Nifty visuals can’t quite save this light crapshoot of a dice-rolling game.

Coming up with novel casual-friendly game mechanics is a tall order. Greener Grass almost manages to pull it off with the light roleplaying adventure and dice-rolling hybrid Dice Hunter. In the game you’re tasked with trapping creatures inside dice, which will in turn aid you in your quest to beat the evil Snake Eyes and his minions.

The game’s divided into levels each with a pre-set layout of enemies, gates, items and treasure chests. To conquer a level, you must roll six dice for damage, shields, stars and magic in a turn-based fashion. The result is then applied to the board, hurting monsters, opening lock and whatnot. Then the enemies attack you back, dealing damage to your shields or health. Basic combat is straightforward enough with sword and shield icons doing what you might expect. For gates and certain enemy types you’re required to roll stars and/or magic, which can become a pain if the dice don’t happen to roll your way.

This highlights the biggest issue in the arguably light core gameplay. Even with features like “locking” dice for subsequent rolls and choosing manually which enemy to hit, the game boils down to luck. If you have it, beating a level is a breeze. If you don’t, better have enough slowly renewing “Energy” to retry. There’s rarely a sense of accomplishment. Early levels can be bulldozed with little thought, but later ones require an increasing amount of luck, perseverance or forking out some cash to upgrade your dice. Once your cube-shaped soldiers are around level 5, the procedure requires so much in-game gold you’ll either have to grind earlier levels or pay for it.

Then there’s the question of retention. Aside from advancing from one level to another, you can earn more specialized dice like magic-heavy Wizard or damage-dealing Orc from some of the boss-levels. Unfortunately, new dice types are too rare to keep up motivation for building and improving your dice bag. A more plentiful selection could have provided this shallow, if easy-to-pick-up game with some depth in the form of collectibles.

Dice Hunter: Quest of the Dicemancer is a light-hearted but luck-dependent casual dice-rolling title. There’s not much depth to be had here and those enthusiastic about collecting dice or monsters better look elsewhere. Bright visuals are a definite plus, but once you’re versed with the mechanics, animations can drag on a play session a tad too long. Nevertheless, it’s a commendable effort in creating a new type of dice-based casual game to the market and a solid foundation for a deeper sequel.

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Title: Dice Hunter: Quest of the Dicemancer
Developer: Greener Grass Company
Publisher: Greener Grass Company
Platform: iOS & Android
Released: 2016
Genres: Dice, Adventure, Puzzle
Age Rating: PEGI 3