Halfsies Dice Are Back and Better Than Ever

Halfsies Dice are back on Kickstarter, with more color options to choose from than ever. If you have even a passing interest in dice, read on.

Almost two years ago, the first Halfsies Dice were launched on Kickstarter by John Wrot of Gate Keeper Games. We were given the opportunity to try out an early prototype of the dice and came out impressed, albeit with a caveat: it seemed that the paint used for the numbers would easily fade. We were assured that the problem had been addressed with the manufacturer and wouldn't be an issue in the final version.

Thanks to the generosity of the publisher, we now own seven production sets of Halfsies Dice, and I am happy to report that we are quite impressed. The faded paint hasn't been an issue this time around, and ultimately we have no complaints about these dice. With regard to aesthetics, they are gorgeous — the two-tone pearl texture is just a pleasure to look at, in all the varieties of color (I think "The Heir" below is my current favorite). They are solidly built, they seem to roll well, and otherwise fulfill all of the purposes of such dice. Their unique nature has given them quite a bit of popularity — at the time of writing, the campaign has funded extremely well, at nearly $32,000 in just the first week.

The only drawback I can think of is not related to the dice themselves, but really the lack of applications for such dice in the world of casual gaming. D10s and D20s are great for role-players, but you would be hard-pressed to find anything but a standard D6 in most games that are accessible to casual players. Still, they're fun to play around with and definitely great to look at — if nothing else, you can put them on your desk as a conversation starter. Hopefully, more designers and publishers of casual games will make use of specialized dice like these to add variety to their games in the future.

If you're looking for a unique set of quality dice, check out the Halfsies Dice Kickstarter campaign.