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STRATEGY
Slice & Dice Review: A Roguelike That Made Me Forget I Hate Randomness
After thousands of hours watching RNG ruin my life in other games, I found myself voluntarily playing a game where dice control everything. I'm as surprised as you are.
Paul
February 22, 2026
8.5
Overall Score
"Here's the thing: I went into Slice & Dice ready to write my usual "dice games are just gambling with extra steps" review."
First Impressions (Or: When Did I Start Trusting Dice Again?)
Look, I've been burned by RNG more times than I can count. Every auto-battler, every card game, every roguelike that promised "strategic depth" but really meant "pray harder." So when I downloaded Slice & Dice expecting another dice-chucking time-waster, I was ready to write my standard "randomness ruins everything" rant. Except something weird happened. Thirty minutes into the demo, I was... strategizing? Actually thinking three turns ahead? Planning hero compositions like I was back in my XCOM days? The game opens with a simple premise: you've got a party of heroes, each represented by a die face. Roll them, use their abilities, don't die. Standard stuff. But within two battles, I realized this wasn't just yahtzee with HP bars. Every decision mattered. Every reroll had weight. And shockingly, when I lost, it felt like MY fault, not the dice gods laughing at me. That's when I knew I was in trouble, because I was about to lose an entire weekend to this thing.
The Tactical Core: Where Randomness Meets Actual Decisions
Here's what tann understood that most dice game developers miss: randomness is only fun when you can manipulate it. Each hero has different face values and abilities. Positioning matters. Timing matters. Do I use my healer's big heal now or save it? Do I reroll this attack die hoping for the shield instead? Should I focus fire or spread damage? These aren't rhetorical questions the game pretends matter â they're the difference between victory and watching your party get demolished. The hero synergies are where this really shines. Put a Berserker next to a Cleric and suddenly you've got a self-healing tank. Add a Mage who buffs attack values and you're cooking. I found myself theorycrafting team compositions like it's 2004 and I'm optimizing a World of Warcraft raid again, except this took thirty minutes instead of six hours and nobody yelled at me for my gear choices. The roguelike structure keeps every run fresh. Random encounters, different hero unlocks, various difficulty modifiers. It's the Slay the Spire formula done with dice, and it works because the combat system can support that much variety without falling apart.
What Actually Works (Reluctantly Admitting Quality)
The UI is clean. Information is clear. I never had to guess what an ability did or squint at tiny text. When I tap a hero, I see their potential outcomes. When I target an enemy, I see exactly what will happen. This sounds basic, but you'd be amazed how many indie tactics games fail at basic readability. The progression system respects my time, which is practically revolutionary. Runs take about thirty minutes. I can pick this up on mobile during my commute, play a full run, and feel satisfied. Or I can chain five runs together on desktop because I'm chasing that perfect team comp. The difficulty curve is smart. Early battles teach mechanics without hand-holding. By mid-game, you're making real tactical choices. Late-game encounters will absolutely destroy you if you're not thinking ahead. And here's the kicker: there's a free demo that lets you play enough to know if you'll like it. Remember when demos were standard? When developers were confident enough in their game to let you try before buying? That alone makes tann better than half the industry.
The Audiovisual Experience: Functional, Not Fancy
Let's be honest â the pixel art is serviceable. It's not going to blow your mind or win awards, but every hero is distinct, every enemy is readable, and the animations convey information clearly. That's what matters in a tactics game. I'd rather have clear visual feedback than gorgeous sprites that make it hard to tell what's happening. The sound design does its job. Dice rolling sounds satisfying enough. Impact effects feel weighty. There's no music that'll stick in your head for days, but there's also no audio that made me reach for the mute button within five minutes. This is rare. Most indie games either have grating sound loops or they throw in some generic royalty-free soundtrack that clashes with everything. Slice & Dice just... works. It's not going to win any presentation awards, and honestly, that's fine. This is a tactics game built on mechanical depth, not visual spectacle. The presentation serves the gameplay without getting in the way, which is exactly what it should do.
What Still Bugs Me (Because Nothing's Perfect)
The $18 price point on itch.io is fair value, but the developer's own note that it's cheaper on other platforms is weird. I appreciate the honesty, but it makes the itch version feel like a convenience tax. Just price it appropriately everywhere and move on. Some hero unlocks feel gated behind specific strategies or luck, which can make early runs feel samey until you crack open more options. I'm fine with unlocks, but front-load a bit more variety so new players don't think they've seen everything after three runs. The pixel art, while functional, lacks personality. I can't point to a single visual element and say "that's distinctly Slice & Dice." Compare that to Slay the Spire's memorable character designs or Into the Breach's clean mech aesthetics. This game could use a stronger visual identity. And yes, I'm being picky here because the game is good enough that these minor complaints are what I'm left with.
Why This Actually Matters in 2025
We're drowning in roguelikes. Every other indie game is a deck-builder or a run-based something. Most of them fail because they copy the structure without understanding what makes the genre work: meaningful decisions under pressure. Slice & Dice gets it. Every roll matters. Every hero choice matters. Every route through the encounter map matters. It's not pretending to have depth â it actually does. The mobile version being included is huge. I've been playing this on my phone during lunch breaks and it works perfectly. Touch controls are responsive, the interface scales well, runs are short enough for mobile play but deep enough to stay engaging. This should be the standard for premium mobile games, but instead we get gacha garbage and endless ads. That 4.9 rating from 747 people isn't an accident. This is a small game made by one person that respects your time, your intelligence, and your wallet. It's not trying to be the next big thing. It's just trying to be a really solid tactics game with dice, and it succeeds completely at that modest but worthy goal.
Rating Breakdown
Quality
8.5
Shockingly polished for an indie â no crashes, clean UI, and it actually saves my progress without corrupting everything.
Innovation
7.8
Tactical dice combat isn't new, but the hero combos and decision trees here create something I haven't quite seen since... actually, I can't think of when.
Value
9.2
Eighteen bucks for dozens of hours across desktop AND mobile, with a free demo that doesn't insult you â this is how you do it.
Gameplay
8.7
I started the demo at 9 PM and suddenly it was 2 AM, which hasn't happened since Slay the Spire first destroyed my sleep schedule in 2017.
Audio/Visual
7.3
Pixel art is competent and readable, sound effects do their job without grating â it's fine, not memorable, but I wasn't here for eye candy anyway.
Replayability
9.4
Unlockable heroes, random encounters, different builds every run â I've played this forty times and I'm still finding new synergies, which is frankly annoying because I have other games to review.
What Didn't Annoy Me
Actually strategic dice gameplay where decisions matter more than luck
Generous value at $18 for desktop AND mobile with a proper free demo
Runs are perfectly paced at 30 minutes â respects your time like games used to
Hero synergies create genuine build variety across dozens of runs
Clean UI that never makes you guess what anything does
Unlockables that add depth without feeling like artificial grind
What Made Me Sigh
Pixel art is functional but forgettable â no distinct visual identity
Price structure across platforms is confusing even with developer's explanation
Early hero pool feels limited until you unlock more options
Sound design is merely adequate, nothing you'll remember after closing the game
Some unlock conditions require specific strategies that aren't obvious
Final Verdict
Here's the thing: I went into Slice & Dice ready to write my usual "dice games are just gambling with extra steps" review. Instead, I found myself playing run after run, optimizing team comps at 1 AM, and genuinely enjoying tactical decisions in a genre I usually dismiss. This is what happens when a developer understands that randomness is a tool, not a crutch. At $18 for both desktop and mobile, with a demo that actually lets you evaluate the game properly, this is one of the better roguelike purchases you can make in 2025. It's not perfect â the presentation won't wow anyone and the pricing across platforms is needlessly complicated â but the core gameplay loop is so solid that I keep coming back despite having a review backlog the size of my Steam library. If you like tactics games and don't mind dice deciding your fate (as long as you can manipulate those dice intelligently), this is worth your time. Just download the demo first. You'll know within an hour if this clicks for you, and if it does, you've just found your next thirty hours of gaming.
Slice & Dice
Genre
Strategy
Developer
tann
Platform
Windows, Mac, Linux
Release Date
Jan 1, 2021
Rating
8.5
/10
Tags
roguelike
dice
tactics
strategy
pixel-art
turn-based
itch-io
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