Dice games

Zarif Backgammon has three computer levels, Easy, Medium and Hard, and keeps a separate record of wins, games and streak for each. Hard is the only level that weighs risk against the match score. Undo takes moves back until you press Done, and 20 missions run from a first win to 25 match wins, 100 checkers hit and three match wins in a row against Hard.

Haveli Ludo lets you change the house rules before you start: how tokens leave the yard, the sixes rule, whether captures happen everywhere and how many tokens must come home. Its tournament has twelve tables in six venues, from one against one to four players and two against two with a computer partner, each table with its own regulars. The free match lets any seat be a computer, a friend on the same device or empty.

Rollick Dice offers three rule sets: Classic with 13 boxes and a 35 point bonus, Scandinavian Yatzy with pairs and a 50 point bonus, and Maxi with six dice and 20 boxes. An eight hall campaign of 32 matches against 24 rivals adds a house rule per hall, such as gilded boxes that score double. A gauntlet run of short five box cards lets you pick an upgrade after each one you clear, and hard mode gives you two rolls a turn.

Portolan Trade has three boards: the 36-square harbour, a 24-square island and a rivers board with toll bridges. A campaign of 12 charters gives each table a rule of its own, and eight rivals play four styles: the builder, the hoarder, the auction shark and the cautious one. A quick game ends after 24 rounds and takes about 10 minutes against three rivals; a standard game ends when half the table is bankrupt, and a classic game runs to the last trader.

Astragal Merge Dice is played on a small grid. Each piece is one die or a domino of two, dragged onto the board or dropped with a tap on an empty cell, and a domino turns with a tap. Three or more dice of the same face that touch side by side merge into one die of the next face, on the cell where the newest die landed, and a merge that meets more dice of its new face goes on as a chain. Three sixes do not make a seven: they blaze and clear every die in the square around them.

Every die is a real cube. Tap a die and then a free cell beside it, or swipe it, and it tips over into that cell and lands on the face a real die would show, with opposite faces adding up to seven. Each roll costs one from a bank of up to five, and merges of four or more dice, every merge after the first in a chain and every blaze pay one back. There are 96 levels in eight halls, each with its own table and dice and a mechanic of its own, such as towers of stacked dice, brass rails, fuse dice, mirrors and cups. Endless runs until the piece in hand has no room, and the daily board gives everyone the same pieces.

Roll six dice. After every roll you set aside at least one scoring die: 1s and 5s, three or more of a kind, a straight or three pairs. Then you roll the dice that are left or bank the turn's points. A roll with nothing that scores is a farkle and the turn's points are lost; set aside all six and they all come back as hot dice. When someone reaches the target, the other player gets one last turn to pass them.

The charm dice are what make it different. Beat the three rivals of a hall and its charm die is yours: Sun, Lead, Twin, Jade, Star, Ember or Raven, each with one power, such as a Star face that joins any set or a Jade die that turns to its opposite face when a roll would score nothing. You seat up to three of them in place of plain dice. The circuit has eight halls and 24 rivals, with targets from 2,000 to 5,000, and a hard mode; a duel to 10,000 plays the classic game with plain dice. The daily run is ten turns with the same two charm dice for everyone that day.