Part 3 (Apr 2025) · #12 of 17 in that tierWatch the moment (1:05:26)
Dicefolk
- Developed by
- LEAP Game Studios, Tiny Ghoul
- Published by
- Good Shepherd Entertainment
$14.99
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.
Consensus
B72.4/100
Steam players88.8% positiveVery Positive1,132 reviews
Metacritic ↗79/100Users: 6.9/10
OpenCritic ↗78/100
VG Insights estimate ↗≈33.9K copies · ≈$374K gross
What creators say
What players say
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.
Players love
- 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)
Common complaints
- 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)
Can feel tedious
- 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'
What's unique
- 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
Players want
- 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)
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Roguelike DeckbuilderTurn-Based CombatRogue-likeTurn-Based StrategyRogue-liteStrategyCreature CollectorStrategy RPGSingleplayerCasual
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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.
Liked
Disliked