Dice Flow is a fun little math

 Alexander Shen has an amazing knack for making neat little games and puzzles. They’re never big or impressive but they are always interesting and quite often fun and distracting. Shen has done my sanity a lot of good over the years.

Dice Flow is a roll and write that consists of two math processes. I can’t call them equations proper, although each one is made up of equations. In both cases, you roll six dice and pop the numbers in to figure out a final number. Add the two final numbers together to get your score.

Not only does that sounds kind of complex, the actual play sheet itself looks kind of complex. However, Shen’s silly cartoon characters (Hi, Sadie Cat!) explain everything pretty clearly. One play through, which shouldn’t even take five minutes, and everything makes sense.

I am not going to actually go through the actual maths. For one thing, it would feel fussy. For another thing, that would just be giving you the game.

I went into Dice Flow with very low expectations. It looks like (and flat out is) just some math problems. I wondered if there were any choices at all in it. I felt like, at most, it might be something I might use in the classroom.

However, where you plug numbers in makes a big difference. I sometimes use a dice roller on my phone but Dice Flow is one of those games where I like using physical dice so I can rearrange the numbers. 

And I was surprised to find that I enjoyed doing this bit of number juggling. It probably doesn’t hurt that it really isn’t that complex and only takes a couple of minutes to bang out a play. It definitely doesn’t outstay in welcome.

Now, on the downside; even by Shen standards, Dice Flow is a very light game. More than that, while you do have to make some decisions, it’s not hard to optimize your die rolls. I enjoy the little that it is but there is very little.

However, it’s a free, one-page game. Honestly, I have already gotten more out of it than it took to make a laminated copy. It’s a nice little brain break. If they make more Dice Flow pages, I’ll play them.

https://alexandershen.itch.io/dice-flow-vol-1