Ophelia Payne

Roll or Die is a minimalist, physics-based arcade game where you must maneuver a rolling ball through a crumbling environment and through obstacles across three modes: Time Attack, Endless Runner, and Obstacle Course. Speed, precision and momentum are the name of the game, both a necessity and a curse.

It’s definitely a game where you can drop in and play a few rounds, but it’s also addictive with a ‘just one more run’ mentality.

Time Attack places you in the center of a zone where your only obstacle is to stay alive as long as possible. AS you roll along, the tiles collapse under you. It’s a matter of trying to determine how fast to move and how long to stay on each tile. The tiles will regenerate, but you need to make sure you have enough tiles ahead of you to roll onto to avoid landing in the lava below.

Endless Runner is a gauntlet where you continuously move forward, avoiding sections of brick walls and jumps. The procedural path builds in speed and difficulty as you play.

Obstacle Course has you tackling a series of obstacles and checkpoints that tested my precision and my patience. Each time you fell off the course, you started back at the previous checkpoint.

I immediately swapped to an Xbox controller instead of the keyboard and mouse for the game as I really struggled with the movement of both the camera and ball at the same time. A gamepad was significantly easier.

Developed and published by Crimson Cloud Games, it’s currently in early access. This is a strong and surprisingly addictive game that is worth checking out. There is even a leaderboard so you can try to beat people who were much better than I was at the game.

**Code graciously provided by Crimson Cloud Games and Keymailer**