If you haven’t heard of Balatro or one of the many “chaos engine” games it is inspired by, you’ve probably been living under a rock or probably just returned from some mission in space. Or maybe you just died, like in Dice of Kalma.
Dice of Kalma begins with you dying and facing a pixelated version of Death. This version of Mr. Reaper lacks patience as you are quite vigilant in trying to escape, and offers you a chance at freedom if you don’t mind gambling on the dice slot. He also has a gigantic sword.
Considering he should be losing his patience, he has an incredible amount of free time (given my current playing time) to comment on how you’re doing and let you know what poker-style scoring combination you’ve achieved with your dice. Your “escapes” were probably some Looney Tunes or Marx Brothers-style absurdist stunt, and Death is some kind of numbers… I mean, the dice guy.
As I deduced earlier, if you’re friends with Jimmy from Balatro, you get along great with Death and his skulls. Dice of Kalma has the same “Poker Hand” system. But instead of having thirteen faces and four colors to choose from, you just have a handful (that’s five today, kids) of dice.
This means, as you might expect, a lot less chaos and “deck building” options. Still, this means that rounds are balanced to be shorter, and the ‘skull’ and hand upgrades you get between each objective are extremely critical. Do you take the skull, which gives you two extra re-rolls if you roll (only) a high dice or a straight? Will you choose the one that rerolls instead if you happen to have all your dice aligned symmetrically? The latter happens more often than you might expect, and knowing repeat plays means your strategy will repeat itself over time.
Dice of Kalma is an effortless recommendation for me. Its visual style is effortless to read, the fact that the lines don’t fall over (4-5-6-1-2) and that it can do the calculations for you if you hold your finger on the Play Hand button makes the game really great on mobile devices. It also works offline – which is uncommon.
