Rune Dice

I came across a nice game via some influencer, and would like to pass on the recommendation. The game is called Rune Dice, it will come out this year, but on Steam there is a free demo you can already play. It is a game about the physics of throwing dice onto a dice tray, you aren't actually *rolling* dice. Instead you are throwing a die with a 1 on it, trying to cause a collision with another 1 die on the table. That will produce a 2, which will then automatically jump towards the closest other 2 on the table. If it can reach that, that causes another merging of the dice, the value goes up to 3, and it jumps towards the next 3, and so on. Although the dice are cubes, this isn't even limited to reaching 6. And you can cause multiple chain reactions at the same time, if you cause a collision of already existing dice.

All merged dice are moved to the left, and when all the collisions are done, the merged dice are processed. Regular dice just produce damage onto the monsters at the top of the screen that are moving towards your hero. But there are special dice with special effects, with everything from healing to setting enemies on fire. After a few throws, the table is reset and new dice appear on it, so you don't run out of targets to throw at. Combat ends if either you are dead, or all the monsters are. Then you move towards the next fight, until you reach the boss fight at the end of the map. Besides fights, there are spaces with bonuses or shops, where you can buy additional dice, runes, and relics.

Rune Dice is a roguelite game, but the demo doesn't have those lasting effects between runs yet. You can also only play two different character classes, with more to come in the release version. However, the demo doesn't prevent you from playing a complete run, and you can do that repeatedly. It might be a tad too generous there, because you could very well play this for hours, and then not feel the need to buy the game when it comes out, unless you want this roguelite progression. In any case, this is certainly fun for a while, and free, so I can only recommend it.