Pyramid Pick
Diceland: Deep White Sea
Published by James Ernest Games
Created by James Ernest
Illustrated by Eduardo Müller
$14.95
(It helps if you have an 8-sided die in hand for this review.)
Diceland: Deep White Sea is the first edition of a game that describes itself as, "…[A] unique concept in tabletop gaming: a quick and physical combat game using colorful paper dice." This a succinct summary of the new game designed by James Ernest, published under his "James Ernest Games" label rather than through Cheapass Games. This is not surprising, as the production values for Diceland match those of the color version of Falling and of Girl Genius: The Works. Inside the flat-pack brightly colored envelope-box can be found a full color rules sheet and 25 sheets of light card. Each, of these sheets contains the two parts that need to be punched out, scored, folded, and assembled to create a single glossy, full-color, 8-sided die or octahedron, that is also surprisingly sturdy. Every die is illustrated by the highly attractive comic book style art of Eduardo Müller.
This die is actually a character on the frozen world that has been thrown into an icy state by orbital decay, thus causing the collapse of the civilization. Now small factions squabble over the remains of that civilization, employing both magic and technology to help them win. Five factions have discovered the location of the almost legendary gigantic ship known as the Icebreaker, adrift for centuries in the "Deep White Sea" of this . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: June 7, 2002
Copyright © 2002 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.