I recently won a contest to receive a prototype Dungeonmorph Die from the kickstarter campaign that I backed a few months ago. I had written about Kickstarter before, so I’ll focus solely on the die I received from the project.
The Dungeonmorph Dice are six-sided dice that display a small, square portion of a dungeon on each side. The sides are numbered, so they can be used as regular six-sided dice, but their primary purpose is to be used to create random dungeons. You simply roll a handful of these dice, assemble them together (all of the flat edges will join), and you have a random dungeon waiting to be explored.
What I received today was merely a sample of the dice from the set - a single d6 die. The thing that surprised me most about the die (and I’m not sure why it should have) is the size. Each die is about as big as a quarter. This is quite a different beast from the other custom dice (which are called “custom” but usually are only customized on one side) shown in other Kickstarter projects (like the d6 dice from the Eaten by Zombies and Carnival board games – Sorry, these links might only work for existing backers). The weight is about what you would expect for a die of this size, certainly not light, but not disproportionately so. The detail on the die is very good, everything is nicely rendered and there are no missing or misprinted details.
On the downside, the dice sides are slightly visibly concave. You probably can’t see it in the photos, but if you’re familiar with dice, you know what I’m taking about. The sides are just a tad indented. This does not detract from the design on the dice, and doesn’t seem to affect the die at all, really. I assume that this is one of the last things that the manufacturer is trying to work out before their production run. Even if they don’t, it probably won’t bother you at all. But this brought me to my next discovery…
I wasn’t ever assured (because I didn’t ask) that the die would do this, but I was curious so I tried it. I tried to make a rubbing of the die face with a pencil. Sadly, this didn’t work. The detail of the die was too fine for the pencil to pick up. If I rubbed it just right, it might be able to do it, but it was already pretty difficult holding the paper in place. It was a long-shot anyway, and certainly not practical.
Beyond that, this die is as hard to roll as you would expect a die of this size to be to roll. You might consider using a dice tower, which (in spite of being a long-time gamer that will spend money on practically anything) is something I don’t own, and will now be looking for. You can roll them by hand, it just feels like you just need a bigger angle on the surface to do so. The die has better edges than most dice, therefore doesn’t “roll” - which is usually a good thing.
All that said, this die is great! It’s exactly what I was expecting from the Kickstarter project, and the quality is pretty darn good. If all of the dice in the set turn out this well, I’ll be quite happy.
