dice game mechanics

-Heavy-
Troyes
Castles of Burgundy
Macao

-Medium-
Kingsburg
Yspahan
Saint Malo
Alea Iacta Est
Alien Frontiers

-Light-
Roll Through the Ages
Sushi Zock
Pickomino

The first thing you have to decide is whether your game will be dice only or dice + other things [tokens, cards, etc]. Once you've made that decision, the list above [will your game mechanics be light, medium or heavy] is a very good guide.

Dice only games are fairly popular, but those that get heavy play are less so. Most dice games are fillers from the light category. The heavy mechanic games tend to a more dedicated following rather than broad appeal [think collectible dice games]. I had hoped to buck this trend with a solid design of my own - COMBAT LINES.

I've always wanted to do a dice only game and searched for a defunct collectible dice game to use for components. I found CHAOS PROGENITUS and used those dice to put together a heavy mechanic game out of it, because I found the icons to be simple and dramatic. I got a mixed review from Father Geek for it. He stated there was nothing wrong with the game itself, but couldn't give me any recommendations because the players spent too much time trying to remember what the icons were [there are a plethora of icons].

We had a follow up email conversation where he made suggestions for streamlining the number of icons and provided me a detailed list of suggestions which I posted [they were very much in line with my own vision for the game if I had the money to actually publish it by myself - paying for the artwork, the custom dice, etc]. You can read the review and my follow up on BGG under the title - COMBAT LINES. That will give you some perspective on the journey I've had. Here's the link:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/918069/father-geeks-review-of-combat...

I hope you go forward in your quest - this is an area of game design which has been oddly neglected.

Had never heard of the book - was intrigued to find Knizia had written a book. After reading the review, though, this book only deals with dice games based on standard D6 dice. In that sense it valuable if you are planning on building a game around D6's, but for anything else [like collectible dice games, or my game] it's not going to be helpful at all.