Five Dice Math was launched in October 2024 as a means to learn modern Angular. It became a functional game with educational features, deployment pipelines, and actual users (my family, reluctantly).
I also love the game of Yahtzee...like, a lot! For years, I have played various other online/mobile versions and have never been satisfied with the gameplay. And the ads....well, they suck most of the time. I'm not against ads, but I don't really care for 60-90 seconds of ads for a 2-3 minute game.
I have been jotting down notes for what I wanted in a great Yahtzee game for over five years and have amassed dozens of ideas. Some of these ideas morphed into the 'education' side, while others became 'new scoring opportunities' added to the classic game.
Now I'm at the classic developer crossroads: keep building features I think are cool, or validate that the core concept actually works first.
Spoiler: I'm terrible at the validation part. I'm reaching out to the development community for help.
Live app: www.dicemath.app
Where It Is vs. Where I Want It to Be
What Works Right Now:
- Full Yahtzee gameplay with all classic scoring rules
- Arithmetic problems (addition, subtraction, multiplication)
- Bonus mechanics: Early Outs, Full House Slight, Perfect Game tracking
- Mobile-responsive, PWA-ready, works offline
- Educational interstitials instead of ads
- Deployed on Azure Static Web Apps with CI/CD
What I Want to Build:
- Probability concepts taught through actual gameplay situations
- Algebra problems integrated into scoring decisions
- Adaptive difficulty based on player performance
- AI analysis of "play style" to personalize learning
- Teacher dashboard for classroom use
The Gap:
Turns out, teaching probability through Five Dice Math is harder than I thought. I have ideas - explaining odds when you're deciding whether to keep dice, showing expected values for different choices - but integrating them without breaking the game flow? Still figuring that out.
So before I invest months into building those features, I need to know: Is the current version even engaging enough to build on?
I Need Your Honest Opinion
Here's where I ask for help.
Try it:
Live app: www.dicemath.app
(works best on mobile, 5-10 minutes for a full game)
What I'm looking for:
From Developers:
- Does the mobile UX feel native or janky?
- Any performance issues you noticed?
- Would you have architected the scoring differently?
From Everyone:
- Is it actually engaging, or just "educational game" boring?
- Do the math problems feel integrated or tacked on?
- Would you (or your kid/student) actually use this to practice arithmetic?
- Should I build the probability/algebra features, or is the foundation not solid enough?
Brutal honesty >> polite encouragement.
If this isn't worth building on, I'd rather know now before I invest a lot more time. If it is worth it, I'd love specific feedback on what to prioritize.
Hit me in the comments or DM me. Either way, thanks for reading this far.
Live: www.dicemath.app
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