Dice With Buddies™ Social Game

Review by eFreeware

Dice With Buddies is a free board game from Scopely, built around the classic five-dice scoring game that many people know from Yahtzee, Yatzy or Farkle. You roll, you pick a category, you try to beat your opponent's total. It has been on Google Play since March 2012 and has passed 10 million installs, which tells you the format has held up over a long stretch of time.

The reason to consider it is the social layer. The developer's pitch is that you can play with family, friends or strangers, wherever they happen to be, and the game backs that up with friend lists, family groups and chat. If you already enjoy dice scoring games and want someone on the other end of the match, this is the version of that idea with the most company around it.

It is free to download, carries ads and offers in-app purchases, and is rated Everyone 10+. The current average sits at 4.1 from roughly 194,000 ratings, so the audience is large and broadly satisfied rather than ecstatic.

A familiar dice game with a social frame around it

Plenty of dice games exist as solo score-chasers. What separates this one is that the scoring game is only half of it. Around the thirteen turns sit tournaments, leagues, a solo campaign, custom dice and a friends system, so a match is usually one part of a larger routine rather than the whole thing.

The developer also leans on the poker resemblance, and it is a fair comparison. Full house, three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, small straight and large straight all appear as scoring categories, and a five-of-a-kind is worth 50 points. Anyone who has played poker dice will recognize the shape of the decisions immediately.

That combination is what I would weigh first. You get a ruleset most people already understand, wrapped in the kind of progression and social structure that keeps a game in rotation. The trade-off is that there are extra layers to consider, which is worth knowing before you commit to it as a daily habit.

How a match actually plays out

Each game runs thirteen turns. On your turn you have five dice and up to three rolls, setting aside whichever dice you want to keep between rolls. When you stop, you assign the result to one of the scoring categories, and once a category is filled it is gone for the rest of the game.

That last rule is where the tension comes from. A weak roll early can force you into a category you were saving, and the back half of a game is often about damage control as much as ambition. Chasing a five-of-a-kind for the 50-point bonus is the obvious gamble, and it costs you a category if it does not land.

Scoring more than your opponent wins the match and earns rewards. The developer describes the interface as easy to use, and given how simple the turn structure is, the learning curve should be short for anyone who has played a dice game before. Thirteen turns also means matches stay compact, which suits the social style of play the social features imply.

Dice Masters, boosts and the solo road

Beyond head-to-head play, there is a solo adventure built around opponents called Dice Masters. The developer says these rivals play back instantly, so you are not waiting on another person to take a turn. Beating them earns custom dice along the way, which ties the solo mode into the cosmetic side of the game.

The campaign spans many levels, with obstacles like ice blocks and flying multipliers alongside boosts. That is a different kind of challenge from the straight scoring game: you are working around interference rather than just optimizing a roll. There is also a Race mode described as a head-to-head competition with its own rewards.

I would expect this to appeal most to players who like the scoring rules but want something to do when nobody is available to play against. It gives the game a single-player floor, which matters for a title that otherwise depends on other people showing up.

Tournaments, leagues and the daily rotation

Tournaments run daily and come in several forms. Dice Solitaire, Dice Bingo and Dice Stars are billed as fresh takes on the classic rather than reskins. If the thirteen-turn format starts to feel repetitive, these are the variants meant to break that up.

There is also a league structure with more than ten leagues to climb, and prizes attached to progress. Combined with the daily tournament schedule, that gives the game a reason to be opened regularly rather than only when a friend is free. The cadence is the point here: something new is always running.

The flip side is that a live schedule asks for attention. Players who prefer to dip in occasionally will still find matches, but the tournament and league layers reward people who show up often. That is a design choice rather than a flaw, and it is worth deciding which camp you are in.

Playing with friends, family and strangers

The social side is the most developed part of the package. You can play with friends and family, or against random opponents from around the world. You can also start your own group in the game, with group chat and shared rewards.

A buddies system handles the rest: you can chat with people, challenge them and mark them as favorites so they are easy to find again. For a game built on repeat matches, that matters more than it sounds. A stable list of opponents you actually want to play is what turns a one-off download into something you keep around.

The Everyone 10+ rating and the presence of chat are worth noting together.

Custom dice, frames and boards

There is a substantial cosmetic layer. The developer advertises loads of custom dice, a large set of portrait frames and many themed game boards, and the solo campaign feeds into it by awarding custom dice for progress. Scratchers earned by finishing games can also turn up bonus rolls.

Cosmetics in a dice game are mostly about expression rather than advantage, and that seems to be how they are positioned here. Themed boards and portrait frames change how a match looks; custom dice change what you are rolling. None of it alters the thirteen-turn scoring rules.

This is also where the ads that come with the free download sit. The cosmetic catalog is clearly a big part of the experience, and how much that bothers you will depend on how much you care about how your dice look.

Who this fits

This suits players who already like dice scoring games and want opponents built in. If you have played Yahtzee, Yatzy or Farkle and enjoyed the push-and-pull of filling categories, the core here will feel immediately familiar, and the social layer gives it a reason to stay installed.

It also suits people who want a game they can play in short bursts against friends or family across distances, and those who like having a daily tournament or league to check in on. The solo campaign covers the gaps when nobody else is around.

It is less obviously suited to someone who wants a purely solitary, uninterrupted score-chasing experience. The social structure, the live schedule and the cosmetic catalog are the game, not decorations on top of it, and the developer's own framing puts multiplayer and progression at the center.

A dependable pick for social dice players

Dice With Buddies does one thing well and surrounds it with enough structure to keep it going. The thirteen-turn scoring game is proven, the poker-style categories are easy to grasp, and the tournaments, leagues and Dice Masters campaign give you somewhere to go between matches with friends.

The caveats are straightforward. It is free with ads and in-app purchases, and the daily tournament schedule is part of the experience. None of that is hidden, and none of it changes the underlying game.

If you want a social dice game with a large, established player base and a solo mode for the quiet stretches, this is a reasonable place to start. If you want a stripped-down scoring game with nothing around it, the layers here will feel like more than you asked for.

What's new in version 9.10.6

We've been working hard to enhance your experience! Our latest update includes bug fixes and updates to improve performance. We've made significant improvements to speed up load times and fix glitches or crashes you might have experienced. We're constantly striving to improve Dice with Buddies™, and we hope you enjoy the latest changes.