If you haven't heard of Balatroor one of the many chaos engine games inspired by it, then you may have been living under a rock, or perhaps returned from some mission in deep space. Or maybe you're just dead, like in Dice of Kalma.
Dice of Kalma starts with you being dead and facing a pixelated version of Death. This version of Mr. Reaper lacks patience as you're quite vigilant in trying to escape, and offers you a chance at freedom if you don't mind gambling on the slot machines. He also has a big sword.
Considering he must have lost his patience, he has an incredible amount of free time (based on my current play time) to comment on how you're doing and let you know what kind of scoring poker-style hand you've gotten with your dice. Your “escapes” were probably some ridiculous Looney Tunes or Marx Brothers style antics, and Death is kind of a numbers… I mean, dice player.
As I suggested earlier, if you are a friend of Jimmy from Balatro, then you will get along just fine with Death and his skulls. Dice of Kalma uses the same “Poker Hand” system. However, instead of having thirteen face cards and four suits to choose from, you just have a handful (five today, guys) of dice.
This, as you might expect, means that there is significantly less opportunity for chaos and deckbuilding. However, this does mean that the rounds are balanced to be shorter, and the skull and hand upgrades you get between each target are incredibly important. Do you take a skull that gives you two extra re-rolls if you roll (just) a High Dice or a Straight? Would you instead choose the one that gives you a re-roll if all your dice are symmetrically positioned? The latter happens more often than you might expect, and familiarity with repetitive games means that your strategy will repeat itself over time.
Dice of Kalma is my easy recommendation. Its visual style is easy to read, the fact that straight lines don't flip (4-5-6-1-2) and that it can do the math for you if you hold your finger down on the Play Hand button makes it really great on mobile. It also works offline – a rarity.
