Saturday, August 6, 2011

Dice Soccer - A Sports App For Indoor Kids


I've been playing this app all morning.

It's called Dice Soccer and it's free for iPhone and iPad. You create a soccer team (football for some folks.. probably most folks), and each player is represented by a unique 6 sided die. Instead of moving your players around like most iPhone sports games, you will just roll the dice and let the numbers take over. It's as far from physical activity as humanly possible. You'll roll the dice by shaking the phone, or for the ultimate in laziness, you can just tap the screen. (my preferred method of playing).

Each die can be made up of numbers or bonuses. An example of the roll possibilities would be: 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, and (+1). Your front line of 3 players will all roll, while the AI opponent rolls for their players. You will then add any bonuses to your players, such as "+1" or "re-roll", and you can also use something like "−1" or "re-roll" against your opponent.


The game has a rewarding RPG-ish level-up system of gaining points to purchase new players, which have way better die roll possibilities. And there are 80 characters to choose from, broken down into different positions. They are all unique with full bio cards. One that I recently unlocked is fully nude with a few pixels over his privates (his bio says "Randy is completely nuts!"), another is a goalie named Ikea Quesadillas.


The art is solid, and the app is super professional looking. The various characters and teams are a lot of fun as well. The gameplay is obviously slower paced than a soccer game app (and an actual soccer game) but the action is in the die rolls, bonuses, and building a team.

I need to mention this as well because it's usually a major pet peeve. There is a forced tutorial in the beginning of the game. In this case, it's needed because the game doesn't play in a familiar way. But the tutorial is so simple. It's about 2 quick screens and then you're playing the game. There are a few screens after you reach certain stages of the game, but they've kept them right to the point, and interactive. I wish more developers would head in this direction.



iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dice-soccer/id435873519?mt=8

3 comments:

  1. I checked it out after reading this and I'm really digging it. I'd love to see the same gameplay in a different style of game.

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  2. And soccer it is!

    Yeah, it's a whole different feel for an iPhone sports game. The pacing and style almost reminds me of something like Advance Wars.

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