The Luck Legends

The Luck Legends is a collection of simple board games using a simple mechanic I call the “Dice Deck”. Instead of rolling dice, every player has their own deck of cards to simulate a die. To “roll it”, you simply shuffle your deck and draw a random card!

In its simplest form, this is just a very easy and practical replacement for dice. For example, simply give every player a deck of cards with numbers 1 to 6. Now I could create games without requiring people to have specific dice just laying around at home!

But it turned out far more powerful than that. Now that “dice” are represented by cards … we can customize the dice (add more cards to your deck), have the different “faces” do wildly different things (with different cards and actions), and much more!

At the time of launch, the project contained 5 finished games. As usual, these range from the very simple games that even kids could play, to much more strategical and longer games. Many more games using this mechanic are planned and will be added.

Visit the official project page for the latest list of available games and any other updates.

What’s special?

I think these are my simplest games yet, but also probably my best. There’s a reason, of course, why humans invented dice looong ago and have used them in countless games ever since. Putting certain mechanics on a dice roll is just such an intuitive and simple way to get excitement, risk management, and more into a game.

But … I hadn’t designed any dice game at all until now! I didn’t want to require that my players just happen to have specific dice at home. I want my games to be completely playable by just printing and cutting a few pages (once).

When I realized I could simulate dice using my “Dice Deck” idea, it was a big Eureka moment and the ideas instantly started flowing.

Through making these games, I learned a lot about randomness and why we love dice. About when to use them (for randomness and surprise) … and when not (keep the game completely tactical and predictable). More and more, I realize how this simple mindset shift—simulate common game pieces with a printable alternative, instead of requiring people have them—leads to very unique and creative game ideas. I’ll surely be doing more of that in the future.