Dicevaders flips the traditional deckbuilder on its head: instead of defending Earth from cosmic threats, you lead the alien invasion force. Developed by Pengonauts and set in the StarVaders universe, the game challenges you to deploy alien units on a tactical grid, manipulate incoming dice rolls, and scale your attack score to overcome escalating human defense benchmarks.
For beginners, the sheer number of overlapping systems—dice power, mult, budge, Chrono, and board positioning—can feel overwhelming. This beginner guide breaks down the core mechanics, explains the underlying scoring math, and details practical strategies to help you conquer your first campaign run.
Understanding the Core Game Loop and Scoring
Each round in Dicevaders gives you a target defense score that you must equal or surpass within four turns. If you fail to hit the target score before running out of turns, you lose a heart container and receive one extra emergency turn. Losing all hearts ends your run.
The battlefield is arranged into six vertical columns, numbered 1 through 6:
- Dice Roll: At the start of your turn, you roll three base dice. The numbers rolled dictate which columns activate during the launch phase.
- Unit Strength: Each unit on your grid possesses a baseline strength value (for example, basic starter units start at 10 strength).
- Dice Power: Each die that lands in a specific column adds +1 dice power to that column. A single die gives 1x dice power, while rolling a pair in the same column provides 2x dice power.
- Column Scoring: When you hit launch, units in active columns contribute an attack score equal to their strength multiplied by that column's total dice power.
A critical distinction players must understand is the difference between dice power and mult:
| Metric | How It Works | Timing & Application |
|---|---|---|
| Dice Power | Multiplier determined by the count of dice landing in a column (e.g., 2 dice = 2x). | Applied locally to unit strength within that specific column during launch. |
| Mult (Multiplier) | Global multiplier generated by artifacts, traits, or unit abilities. | Multiplies your entire round attack score at the end of the turn, then resets. |
Because mult acts globally on your total accumulated attack, balancing high base unit strength with reliable mult generation is the primary way to achieve millions—or even exponential numbers—of points.
Dice Manipulation: Budge, Chrono, and Mini Dice
Dicevaders is designed around controlling your luck rather than letting random rolls dictate your fate. You have two primary tools to alter your rolls:
Budge
Budge is a consumable resource that allows you to shift a die value by +1 or -1. For example, if you roll a 3 and want to trigger an artifact in column 4, spending one budge moves that die to 4.
Once a die has been modified by budge, it becomes cracked. A cracked die cannot be budged a second time during that turn unless it is refreshed or rerolled.
Chrono
Chrono serves two critical functions across a run:
- Rerolling Dice: You can spend Chrono to reroll all your active dice. You can right-click specific dice to freeze them, allowing you to keep a favorable roll while rerolling the remainder. Rerolling also restores cracked dice back to normal.
- Shop Restocks: Chrono can be spent during the shop phase to refresh the pool of units and artifacts.
Mini Dice
Certain artifacts, commander passives, and unit abilities grant mini dice. Unlike base dice, mini dice roll automatically after your main launch resolves. While they do not provide the same controllable precision as base dice, they land across your columns, trigger unit scores, activate column artifacts, and generate secondary mult.
Managing the Shop and Turn Economy
After every launch turn, you enter the shop phase. Managing your economy effectively determines whether your build scales into the endgame or stalls out.
- Unspent Money: By default, you receive $3 each turn. This money does not carry over between turns. Any unspent dollars are converted into mini dice for the next turn, unless you have specific artifacts that alter this behavior. Always spend your money on units, tiles, artifacts, or stat upgrades unless you specifically need the emergency mini dice.
- The Early Skip Dilemma: If you surpass the round's defense requirement before using all four turns, you can choose to skip your remaining turns. Skipping grants persistent Shop Rarity (such as +10%, +25%, or +50%). Higher shop rarity allows rare and legendary items to appear at the standard price.
- When to Skip vs. When to Farm: If your deck already has a functioning scaling engine, skipping early boosts your rarity to find game-winning legendaries. However, if you are struggling for base stats or need more board infrastructure, playing out your remaining turns grants additional shop phases to purchase budges, Chronos, and grid tiles.
Grid Positioning and the Sacrifice Mechanic
Placing units haphazardly across your grid will quickly ruin a run. Board layout requires intentional planning:
Column Alignment
Artifacts sit at the top of specific columns. Many artifacts trigger on specific roll outcomes—such as scoring a pair or triple in that exact column. Placing your highest-scaling units underneath columns where your artifacts trigger ensures that local dice power and artifact perks hit your strongest pieces simultaneously.
The Sacrifice Knife
In the shop, you have access to a sacrifice action. Destroying a unit using this tool removes it from the grid and permanently transfers its accumulated strength to the unit directly above it.
Sacrificing allows you to:
- Feed early-game fodder units (like starter Migos) into high-tier units with repeat triggers or area-of-effect abilities.
- Slim down your board so random triggers (such as abilities that target a random unit) consistently strike your most powerful alien.
- Open empty tiles for movement-based units like Pixies or Airships that need room to maneuver.
Warped and Cursed Items
Throughout the shop, you will encounter warped or cursed units and artifacts. These variants offer substantially higher stat scaling or game-warping multipliers, but some purchases cost a heart container in addition to the listed currency cost. Take them only when they align directly with your deck's win condition.
Navigating Boss Pilots
At the end of each act, your invasion fleet encounters a Pilot defending Earth. Pilots introduce restrictive rulesets that force you to adapt your playstyle:
- Roxy: Your dice start cracked at the beginning of the turn. Because cracked dice cannot be budged, you must either accept your opening roll or spend Chrono to reroll and uncrack your dice before adjusting their values.
- Noel: Your dice are permanently frozen and cannot be rerolled with Chrono. To manipulate your columns against Noel, you must rely entirely on your stockpile of budges.
- Zeke: Possesses heightened defense that increases by +50% whenever an artifact levels up during the battle. Defeating Zeke requires explosive raw mult scaling rather than incremental artifact upgrades during combat.
Beginner Tips for a Winning Run
- Pick the Right Commander for Your Style: The Captain gains +1 budge each turn and awards 10 XP to column artifacts after scoring a pair, making him ideal for consistent pair-based strategies. Blob Girl (Juno) starts turns with bonus mini dice that provide artifact XP upon scoring, lending herself to board-swarming strategies.
- Place Key Artifacts Toward the Center: Columns 3 and 4 are statistically easier to adjust dice into using budges. Edge columns (1 and 6) can only receive dice budged from one adjacent number, making position-specific triggers harder to hit on the borders.
- Do Not Dilute Your Board: More units does not always equal more damage. A board packed with weak units reduces the chance that random buffs, shields, or repeats land on your primary damage carry. Use sacrifices to funnel strength upward.
- Monitor the Info Panel: Use the game's menu to review damage breakdowns, tracking exactly how much attack and mult each unit and artifact produced on the previous turn.
Official game data, community patch announcements, and updates are available directly through the Dicevaders Steam Store Page and the Pengonauts Official Website.
