plan your movement out per turn.
Quantum for how they represent different kinds of ships - their speed and strength.
Tavarua for how they determine wave size for your surfers to surf.
Panamax you don’t even roll half the dice, you set a number based off a card and the dice are just cargo on ships.
Spartacus due to how you lose dice as your gladiator gets more and more injured in combat.
Two I thought of not mentioned:
IDW's Adventures system (Ninja Turtles or Batman, take your pick). Each hero has a set of three dice with unique distributions of symbols for choosing actions. The cool part is based on how you choose to align your dice, because you get to borrow the outer symbol from each of your neighboring players and vice versa. It creates a lot of strategy where you have to figure out the best way to share your dice with your friends.
Second pick would be Steampunk Rally (and Fusion). Dice are drafted along with vehicle parts, each dice color represents a different power source, and once used, there is a cleanup mechanic, where you have to reduce the pips on the dice until you can clean it off your machine. So, that 6 you rolled will give a great boost now, but you will spend a few turns getting it off to reuse the component.
No Tekhenu?? The way the usability of the dice fluctuates is so good in that game.
How could you not enjoy Coimbra Chris 😩, Coimbra is my 4 favourite game of all time. (But at least you didn’t forget 😉)
Coimbra was my first thought and is my number 1 choice 😁
Also like:
Pulsar 2849
Ganz Schon Clever
Troyes
Manhattan Project Energy Empire
CV
Beyond the Sun
The Journal’s of Lewis & Clark
Marco Polo
Fórmula D
Grand Austria Hotel
Champions of Midgard
Roll Player
Red Cathedral
Cubitos
Quantum
It's currently out of print, but Have You Heard has a unique set of custom dice. It's basically a set collection game, where you need to collect tiles of all the farm animals to win. Not a high rating on BGG, but I think it's a charming little dice game!!
I saw they were discussing Top 10 ideas in the chat ... Might be time to do a Top 10 Dice Tower bloopers I'm sure they have enough footage over the years to make a really funny video
We post a video of funny moments at the end of each year. The call usually goes out to the fans to send in their favorite moments, and Chris compiles the best of the best.
@@peterpan444 Well I'll be a monkey's uncle guess I got some research to do thanks
Would be really fun to have a "real time month" at the dice tower where the team would play a lot of real time games - could then culminate in a "real time top 10" video
Yeah the first one that came to my mind was Elder Sign. My mind was blown by that as I'd only ever really played Yahtzee and D&D up to that point in terms of dice. I'd also played a lot of Risk so that helped me grasp Elder Sign's dice mechanic a bit, but still.
A lot of good games, but I wouldn't necessarily say all of them "use dice in interesting ways". It may have been a better list for the Z-team because Tom and Zee likely played some more lesser known games with interesting dice mechanisms.
100% agree here.
Us doing it doesn't preclude them from doing it.
Quantum for me. Roll the force and each number is a special type of ship with certain moves and powers and using those to your advantages. Etc.
DiceWar is a really nice asymmetric two player game from a small swiss publisher. Highly recommendable.
And also Cube Quest a had a lot of fun playing with my son, as you build castles with dice-units to protect your king-dice and then flick dice at your oppenents construct.
Don't know if it was mentioned or not...NINJA DICE! Not the greatest of dice chuckers, but I enjoy how the mixing, tumbling and orientation of dice after rolling can have affects on outcomes for each roll. I have EVERYTHING for that game. :)
Glad to see tidal blades made it made it.
Dicecapades was silly fun.
I like the dice in VENGEANCE.
Rather than give you checks, they give you actions... or can be combined for various tactical options.
Mythic Battles: Pantheon - Dice can be removed to bump another dice by 1. Dice that are 5 (dice are numbered 0-5) burst so that their value is added to 5. This allows players to hit high defense values that are bigger than what can be rolled. It's a really cool combat system.
Any of the dungeon crawlers that use fate dice like Blackstone Fortress or Big Trouble in Little China. It's cool for there to be a pool of dice that any player can use for their actions.
TMNT (or Batman: Shadow of the Bat) where the players action selection shares one die to the player on their right and one die with the player on their left.
Masmorra (I know Roy mentioned it at the end), but it's really cool how each die is effectively 6 different monsters. And, there's different dice that can be pulled from the bag. So, you can get a ton of monster variety simply from dice faces. Each die is like the equivalent of 6 standees.
Fuji Koro which lets you chuck a die of the matching color for every cube in your weapon. It's a cool idea where the materials used in the crafting are reflected with by the die. I'm less a fan of the weapon durability aspect. Still, it was a cool idea.
Kemet is just kind of a silly/clever one. The dice are never rolled, but it was still a clever way to represent pyramids with the face indicating how much of the pyramid has been built.
First thing I thought of on this list was Champions of Midgard. Right off the start I got a huge urge to play it again.
Dice Throne is my favorite dice game.
Blueprint is also an amazing pick for this list
Kingsburg and Pie Town are some interesting uses of dice as workers.
Great lists! So many good options. I’m with Chris on Coimbra although I do also enjoy it a lot. Some other options that might have made my list are Jamaica, Cupcake Empire, Biblios, Kingsburg, Nokosu Dice, Dice Hospital, and the Red Cathedral. Also same as Chris I’d want to consider Troyes Dice but I’d probably leave out Roll and Writes overall.
Pass the Pig, why I love Wendy's input. Thanks Wendy you rock!
Chris's #2 would be my #1. Absolutely love that game and love that Zee champions it too :)
Strike is fun, but our preference is the Impact version which is similar to the Harry Potter one. I haven’t played Blueprints or Tumble Town, but using the dice to build structures in those games is pretty unique.
Wendy, my mother loves that game as well and there is no question that the pigs count as dice, just as the meeples do in Rolling Heights.
I was right there with Tom... Wendy, give us a little build up. Don't just spit out the name of the game, IMMEDIATELY... LOL
Street Masters is pretty cool too. It offers the fun of rolling for combat where even a miss gives you something useful.
This was one of the first games I thought of.
I don’t quite get the similarities between Las Vegas Royale and Bang the dice game. Maybe if you include it on the next list you can spend more time to explain…
YES!! BATTLELORE 2ND EDITION's dice getting a mention!!! 👍👍👍
1:09:56 Yeah - analogously, for example, I am not a fan of pure deckbuilding, just to build your deck. It has to have another element of actually doing something with your upgraded deck - therefore, I feel the same way about this issue in Tidal Blades - at least you are using your upgraded dice to fight off the monsters (or you don’t upgrade all of your dice and use one of those against the monster).
Surprised to see that Under Falling Skies was missing from all lists
A separate comment now Ive seen the video - not a game but I think Rorys Story Dice could have got a mention as a different use - inspiration
Dice are meant to be rolled. I understood Camilla's point that Pass the Pigs does actually use dice, but after the Unsettled pick, I'm gonna have to revert my opinion. Pigs that you roll are much more dicelike than cubes that you don't roll :)
dice do not have to be rolled and I think thats the whole point of the video. I would defend Pass The Pigs as they are cube-ish with 6 sides
@@danteshydratshirt2360 an unrolled die is just a cube
Great pics! Dice Wars has interesting die as characters.
Bang! The Dice Game or Quarriors!
Length x Wit. A push your luck dice word game that is amazing and yet impossible to find.
Would love to see you guys make a
'Top 10 Game components'
The pigs in Pass the Pigs are absolutely dice IMO.
Camilla do you like roll player? Roy I was waiting on dice forge great pick.
1. Y'all clearly need to call in the boss and have him fire this new intern. This "Tom" or whoever is clearly not professional enough for the Dice Tower team.
2. Obviously, the pigs count. For millenia, dice were literally the oddly-shaped knuckle bones of certain animals. Yes, there were even 2-sided dice (marked flat sticks) used for games and divination, so your phone joke isn't that far off. The way the pig rolls are described (i.e. wide side, narrow side, etc.) and specific results are given names, is very similar to the use of knucklebones in ancient times. The flat, narrow side up might mean a certain thing and have a specific name, while the wide, curvy side would have a different meaning and name, etc. Using this kind of thing instead of numbers or pips is the original form that dice-play took.
3. I now know that "pipping" is a word that exists. Thank you, Dice Tower.
4. You know a video features at least one Yi when it includes the phrase "this cool spreadsheet." 17:05