In Dicevaders from Pengonauts and Playstack, players roll dice to unleash an alien invasion. The aim is to boost attack values to absurdly high levels by positioning units strategically, triggering combos, and forming powerful synergies.
Dicevaders is a dice-based roguelike deck-building game in which players lead an alien invasion. In this standalone spinoff of StarVaders, players take on the role of invading alien commanders and are challenged to conquer Earth. Players draft and manipulate the dice row to build an army, unleashing powerful combos through synergies and strategic play. Everything revolves around the number of eyes on the dice.
In every turn-based battle, the objective is to exceed a specified attack value within a few turns by positioning one's army cleverly and making the most of the dice rolls in order to overcome the defence. For this purpose, there is a grid consisting of six columns, each corresponding to a number on a standard D6 die (column 1 for 1, column 2 for 2, and so on). During the placement phase, various alien units can be moved strategically into these columns. Special spots for multipliers or artefacts are located above the columns, and these can drastically increase the total value of a column once activated. Each number on a die activates the corresponding column. For example, rolling a 3 activates the third column, triggering the abilities of all units placed there, as well as the artefact, and contributing their strength to the total attack score. More devastating combos are triggered if pairs, triples or quadruples of the same number are rolled.
Dicevaders © Pengonauts and Playstack
However, luck is not the only factor at play. There are also ways to manipulate the dice. For instance, players can manually adjust the roll by +1 or -1 to deliberately direct the dice into the column with the strongest units. Alternatively, they can force pairs and triples. On the other hand, Chrono can be used to roll the dice completely afresh or to refresh the shop. These actions are limited, though. While this may sound simple, it quickly becomes addictive as the builds escalate relatively quickly once the basic system has been grasped. After the attack, the placement and shopping phase begins again. During this phase, players place units of varying rarity levels on the grid, unlock more slots, purchase artefacts and upgrade them with XP. Keywords, triggers and their actions are clearly visualised and explained. Due to the large number of interacting artefacts, unit abilities, and multipliers, it can be difficult to work out exactly why a certain score was triggered, particularly at the start, and what is particularly strong.
During the runs, players can experiment with ten different Commanders, each with their own unique perks and synergies, to trigger the most effective combinations and chain reactions from the sixty different units that can be placed on the grid. Added to this are 120 artefacts, which enable even more powerful combinations and significantly increase attack power. Further variety comes from 30+ constellations (sets of artefacts that modify the units' abilities), six difficulty levels, 13 additional challenges in the Multiverse campaign, and daily challenges.
Dicevaders © Pengonauts and Playstack
"I had a crazy dream about a dice-based game in the same universe, so I put together a prototype in a few days. Somehow it ended up being way better than it had any right to be. From the beginning, the goal was to create a numbers-go-up game that rewards strategy and planning rather than pure luck. The more we worked on it, the more we realized that we accidentally made a really cool game." - developer Axolotl at Pengonauts
Dicevaders is being developed by Pengonauts, a small independent development team based in Montreal, Canada. The studio is best known for creating StarVaders. The publisher is Playstack, which is based in the United Kingdom. This premium indie game publisher is behind hits such as Balatro, Abiotic Factor, and Unbeatable. They recently enjoyed great success with the Souls-like Mortal Shell II, and their next release is scheduled for October 2026: Star Trek: Outposts Unknown, a colony simulation developed by Magic Fuel Games. Other upcoming titles in the portfolio include About Fishing, PACS - Post Apocalypse Courier Service, Lorn Vale, Abiotic Factor - Entropic Break (DLC) and Locator: The Search for Abigail Lidari.
Dicevaders was launched on 29 September 2026, priced at £12.99/$14.99/€14.99, for PC, Switch and Switch 2.
Dicevaders' clever and customisable dice mechanics spark fast-paced and escalating builds. It’s another exceptional roguelike deck-building game.
