Dicefolk

Most tactical roguelites hand you a deck of cards or a set of abilities and let randomness settle the rest. Dicefolk, developed by LEAP Game Studios and Tiny Ghoul, replaces that passivity with customizable dice that the player actively shapes, giving unusually direct control over which Chimera act, in what order, and with what effect on any given turn. The result is a combat system where managing the dice faces themselves is as strategic as building the team around them.

The player takes the role of Alea, a Chimera Summoner who can recruit mythical beasts and assemble them into a fighting party. With over 100 hand-drawn Chimera available across runs, each creature carries its own abilities and role — some built for durability, others for speed or offense — and the roster encountered in one run differs from the next. Building a functional team means reading which Chimera are on offer and adjusting strategy accordingly rather than executing a fixed plan.

Dice customization sits at the center of what separates Dicefolk from straightforward monster-collecting roguelites. Players modify their dice to load them toward particular outcomes, reducing the variance that defines most dice-based systems and shifting the design philosophy toward tactical preparation over lucky rolls. Talismans layer additional depth and, when fully collected, reveal lore about the Chimera themselves.

Dicefolk released on February 27, 2024, and received several patches through March of that year. By June 2024 it had arrived on Nintendo Switch. August 2024 brought the most substantial expansion of the post-launch period: a free update paired with the Will Chimeras DLC, with a bundle promotion alongside Cobalt Core running concurrently. A further patch followed in October 2024, accompanied by a bundle with Wildfrost, suggesting continued commercial activity well into its first year.

Players who found Slay the Spire’s card manipulation satisfying but wanted more direct control over randomness will find Dicefolk’s dice-shaping approach a sharper, more interventionist take on the same underlying tension.