DoubleSix Dice: Generation Two (Kickstarter)

It’s our CrowdFUNding Spotlight, and once again I am talking about dice. I love polyhedral dice. Their colours are beautiful, the shapes and angles remind me of faceted gemstones, and when I hold them in my hand, they feel like they WANT to roll. The only problem is, I don’t play DnD; I play games like Yahtzee, Penk, and backgammon. Games that require D6s. Blocky, boring, stackable D6s that you are never sure if they are going to roll or just land flat on one side.

Well, apparently I wasn’t the only one with this problem, because Matt Fleming of Arlington, Virginia created the DoubleSix, a 12 sided die that counts to 6. Listening to the requests of his backers, he also made a TripleFour design, for those of us who still don’t know how to read (or roll) a D4 pyramid. The tag line for this Generation 2 campaign is “why are we still rolling cubes?” and based on the success of the first DoubleSix kickstarter, we won’t have to anymore. After selling out of many of the designs from his online store , Matt could have just ordered more of the same from his supplier. Instead, he decided to experiment with new finishes such as glitter, smoked, double-smoked, translucent, and frosted in addition to the original matte, glossy and marbled styles.

The pledge levels for this campaign are fairly reasonable. For $11 (USD) you get the Small Bag o’ Dice, which includes a dice bag and 12 dice (3 sets of 4). The Large Bag o’ Dice is $17 and has 20 dice (5 sets of 4) in the same black bag. For $23 you get “The 1723”, a bag containing 7 sets of 4 dice. Matt assures us that there is a significance to the number, though I haven’t figured it out yet. Finally, for $41, you get the Bulk Pack. Two bags, and a total of 52 dice (13 sets of 4) plus unlimited add-ons (4 dice at $4) without adding to the shipping.

Yes, shipping is extra. For the first three pledge levels, shipping is $4 in the USA, $10 to Canada, and $14 to the rest of the world. For the Bulk Pack, it’s $5 in the USA, $17 to Canada, and $23 to the rest of the world.

On the Campaign page, Matt explains all the effort he has gone through to keep his product quality high: hand-poured resin, deeper and clearer pips, limiting the number of times a mold is re-used, standardizing the polishing proceedure. He even promises a money-back guarantee for unsatisfactory dice.

There are several things I like about this campaign. I love the concept, both the DoubleSix and TripleFour designs. I like the fact that a bag is included with every order, instead of being an add-on or a stretch goal. I like that a single pledge can include multiple designs/colours/finishes. I like the fact  that the hard work (finding a supplier, designing and producing the molds) has already been done. There is only one thing that concerns me, and that is the fact that the designer has chosen to do a poll to decide which colours and finishes will be produced, while the campaign is still taking place. Based on the comments I have seen on the campaign page, quite a few people have found this poll to be confusing.

You can back DoubleSix Dice: Generation Two, which is already deep into stretch goal territory, on Kickstarter until April 30, 2019.

You can find DoubleSix Dice online at www.doublesixdice.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/doublesixdice.