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The theme of OctoDice is based on Aquasphere, and the game mechanisms recall that board game. On your turn, you roll six dice (three white and three black); two dice (one white and one black) form an action. Every roll you must pick exactly two dice to take out (any colour). In the end you combine the six dice any way you want, no matter in which order you chose to take them out of your rolls beforehand. You can use only two actions on your turn. On your development sheet you enter the actions chosen for this turn and note your points. You can also decide to "expand your lab" which will give you bonus actions or points. Other players may pick any action combination from your dice roll to add to their sheet. Do not forget to fight Octopodes. The game ends when each player has 6 turns. The player with the most points wins.
OctoDice Review
- Tight, decision-driven take on the dice-rolling mechanic
- Interactivity from copying dice and reacting to opponents
- Replayability due to lab tech variability across games
- Engine-building potential with submarines and labs
- Game length too short, limiting the value of lab technologies
- Laboratory technologies often underutilized due to short game duration
- Two-player copy-dice variant felt clunky
- underwater research and octopod management to score victory points
- bottom of the ocean lab
- instructional demonstration with inline playthrough
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- action-pairing — To take an action you must pair two dice and activate a matching symbol on your player board.
- borrowing dice — Between rounds players may borrow a set of two dice from a shared pool and record them.
- Compound Scoring — Activating crystals scores victory points based on the value of the die used, requiring a black non-octopod die.
- copying opponent's dice — Not-your-turn copies of up to two dice can be used between scoring rounds, adding interaction and planning.
- crystal scoring action — Activating crystals scores victory points based on the value of the die used, requiring a black non-octopod die.
- dice rolling and locking cadence — Roll six dice (three white, three black); must lock two, then roll four; lock two more; roll final two.
- laboratory actions — Lab tiles determine possible actions; top row uses zeros initially; advancing gives ongoing bonuses.
- laboratory technologies — Randomly shuffled tech tiles create a custom tech tree each game, offering variability and endgame bonuses.
- octopod scoring and blocking — Having octopods on dice can grant points; absence of required octopods can incur penalties.
- robot and submarine actions — Robot actions increase points by color; submarine scoring depends on programmed robots relative to scoring rounds.
- Token Pairing — To take an action you must pair two dice and activate a matching symbol on your player board.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- it's a neat tweak on an old system
- I enjoy the ability to copy the dice that your opponent has picked out for themselves
- it's just it's good it keeps you invested in what all your opponents are doing and it makes the game Flow really well
- I recommend the game with a couple caveats
- there's such a great engine here
- I end up just liking this game as opposed to loving it
- the laboratory is the coolest part of this game