Get a Taste of Slice & Dice In Our New Gameplay Video

Earlier this month we saw the launch of Slice & Dice, the sweet virtual reality (VR) puzzler that sees players slice and dice through blocks in order to solve a variety of puzzles. We’ve had a look at Slice & Dice ourselves, and in our new gameplay video Pete shows you how the game is played.

The aim of developer VRotein’s Slice & Dice is to get the die or dice onto a coloured square on the floor by cutting through blocks and other obstacles that get in its way. To get the biggest possible score you want to focus on solving each puzzle in as few slices as possible, offering plenty of replay value.

Slice & Dice screenshot 2

We’ve reviewed Slice & Dice, and although we had our qualms, we enjoyed the experience, saying; “VRotein claim Slice & Dice has over 20 hours of gameplay but that’s not necessarily the case as this is completely dependent on how good you are at this type of videogame. What can be said is that the latter levels will test your patience so you may want to put those controllers down once in a while. If you want a novel VR challenge, you can’t go wrong with Slice & Dice.”

You can watch Pete have his fair share of fun and mild frustrations in our gameplay video below – for all of the latest on VR videogames and the industry, keep reading VRFocus.

Review: Slice & Dice

Not a week seems to go by without another virtual reality (VR) puzzle experience being released – the last one VRFocus reviewed was FORM. So for a genre filling up with evermore brain taxing titles the need to be inventive and unique becomes a real must. Enter Slice & Dice from Korean developer VRotein, a videogame that’s all about cutting blocks to pieces to get a die into a goal. 

Slice & Dice isn’t some flashy puzzle experience that features a convoluted storyline, protracted sequences or any other fluff. It’s just you and loads of levels to to play through, each more fiendish and difficult than the last. As mentioned in the last paragraph, this videogame is about slicing blocks to manoeuvre a die from its position into a goal located in the floor of the level. To do this you’re provided with a tool that features three functions, singular slice, multi slice and explosive. All fairly self explanatory, the first only cuts one block, the second cuts through loads, while the last simply destroys one cube.

Slice & Dice screenshot 1

It’s this refined approach that works in Slice & Dice’s favour, rather than over complicating the gameplay mechanics. The levels are thoroughly thought out, mixing up these three core actions for some truly head scratching puzzles. And there are certainly a lot of them. Split across five stages each featuring 20 levels, as you would expect Slice & Dice eases you into the gameplay. VRotein gradually introduce new blocks in a fashion that’s not overwhelming so when red blocks (that can’t be cut) or ice cubes (that slide) it all feels like a natural progression.

As you delve deeper into the trickier stages you’ll find there’s somewhat of an art form to cutting blocks. This isn’t Fruit Ninja, where you’re wildly swinging away without a care in the world, this is precision stuff. To get the desired angle you can teleport around the area and notch yourself higher and lower. Getting this just right is a crucial factor as the die could just roll completely away from the goal. When you go to make a slice an area of the block is highlighted pink – signifying what’s about to be removed – and this can be done as many times as you like, although the fewer cuts mean a better score.

Completing levels earn you stars, do it within the allotted parameters VRotein has set and you’ll earn the maximum three. This is where Slice & Dice tries to mix in some replayability just as other puzzle titles do. Once you’ve finished all the levels you can go back and try to finish any that you didn’t max. It’s a tried and tested method, but with the inventiveness found through the rest of the videogame it’s a shame the studio didn’t come up with a more original solution.

Slice & Dice screenshot 2

VRotein claim Slice & Dice has over 20 hours of gameplay but that’s not necessarily the case as this is completely dependent on how good you are at this type of videogame. What can be said is that the latter levels will test your patience so you may want to put those controllers down once in awhile. If you want a novel VR challenge, you can’t go wrong with Slice & Dice.

80%

Awesome

  • Verdict

VR Puzzle Title Slice and Dice Released on Steam

Puzzle titles are the bread and butter of virtual reality (VR). Easy to get into and able to absorb the user’s attention in the addictive way puzzle videogames can, they often serve as a great introduction for people new to VR. Korean Developer VRotein are hoping to get more people involved with VR with the launch of its new puzzle title Slice and Dice.

The aim of Slice and Dice is to get the dice into the goal, which is on the floor of each stage. The dice and positioned on the top of various cubes, which the player must strategically slice apart in order to get the dice into the goal. There are various cube types, which all have their own physical properties. As the player progresses, the difficulty increases by adding the number of layers the player must get the dice through before reaching the level floor.

The title currently has 100 stages available, which equates to roughly 20 hours of total play time. The developers have aimed to make the experience of watching to be as enjoyable as the experience of playing, with an audience able to watch and offer advice on the most efficient way to solve the puzzles, or just to mock the player’s performance.

Slice and Dice is compatible with both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift and requires motion controllers. Several languages are supported, including English, French, German, Korean and Japanese. The title is available through Steam with a 20% launch discount, reducing the price to £5.59 (GBP) from the usual £6.09. The discount will end on 7th June, 2017.

A launch trailer is available to view below.

VRFocus will bring you further updates on Slice and Dice and other Steam VR titles as it becomes available.

Korean Publisher VRotein Launches 5 Gear VR Titles

Asian studio’s are fairly prolific in the virtual reality (VR) field – Oasis Games for example has published four titles for PlayStation VR – and this week VRotein continues that trend by launching five videogames for Samsung Gear VR.

All arriving on the same day, those titles are: Slice & Dice, Kingdom Watcher, Ttoring Wars, Cranga and Shooting Nightmare. Cranga is probably the most well known of the bunch, having arrived in December 2016 for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with Touch. This is based on the classic block moving Jenga game, instead this time it’s giant shipping containers that have to be moved delicately, with certain ones having different attributes to increase the challenge.

Kingdom Watch screenshot

Slice & Dice is a puzzle title where players have to manoeuvre a dice to a goal by altering the world around it. This is achieved by manipulating various objects located around the dice with the Slice gun. This has three functions, Single Slice cuts through a single cube, the Multi Slice cuts through multiple cubes and finally the Explosive Slice that completely destroys the cube. The  cubes also have different physical characteristics like the Heavy, Titan, Time and Ice Cubes. Many other obstacles will appear throughout the levels that will attempt to hinder players progress.

Kingdom Watcher is a tower defence shooter created by Subdream Studios. Players sit in a tower from where they can fire arrows at build locations to create defenses. After they’ve been built, upgrades can be added to improve their destructive capabilities. Players can also directly attack enemies with their bow and arrow to ensure success.

TToring Wars is a player vs player sport similar to dodgeball. Armed with a selection of balls, players throw them at their opponent to try and stun them to win or by sending more balls than the opponent after the time runs out. Whilst doing this, they must also watch out for incoming balls, jumping or dashing out of the way.

Lastly there’s Shooting Nightmare, an arcade style wave shooter with a voxel-based design. Players have three upgradable guns to choose from, and there are global leaderboards to compare scores.

VRotein also plans to bring all five videogames to Google Daydream, but the publisher hasn’t yet confirmed when that’ll happen.

Checkout the trailers below and for further updates on the latest Gear VR releases, keep reading VRFocus.