Devil Dice

Overview

Devil Dice, known in Japan as XI, is a puzzle video game developed by Shift and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. It was released in Japan in 1998 and Europe in 1999, and by THQ in North America in 1998. The game is a million-seller and a demo version was released as a PlayStation Classic game for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) on 7 November 2007.

Devil Dice is a unique puzzle video game, where the player controls a small devil that runs around a grid covered in large dice. The player can both stand atop dice, and stand on the ground (with the dice towering above). When standing on the dice, the player can move from die to die, or can roll a die in the direction they run, revealing a different face as the die rotates. Creating a group of adjacent dice with identical pips, the size of which must be at least the number of pips, causes those dice to slowly sink into the field before disappearing. Chain reactions are possible by adding additional dice to a sinking set.

As reported by lead designer Yuichi Sugiyama, Devil Dice was created for Game Yarōze, a Japan-exclusive competition where participants competed for access to a development environment for the creation of PlayStation games intended for commercial release. The original program was held between 1995 and 1999, with over 3,000 participants and 1,200 submitted game concepts. Ultimately, over thirty Game Yarōze titles went to market, including Devil Dice and the first Doko Demo Issyo game. One of the Devil Dice programmers, Shuichi Yano, stated that he was a successful applicant of the Game Yarōze program; he further stated that the program is unrelated to the similarly-named Net Yarōze program.

Devil Dice received favorable reviews as reported by the review aggregation website GameRankings. Both GamePro and Next Generation were positive to the game despite noting its high difficulty. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of 30 out of 40.

Official trailer

Gameplay Video. Watch on YouTube

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

Puzzle

Developer

Shift

Publisher

THQ, Sony Computer Entertainment

Series

Xi

Platforms

PlayStation 3, PlayStation, PlayStation Portable

Age rating

ESRB E

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

No

Online multiplayer

Yes

Co op

No

Age ratings

USK

0

ESRB

E

CERO

A

ACB

G

Release dates

Playable today

Credits

Region

US