Athena
Apr 5, 2020
One of the strangest creatures a hero has to fight in D&D-style dungeon crawls is the Gelatinous Cube. When you enter the Cube's space, you take acid damage and become 'engulfed'. The Cube somehow has to be born and take shape, however, and that's what you are trying to do by rolling dice in Steve Jackson Games' Gelatinous.
A free pdf with solo rules was released by the company a few days ago, and, because I was in the mood for some silliness, I approached and engulfed JW into playing against me. Each of us equipped with 13 transparent dice, we began to roll.
According to the rules, you keep 5 dice on the side as a reserve, then roll the remaining 8. If you roll 3s, you start forming your cube. If you roll 1s, you put them into the reserve. If you roll 6s, you take a die from the reserve for every 6 you rolled. If you ever run out of dice to roll before forming the cube, you lose. And if you succeed in building the cube, you calculate your score: add the times you rolled the dice, minus the dice remaining in your hand.
From this battle, JW emerged a winner. He rolled well and boldly, creating his fuchsia jello cube in just his second try. Meanwhile, I was struggling, rolling lots of 1s and taking long to form the tiers. My fluorescent green cube was erected after 3 failed attempts. JW's cube had devoured me.
If you have 5 minutes to spare and feel like rolling dice for no special reason, do give Gelatinous a try. And come here and tell us how well you did.