Originally Posted July 2nd 2014 on the Seafoam Gaming Forums

RCMADIAX previously published BLOK DROP U on the Wii U eShop a few months ago. Having been excited for it, I bought it day one only to be met with the biggest eShop disappointment  for me this year. Luckily an update came out that refined and made it a great game. But will his second game, POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE, do good the first time around?

Title: POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE

System: Wii U eShop

Price: 1.99

Release date: 7/3/2014

The main game/story

Please don’t expect a story from this game. The main game is pretty much what the title says. POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE. You roll the dice, and match the numbers with their respective poker terms. Having NEVER played Poker in my entire life before this game (Though I have played solitaire), this ended up being a great first step toward the general concept. It’s also the first in the RCMADIAX “Tabletop Gallery” series, which seems to be a promising group of games.

Graphics

The “FUTURE” in the title seems to refer to this game’s visual style. While simple, the menu looks much cleaner than Blok Drop U’s menus, and the two dice colors, as well as the numbers in the dice and chips, look very nice and pop out well. The only thing I have problems with is that the actual text is a bit difficult to see, but that’s a minor problem.

Music and sound effects:

Like with Blok Drop U, there’s only one music track. Luckily this one is more catchy and better than Blok Drop U’s music track. Though it suffers from the same problem as Blok Drop U’s single song: It gets irritating if you play in long sessions. Luckily this game isn’t meant for that. The sound effects on the other hand are good and fit the game just fine.

Gameplay

As mentioned earlier, POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE is a combination of Poker and Solitaire, in a interesting and addictive way. You roll the 5 dice on the screen, which are green or purple numbers that range from 1 to 6. You can hold numbers in place to try to get certain chips put in, and you earn points from it. That’s pretty much all you do.

So why you may ask, do I find this addicting to play, let alone fun? Well, it’s the glorious setup of the game that makes it work. For example, you can hold dice to try to get a FLUSH chip (AKA hold all of the green or purple ones you get and shuffle until all 5 dice are the same color), but also try for the super rare 5 of a kind. The better you do, the more points you get and the more bonuses you receive. However if you get no matches you’ll be forced to lose a chip, which means you have to decide which one you will sacrifice, meaning you’ll lose points! It’s a wonderful game of risk and reward that is very fun to replay. With off TV support, this game is absolutely PERFECT for the quick start menu. And with the Miiverse community (hopefully) supporting screenshots, it’ll be fun to share high scores with others. The only minor problems I have regarding high scores is that there is no place on the main menu it displays your current high score, and that I’m nervous there is a “perfect game”, meaning once you get all the chips placed in perfectly, you can’t get any more points. Besides that one problem and that one worry, this game is very fun to play.

Conclusion

In conclusion, POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE is a great eShop game, and is the perfect example of a developer who starts out making an OK game, only to turn around and make a very fun one. At it’s 1.99 price tag, it’s a steal and I strongly recommend it to every high score fan out there. It’s cheap, has a lot more replay value than Blok Drop U, and the miiverse community will help encourage that. This is the beginning of the morning glow for RCMADIAX. I feel that these small games will be great for the Wii U eShop, and I wish them success on their future efforts. I reward POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE a 9 out of 10.

Thanks to RCMADIAX for the review code.