Slices n’ Dice
Dice Roguelike Prototype
Overview
Inspirations
I, like many others, was playing Balatro and thought the design of the game was incredible. I was inspired to do a study of the game and try to make a version inspired by a game from my childhood. I grew up playing Farkle, or as my family called it “10,000”. The rules were simple, and dice are a game concept that everyone understands. I felt like it would be a great base for an attempt to replicate Balatro.
Game Idea
I wanted to replicate the core ideas of Balatro in the context of 10,000 to get an understanding of how the elements impacted the gameplay experience individually. Dice are the equivalent of playing cards, allowing players to alter their dice to their benefit was an obvious choice in replicating Balatro. Jokers were a more foreign concept in the context of dice games. After some ideation, I came up with playmats, or “Slices”, that altered the scoring of dice rolled on them.
Playtesting
Initial playtests brought about a lot of considerations. Some considerations I had already stumbled upon, but one important aspect that came out in playtesting, was the confusion around the “Slices”. This concept was difficult to explain to players, especially without a blatant text tutorial. The slices also introduced some more issues further into development when scoring had to be done across multiple slices. “Do I score a group of 3 dice the same if the dice are split across multiple slices?” “How do I explain whether or not scoring works like that?”
Evolution
Confronting the Problems
As more questions arose, I realized that my “simple concept” was a lot less simple than I had initially thought. I wanted to keep the design simple, because that is one of the greatest strengths of Balatro. The concept of “Slices” was just too abstract for players to grasp, so I decided that a new idea would be needed to take its place.
Taking a Step Back
After deciding to cut the “Slice” mechanic, I took some time away from the development aspect of the game. I thought about what aspects of the game I liked, and which parts I didn’t, and I thought that the dice mechanics could be fun to continue with, but the context had to be more engaging. I went to a local coffee shop with a sketchbook and I started to brainstorm some new ideas for a dice game, inspired by 10,000.
Deviation n’ Exploration
When I thought about what common contexts dice are understood in, I was reminded of their association with tabletop RPGs and concepts like magic. While I was in the cafe writing down some ideas (pictured above), I looked up and saw a sticker of a frog on someone’s laptop. I thought, “what a cute little frog guy” and I doodled a frog in a wizard’s outfit. This doodle, inspired me to start working on my next project, Frog Mage!