#boardland

cute dice board game. link here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2735620/BoardLand/

[this game is completely free]

the music and art set the really cozy vibe of the game

this type of tutorial is kinda great, works really well for a turn-based game. lacks a bit of flair and flavor but i like how straightforward it is

cute sitting sprite

oh hey, it was published on my birthday

overview

boardland is a turn-based combat dice- board- game where you fight monsters. it's a pretty short game, i got through one run and credits rolling in 30~ minutes, but seems the monsters might be randomized for every playthrough? gonna check again just to be sure.

there's uh not really any story as far as i can tell, so let's just get to the

mechanics

combat takes place entirely on this board. you can upgrade it by using dice while on a tile, sometimes changing the base action of the tile (fire > attack, earth > defense, water > heal). it's got roguelite elements too so, it's what you'd expect, items and blessings. potions aren't too difficult to come by, and a playthrough is short enough that you can be liberal in using them

a player turn consists of you moving, then taking dice actions. you can only use multiple dice on a tile if they're in increasing order (2 > 3 > 4, for instance), otherwise, you have to move to use another action. you draw 5 dice every turn, and leftover dice are discarded. sometimes it seems you can use an action dice at the start of your turn immediately, but sometimes you can't..? i'm a bit confused but it might be dependent on whether you used an action last turn or not

now, by using a set number of dice, you can level up a base tile to upgrade it (its 3 dice for the first level up). this gives you bonus actions, and synergizes with the elemental dice you can find sometimes. this gives you a way to customize your board depending on your playstyle and build.

additionally, every other turn a random event occurs. you have to land on the tile to activate 'em. same goes with curses that enemies sometimes do. if something on the board only needs you to make contact with it, it'll say in the description (like enemy spawns)

the game punishes you for taking too long by giving most (if not all) enemies a passive that increases their stats every 10 turns. this did not become an issue for me (except for that one tedious round where i got to 10 turns because i kept messing up my actions)

you can get buffs and debuffs too. there was one where i was supposedly able to use two dice on one tile or smth, but it was either poorly worded or broken bc i could never proc it. there's a confusion debuff that sometimes makes you move backwards too. the main way to get debuffs on enemies is by using elemental dice on their corresponding tile

OH i completely missed the reroll mechanic, you can spend gold to reroll one of your dice, kinda handy, i suppose? gold is rarely used anyway

aesthetics

this game is pretty slow paced, not to say it can't get challenging, and while i'm more of a fan of faster games, i found this one to be relaxing to play. i'm gonna do one more run before finishing this up.

the music is extremely cozy. even when a bit frustrated, i couldn't find myself getting too worked up, i like it

i enjoy the artstyle as well, the monsters and the player character all have a soft and charming vibe about them (except that frog in berserk mode, pictured earlier, i like that too). very cute!

misc

gimmick fight, i respect it.

another gimmick fight, the reroll mechanic is especially useful here if you wanna fight more efficiently, especially since the opponent just sits there until the tiles get locked (i died bc i didn't realize my health was too low (oh, you can load up the autosave and retry, neat))

closing thoughts

i could honestly see myself spending a lot of time on a fully fleshed out adventure mode for this game. i'm super engaged by the mechanics, and with a bit more content there's room for a lot of strategy in this kind of game. different board lengths, branching paths, character skills.

i already enjoy board-based games a ton (stuff a la mario party or 100% orange juice) and also dice as cards in games (die in the dungeon, is the most recent and only example to come to mind (i haven't played library of ruina yet) i should write about that, i enjoyed the demo and i need the full game) so this game is very much my thing

if the game sounded like fun, give it a try, it is completely free