Update: The situation has improved immensely since this post was written.
While I don’t think that dice rollers on your phone will ever replace the tactile awesomeness of rolling a handful of dice, I have investigated the growing number of dice roller’s available in the App Store. By and large they have been either free or only a dollar or two, which is, in most cases, too much. Of all the things that you would think would be easy to get right, an application that actually rolls the dice how you would on a games night would be one of them, surely.
Problem One: Crappy graphics…
This is almost universal amongst all of them. Only one as come close to getting it right and it has blatently stolen the graphics from the Chessex website (see our blogroll…). Others show squares that have numbers in them (regardless of the die you actually rolled), and yet others just show text (probably not the worst option in all honesty…). A simple UI that does what you’d expect, and not require obscure gestures just to use the accelerometer and which doesn’t steal from your favourite dice manufacturer would be a basic assumption for something you pay for…
Problem Two: Crappy features…
This is something that I have found most frustrating… You really want the following:
- Ability to roll multiples of one die type
- Ability to add a modifier to that die type
- Ability to roll multiple die types
- Ability to save your favourite combination of die types, multipliers and modifiers
Only one is apparently coming close to this is the D20 Dice Bag Pro ($2.99 USD/$3.99 AUD). They are the only ones who have added features to a point where it is usable (they also stole the graphics from Chessex…).
The Reviews…
After spending nearly $10 what follows is my opinion on what’s currently on offer…
D20 Dice Bag Pro
Top of the list is the D20 Dice Bag Pro. This is the only dice roller that allows you do roll multiple die types and add modifiers. It has probably the nicest UI as well. One thing that was a little annoying was the way that you add multiples of things – it wasn’t as intuitive as I would have hoped. Probably the best thing about this app is that the developer is releasing an update almost weekly, and the future features that he is promising sound quite good (like the ability to keep/drop dice from a roll, and then re-roll).
D20 Dice Bag also comes in a ‘lite’ version which doesn’t allow you to add modifiers or roll multiple die types, but is free at least. (Check out the Chessex dice set Veronica for a remarkable likeness to their images however…)
Dice Bag
This free app is really easy to use, has crappy plastic dice for images (you know, the type you have to ‘beef up’ your collection). You click on the die type you want to roll, and hey-presto, you get a number. The nice thing about this app is that it has included 3d6 and 4d6 drop lowest in the standard list of rolls.
The best part about this app is that it is free…
DiceDaemon
This app is a complete waste of money. Complete waste. The only thing that this app has on the FREE app Dice Bag is that it has ‘borrowed’ a nicer set of images from the Chessex website. That’s it. It might look pretty, but not $2.99 USD ($3.99 AUD) pretty. I don’t know how they expect to sell many copies of this app. Even for a dollar, it would be too much in my opinion.
I will give them an extra point for spelling Daemon properly though…
(Check out the Chessex dice set Translucent Purple for a remarkable likeness to their images…)
THAC0
Honestly… I don’t really know what to say about this app. They had the right idea, but it really hasn’t come together… It really hasn’t. Its difficult to use and annoying, and painful, and well… it just sucks at the moment. Its been updated recently, but still… it… well… The worst part is they charged me a dollar for it… bastards…
Anyway… check out the gallery of screenshots of the various apps in action below.
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D20 Dice Bag Pro
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D20 Dice Bag ‘Lite’
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Dice Bag
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DiceDaemon
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THAC0 Setup
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