Incremental Dice

Incremental Dice is an idle game where players roll dice to progress through a persistent world, featuring menu-driven interfaces and later updated with workshop support for customizing game elements such as dice, merchants, boards, backgrounds, and notification sounds.

Incremental Dice: Review

Introduction

In the sprawling digital orchard of incremental and idle games, where each title competes for player attention through ever-escalating numbers and increasingly complex mechanics, Incremental Dice emerges as a deceptively simple yet surprisingly engaging entry. Released on November 5, 2024, by solo developer guilemus, this Windows-exclusive title leverages the timeless allure of dice to craft a loop-driven experience that embodies both the genre’s strengths and its inherent limitations. While it lacks the narrative depth of titans like A Dark Room or Universal Paperclips, its focus on tactile, visually driven progression and relentless post-launch support offers a compelling microcosm of the genre’s evolution. This review will dissect Incremental Dice through the lenses of its design philosophy, technical execution, and cultural impact, arguing that its true legacy lies not in groundbreaking innovation, but in its meticulous refinement of a familiar formula within a distinct thematic niche.

Development History & Context

Guilemus, the game’s sole developer and publisher, envisioned Incremental Dice as a “chill” alternative to the more frantic clickers saturating the market. Built on the accessible GameMaker engine, the project sidestepped the technical demands of AAA development, focusing instead on rapid iteration—a strategy evident in its eight-month-long post-launch update cycle by late 2025. Released into a gaming landscape dominated by established incrementals like Incremental Adventures (2019) and Incremental Cubes (2021), the title carved its niche by centering gameplay around dice—a thematic choice both novel and nostalgic. Dice mechanics have roots in 1970s calculator games like Dice (1975), but guilemus modernized this concept with contemporary features: Steam Workshop integration, global leaderboards, and cross-platform support (later expanding to Mac and Linux). The developer’s responsiveness is noteworthy; by October 2025, Incremental Dice had evolved from a bare-bones idler into a feature-rich title with modding tools and 102 Steam achievements—a testament to its commitment to player feedback within the genre’s live-service ethos.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

Incremental Dice eschews traditional storytelling entirely, embodying the purest form of the idle genre’s “numbers go up” philosophy. Its narrative is one of implicit capitalism: players start penniless with a humble D4 die and ascend through increasingly valuable tiers (D6, D8, D10, D12, D20) to accumulate wealth. This progression mirrors real-world economic abstraction—dice rolls generate currency, which funds upgrades that yield higher returns, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of growth. The absence of characters or explicit plot underscores the genre’s thematic focus on systems over story, yet the game’s visual motifs subtly reinforce its themes. Golden dice, introduced in a post-launch mini-game, symbolize aspirational wealth, while the “DICE SHARDS” currency (added in January 2025) represents accelerated commodification. Even the leaderboards foster a competitive, almost Darwinian ethos, framing success as a quantifiable hierarchy. While this lack of narrative may disappoint players seeking depth, it aligns with the genre’s roots in resource management simulations, where the process of accumulation is the narrative.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

The core loop is elegantly simple: roll dice to earn money, reinvest earnings into more dice or upgrades, and repeat. Yet guilemus layers complexity through interconnected systems:

• Dice Progression: Each die type (D4 to D20) offers unique payout curves. Upgrades increase dice capacity or modify rolls (e.g., a D8 permanently gains +1 value), creating strategic depth in resource allocation.
• Meta and Shards: Update 1.1 (January 2025) introduced “DICE SHARDS,” a premium currency allowing instant tier purchases, and “Meta Dice,” late-game multipliers with rebalanced stacking mechanics to prevent runaway scores.
• Events and Merchants: Random clickable events (e.g., bonus payouts) and timed merchants offering discounted upgrades inject unpredictability. Merchants initially disappeared after 30 seconds, prompting player outcry; guilemus reduced this to 15 minutes via patch 1.0.3.1.
• Customization: Workshop integration (October 2025) enabled community-driven skins for dice, merchants, and UI, alongside custom sound effects—a transformative feature elevating player investment.

The UI prioritizes clarity, with draggable upgrade tiers and compact multiplier displays (e.g., “8x” instead of “2x2x2”). However, initial versions suffered from bugs: Ctrl/Shift-key purchases failed to register stats, and save-corruption issues caused “ascension” resets. These were addressed through iterative fixes, culminating in a stable 1.1.2 patch (June 2025). The game’s idle efficiency is balanced by “steps” in golden die mini-games, blending automated progression with momentary engagement.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Incremental Dice inhabits a minimalist world where the die is the protagonist. The 2D art style, tagged as “Cartoon” on Steam, employs bright, saturated colors and rounded shapes to evoke accessibility. Dice designs are distinct yet uncluttered, with visual upgrades (e.g., golden edges) clearly signaling progression. Backgrounds and board skins remain abstract, prioritizing functionality over immersion—a deliberate choice to keep focus on numerical feedback. Sound design mirrors this philosophy: dice rolls emit satisfying click-clack sounds (toggleable in settings), while notifications use gentle chimes. Post-launch customization allowed players to replace these with custom audio, fostering personalization. The overall aesthetic is functional yet polished, avoiding the visual noise of peers like Incremental Epic Hero while retaining genre charm.

Reception & Legacy

At launch, Incremental Dice polarized players, securing a “Mixed” 55% positive rating on Steam (61 reviews). Positive feedback lauded its “chill” pacing and satisfying dice-rolling sounds, while critiques cited initial bugs and repetitive late-game play. The developer’s aggressive patching—addressing save corruption, UI glitches, and balance issues—gradually improved sentiment. By late 2025, the addition of Workshop content and Steam Trading Cards bolstered replayability, with 6.6K wishlists indicating sustained interest. Commercially, it sold 3.05K units (per Raijin.gg), modest for the genre but respectable for a solo project. Its legacy is twofold: as a case study in live-service refinement, proving that post-launch support can elevate a simple concept, and as a thematic innovator popularizing dice mechanics in a genre historically fixated on cookies or paperclips. It stands alongside Dice Roller Incremental (itch.io) as part of a dice-centric subgenre, though its superior polish and Steam integration give it broader reach.

Conclusion

Incremental Dice is not a revolutionary game, but it is a remarkably well-executed one. Guilemus has distilled the incremental genre to its purest essence—a loop of rolling, upgrading, and competing—then polished it until it gleams. Its strengths lie in its responsive development, thematic consistency, and the sheer satisfaction of watching dice values climb into astronomical figures. While it lacks the narrative ambition of its predecessors, its dedication to player-driven customization and active bug-squashing sets a benchmark for similar titles. For enthusiasts of idle games, it offers a comforting, low-friction experience that rewards both fleeting sessions and long-term commitment. For historians, it exemplifies the indie idler’s evolution: from simple JavaScript experiments to feature-rich, community-driven platforms. In a genre defined by exponential growth, Incremental Dice itself may not rewrite history, but it rolls a surprisingly solid natural 20.