Of Dice and Minions: Steam Next Fest Dice Roguelite Demo

Of Dice and Minions (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the capsule key art.

Dude, Of Dice and Minions is the dice roguelite demo I am queuing up first this Steam Next Fest. You roll five dice, hold the good ones, reroll the rest, and chase a poker hand. Then every die turns into minions and the whole army charges on its own while you watch. It is a roguelite auto battler from solo dev Foorbytes, the free demo is live right now, and the full game launches on Steam on November 16, 2026. App ID 4984370, Windows, Mac and Linux. No price is listed yet.

Lowkey the pitch lands in about four seconds of trailer. Roll, the green dice lock in, the dice tray flashes FULL HOUSE!, and a wave of tiny skeletons, archers and knights floods the floor. For real, that loop is hella readable.

Open the clip on X if the embed does not load. Cut from the official Of Dice and Minions Launch Trailer.

What is Of Dice and Minions?

The Steam store calls it a game where you roll five dice and chase poker hands to summon a minion army, then watch it fight, while you hold, reroll, recruit and counter your way down 100 floors. The store even quotes one player calling it "Balatro meets autobattler", and that is a fair one line read.

Here is how a fight works, straight from the store page:

• Each die carries a minion. Roll high and more of them show up. Hold a pair, gamble on a straight, or chase the full house that brings the whole crew in.
• Unused dice are not wasted. They burst into Gold, XP, healing, extra damage or another minion, so even a low roll helps.
• Armies have roles. Tanks take the front, ranged minions fire from behind, and healers keep the crew standing.
• You commit, then you watch. Pick recruits, commit the hand, and both armies go at it. Enemies sometimes heckle your roll.

Steam players tag it Strategy, Auto Battler, Dice, Roguelite, Tactical, Dungeon Crawler, Pixel Graphics and Fantasy. No Horror tag, and no AI disclosure on the store page we checked. Steam age ratings list it for fantasy violence.

Five of a kind is pure chaos

The hand you want is five of a kind. One store screenshot shows exactly why: on Floor 16 the screen yells CHAOS! FIVE OF A KIND! with a bonus of +20 extra units, 3x damage and 3x health, a jackpot multiplier pops, and the tray fires a whole column of minions at a line of green goblins. That is a sick payoff for one lucky roll.

Of Dice and Minions (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the five of a kind screenshot.

If you played Dicevaders, you already know how good it feels when a dice roguelike makes every number matter. This one swaps the shooting for an army that fights itself.

Second Wave and bounties

The clutch mechanic is the Second Wave. Some fights post a bounty: roll the dice it asks for, and one of the prizes is a fresh hand with two rolls to send in another army once the battle starts. If your first army falls, the surviving enemies wait for you. The demo update before the fest added a bounty page to track this, plus a new Small Straight hand, golden boss chests, a livelier dice tray, cleaner controls and Spanish in beta.

Of Dice and Minions (Steam). Hover for a Voidge draft sketch inspired by a fragment of the Second Wave screenshot.

Between fights: reels, chests and a shady goblin

Runs are not just fight, fight, fight. Between battles you memorize a disappearing roll, stop slot reels at the right moment, or gamble at a dice table. Chests let you pick a prize, and a sealed goblin envelope is a straight 50/50 between 150 Gold and a level. Camps let you heal, swap recruits, or carve an unwanted face off a die. There is a shady goblin shop with relics that each come with a boon and a catch.

The meta loop is chill too. Unspent Gold stays yours when a run ends, so you buy new recruits, permanent shop upgrades and a better Backpack for deeper starts. Every 20 floors there is a checkpoint where you keep going or cash out and bank the Gold.

What the trailer shows

Our clip keeps three takes of pure play from the official Launch Trailer (movie 257412148). First, a roll on a blue floor where green dice lock in and FULL HOUSE! spawns a crowd of minions. Second, a lava floor where SECOND WAVE! GO! sends in a fresh army and a Small Straight lands. Third, a five of a kind army of purple wizards and skeletons slamming into the enemy line. The full trailer also teases bosses like Grum the Gatekeeper and The Pale Reaper.

What is in the Next Fest demo?

The Of Dice and Minions demo has been on Steam since October 6, 2026, and the dev's Next Fest post lays out what you get:

• The tutorial and Floors 1 to 20 of the dungeon
• The first two bosses, who roll dice of their own
• Boon dice and bounties

The demo is separate, so no saves, progress or achievements carry over. The full game goes to 100 floors across ten zones, each with a dice rolling boss, then unlocks Endless after Floor 100, with a level cap of 50 and a nonstop boss rush by Floor 151 at the latest. Steam lists 100 achievements, full controller support, mouse only and touch only options, Steam Cloud, and six languages: English, German, Spanish (Spain), Japanese, Russian and Simplified Chinese. Steam Deck is not rated by Valve yet, though the dev says it plays great on Deck.

Who is Foorbytes?

Foorbytes is a one person studio. The Next Fest post is signed by Rob, and the X account @Foorbytes (about 218 followers) describes itself as a solo dev making Of Dice and Minions. The account is active: a Next Fest day one post on October 19, demo posts all weekend, and a shout out for making a creator's Best New Indie Trailers of September list. This is the dev's first Steam Next Fest, so a wishlist actually matters here.

Is the demo worth it?

Early demo reviews read Positive, with 10 of 11 recommending it as of about 19:05 BRT on October 19. Players praise the art, the music and how the UI explains everything, and one compares it to 9 Kings and Dwarves: Death, Glory and Loot, but faster into battle. The honest knock from the one negative review: the Floor 20 boss felt like a wall and Gold came in slow.

My verdict: fire concept, and the five of a kind moment alone is worth the download. Grab it if you like dice builders, auto battlers or Oh!Ware style twists on old games. Skip it if you want hands on control in combat, because once you commit, the minions are on their own.

Image credits & rights

Images on this page are hotlinks from the official Steam store assets for Of Dice and Minions, used with respect for their copyright.

• Of Dice and Minions on Steam
• Of Dice and Minions Demo on Steam
• Foorbytes (@Foorbytes) on X
• Foorbytes website
• Screenshot sources remain on the Steam CDN (capsule and store screenshots for app 4984370). Voidge hosts only purple crop-inspired draft sketches for hover and fallback, plus the short blog clip.