Dice and tabletop games built for the phone already in your pocket — roll, score, pass it on.
Dice are the one part of a board game nobody has to learn. You shake, you let go, and everyone at the table leans in at the same moment. That moment survives almost anything — a bus seat, a queue, four people in a kitchen with one phone between them. Most of what lives on a phone does not.
DICE AND BARREL started from that small, stubborn idea: take the games people already know how to play — the five-dice scorecard, the press-your-luck roll where you stop or you lose the lot, the bluffing game where everyone lies about what's under their cup — and build them for a screen that gets picked up and put down fifty times a day.
That shaped what we kept and what we cut. A turn should fit in the gap before the kettle boils. The scorecard should be readable at arm's length, because somebody is always holding the phone and somebody is always squinting at it. A game you abandoned on Tuesday should still be sitting there on Thursday, exactly where you left it, with your opponent's roll waiting. Nothing should ask you to come back at a particular hour to collect a particular thing.
The barrel is the cup. It's the thing you rattle before you commit, the pause where you decide whether to push your luck or bank what you've got. We spend most of our time on that pause — on how long it lasts, what the dice sound like, how much the game lets you stew before someone tells you to roll. Get that right and the rest is arithmetic.
Board modes came next, because dice want a track to move along. Race boards, tile grids, a few that we made up and a few that have been played in one shape or another for a very long time. They share the same rooms, the same friends list and the same two-minute turn, so moving between them costs nothing more than a tap.
We are a small team and we build in the open. If you want to play something before it's finished, run a private room for your group, write about it, or ask what's actually playable today — the form below reaches us directly, and a person reads it.
Five-dice scorecards, press-your-luck rolls and bluffing under the cup. No tutorial longer than the first game.
Race tracks and tile grids that use the same dice, the same rooms and the same short turns.
Play live when everyone's around, or take your turn and leave it. The table waits for you.
Open a room, share the code, play with the people you actually wanted to play with.
Everybody gets the same dice in the same order. Same luck, different nerve.
Pass-and-play for when you're all in the same room and only one battery survived.
Screens, tables and the cup mid-rattle.
Pick the one you'd ask for by name.
The five-dice scorecard game, three rolls a turn, boxes to fill and one you'll regret leaving empty.
Keep rolling or bank what you have. The whole game is that one decision, repeated until someone cracks.
Race tracks and tile grids where the dice move pieces instead of filling boxes.
A closed table for your group: one code, the people you invited, any mode you like.
One table a day, the same sequence of dice for every player. Luck stops being the excuse.
Modes ship when they're finished rather than on a schedule — ask us what's playable right now.
Playtesting, a private room for your group, press, or just what's playable today — write to us here.
Thanks — someone from the team will get back to you shortly.
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