KDice.com - Multiplayer Risk, With Dice

If your childhood was punctuated with epic battles of Risk, you might enjoy a similar online game called KDice, which combines the elements of Risk with another game, Dice Wars. Essentially the object is the same; try and take over the “world” by conquering the most “territories”. The game is based primarily on luck; you cannot control how your dice are distributed accross the territories; however, the number of dice you receive after each turn is proportional to the number of connected territories you have in your possession (for example, if you have 4 territories, but only 2 are connected to each other, you will only receive dice for those two territories. As it is a multi-player, interactive game, you must begin by entering one of the colored “tables”. This will be your color for the rest of the game, which ends when someone has conquered all of the territories. In terms of the application itself, it is a relatively simple blend of Adobe Flash, Java, AJAX, and GWT. You can see who is playing in what regions of the map; small personalizable icons accompanied by user information indicate who is participating and in what capacity. The map updates in real time so you can see the plays being executed instantaneously, as well as how many dice players have received.

“Welcome to KDice, a multiplayer social strategy online game based on Risk and Taro Ito's Dicewars. We play games to get points to compete in monthly competitions”

KDice is fun and easy to play. Its no-frills interface makes it easy for anyone to play; children included. There’s nothing complicated whatsoever about the execution of the game; once you play everything becomes pretty clear.

The instructions could be simplified; some of the explanations regarding game play are a little foggy. Though the simple game layout will most likely appeal to some, serious gamers will probably want to pass up KDice as to a trained eye it appears very amateur in its design and peripheral advertisements limit the playing screen size.