As the capabilities of technology continue to expand, the need for tactile interaction in gaming has also seemed to diminish. Where board games and tabletop experiences were once at the forefront of family game nights, software-based games have crept into the market. But for those who want to hold onto some of that tactile fun while also benefiting from a technological boost, GoDice is a product well worth taking a look at.
GoDice is exactly what users expect; a set of dice that wirelessly connect via Bluetooth to software for several gaming experiences. It’s a nifty little idea that makes for a compact, travel-friendly way to have a library of games at one’s fingertips while relegating some of the notekeeping (or math) to the game software itself.
GoDice Design and Setup
The GoDice comes in a case with a glass upper half and a solid bottom half that connects magnetically. The glass upper half, as one might expect, holds and displays the dice for convenient storage and features a slotted opening that will release the dice when turned at an angle. There is nothing too crazy about that but it’s a nicely designed package in its own right. The bottom half has a set of three tiny prongs as well as a compartment for storing two AAA batteries and is the key to charging the individual. In practice, anytime you want to use the GoDice, you take as many dice as you need, rest them one by one onto the prongs via each dice’s “5” side, hold it there for about 10 seconds, it should then glow green, and now it has plenty of charge to get through a bunch of game experiences.
It’s an elegant design that eliminates some of that fuss that might come with ensuring that enough dice are holding a charge. Instead, anytime you want to use the GoDice you only need to charge up the dice you are using and that process is quick and easy. The one drawback is that the charging process is dependent on having juice in the batteries and changing out the batteries requires a screwdriver. To GoDice’s credit, though, most of the games can use dummy dice if there is no way to get the GoDice charged, which basically means the game rolls digital dice for you.
Once the GoDice are charged and connected to the GoDice app on Android or iOS, it’s merely a matter of selecting a game and playing. Each game will tell you how many dice you need, ask you to roll the specific number of dice to sync them, and then you’re off and running. The process of getting into a game is so quick and easy that it eliminates some of that negotiating that usually comes with convincing family members to play a game. Not to mention the dice and the software do a lot of the work for you.
GoDice Games and Apps
Obviously, GoDice’s go-to game is Yatzy but there are some other classics like Farkle and Backgammon in its current library. In our time testing the GoDice, there were a handful of additional games added, all of which offer some fun riffs on their basic concept. Admittedly, there is only so much that one can do with rolling a set of dice, but GoDice finds enough clever ways to use its tech and deliver games that are fun and engaging. In fact, it’s the games that are a little more out of the box, like the pig diving game Shut the Pool, that offer the most fun for larger groups.
GoDice offers a few additional accessories to buy like a tray to keep the dice from rolling all over the place and shells that turn them into Dungeons and Dragons friendly dice like D20s or D100s. Combining those shells with GoDice’s Dice Calculator app, for example, can allow for quicker calculations of whether a dice roll was a success or fail. Again, it takes out the fun/drama of those DnD dice rolls, but it’s a nice touch regardless.
The big question is whether dice that pairs with software and does a lot of the work for you are worth the price tag. Right now the GoDice Full Pack that comes with 6 dice and the charging case is on sale for $89.95 but it normally retails for $119.95. That’s a steep price for convenience, and the value of GoDice is going to vary from person to person. We also found that the games were better represented on an Android or iOS tablet rather than a phone because of how clearer and bigger the presentation is. The games still work fine on a phone but using something like an iPad is preferable.
The best thing to be said about GoDice is that they work as advertised and the convenience is hard to overlook. For a lot of people being able to pull out a set of dice and get up and running in a minute will trump having to choose a game, find the box, and get everything set up. At the same time, there is something innately strange about letting a set of dice do all of the work for you. It’s almost as if the game is playing itself in a way. Still, if GoDice sounds appealing they have been a really great thing to break out at family get-togethers.
GoDice is available for $119.95 via Amazon. Game Rant was provided a pair of GoDice for this review.
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