DiceBall is yet another game that has creatively discovered a fun new way to use dice. Not too simple and not too difficult, this game requires you to use the simple motions of your hand on your iPhone to guide the small metal ball towards the green dice to score points based on the number the dice display. But, be careful, you don’t want to hit the red dice or run out of time!
Created by 3D Construct, DiceBall is the first 3D iPhone game I have played which is an eye opener graphic wise. When beginning the game, you are given the choice of background of the board and style of the dice – standard, colorblind, and Xmas. This allows you to mix up the game a bit, which is fantastic if you are a gamer who enjoys change. Besides the looks, you are also able to enjoy your own iPhone music while playing. All you have to do, is choose the song you wish to listen to before opening up the application, which I recommend because the in-gmae music isn’t too pleasant to listen to continuously.
When first beginning the game, you start on level 1 and are given 60 seconds to complete the level and 9 seconds to hit the green dice. If you don’t hit the green dice within those 9 seconds you lose half of one of your three hearts. Once you lose all those hearts, it is game over.
Like most games, the difficultly increases with each level. Every time you level up, you are given greater challenges, like having only one green die and the rest red, or the orange dice with plus and minus signs that pull you closer or push you away. You are also given opportunities to increase your points. For example, purple dice can triple the amount of points received when hitting the numbered dice. Besides the new obstacles, your time limit also decreases. This means you not only have obstacles to slow you down, but you have less time to hit the dice you need to.
Altogether, DiceBall is an entertaining iPhone application but tends to get a little repetitive. The fact that you can play a simple game which you control in the palm of your hand while listening to your music is pretty cool. The 3D graphics spice up the game a bit to make it clearly visible, which helps with the hand-eye coordination. DiceBall isn’t the type of iPhone application which you will want to continuously play, but it is nice to have on hand when you are sitting around and have nothing to do. I would say that it is definitely worth the .99 cent price tag, but nothing more.
Review copy provided by publisher.
