Launchway
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Luck Aside

Set the luck aside and see how you played.

Luck Aside
Works on phone, tablet and desktop · No download · No account

What it is

Luck Aside is the roll-and-keep dice game with a scoresheet. Roll five dice, keep the ones you like and roll the rest, up to three rolls a turn, then write the result in one of thirteen boxes: ones to sixes up top, and below them Three alike, Four alike, Three and two, Run of four, Run of five, Five alike and Any five. Once you’ve rolled, every box you’re allowed to fill shows what your dice would score there, and tapping it records exactly that.

The top boxes earn 35 more once they reach 63, and the row says so. A five alike scores 50 in its box. Once that box is filled, with 50 or 0, a later five alike must go in its matching top box if that is open; if not, in any open lower box, where Three and two and the runs count in full; and only when those are full, as a 0 in an open top box. Each one earns 100 more while the Five alike box holds 50.

Luck, set aside

Play on your own, with no computers, and you play against the best possible strategy’s average, 254.6 a game, worked out for every state a scoresheet can be in. At the end the game sets the luck aside: it splits the distance between your score and that average into what the dice did and what your choices did, and the three numbers add up to your score. Luck is measured after every roll against what the position was worth just before it, so over many games it evens out, whichever way you play.

With two or more people, it says who made the best choices, whoever won. Any game with more than one seat ends with a table: the scores, and each person’s luck and choices (on a small screen, the people only). It never says which keep or box would have been better.

The dice are fair and don’t know the score: each roll is decided the moment Roll is tapped, from one stream of dice for the whole game, and the tumble only shows it.

Alone or together

Up to four people can share one screen, and people or computers can take an empty seat before anyone’s second turn. They come in three strengths, each knowing one more thing than the last. When one person plays against them, they start at the gentlest, and from the next game they step up when you beat them all and down when one of them beats you. During their turns the Roll button reads Faster: tap it, a die or a box, and they play three times faster until it’s a person’s turn again. With nobody there, two computers play.

How to play

  • Sit downRoll (sits you down and rolls), or Tap here to play
  • Keep a dieTap it; tap again to put it back
  • Roll the restRoll (its dots are the rolls left)
  • ScoreTap a box (twice for a zero)
  • Names on the columnsNames (a person icon on a small screen)

Two computers are playing when the page opens. Tap Roll to sit down and roll, or tap Tap here to play in an empty column: either starts a fresh game with you alone in the first column, and you can add computers from the empty columns. A kept die slides down onto the wooden row below the felt. After three rolls the button says Pick a box. A box that would score 0 asks for a second tap. While nobody has had a second turn, an empty column offers Tap to join and Add a computer, and a computer can be taken away with two taps on its ×. Names are never stored; they last until you leave the page. At the end, tap Play again (a tap almost anywhere does the same). Sound starts off; the speaker at the bottom right turns it on. Leave a game as long as you like: on the site nothing takes it away.

On a desktop, click as you would tap. Or use the keys: R or Space rolls, 1 to 5 keep or free a die, the up and down arrows choose a box and Enter writes it (twice for a zero), J joins an empty seat, C adds a computer, N opens names, and M turns sound on and off. Before anyone sits down, R, Space or Enter sits you down and rolls; on the result, they play again.

What isn’t settled yet

There is no coach: the result says how much your choices cost, never which keep or box would have been better. There is one set of rules, the thirteen boxes North American players know. There is no undo: a box once written stays written. There are no best scores, and nothing is kept between visits, names included. And on a tablet lying flat, the scoresheet faces one side of the table.

Build Log

  1. Build 2

    The result began splitting the gap between a score and the best strategy’s 254.6 average into the luck of the dice and the player’s own choices, and the three numbers add up exactly on the screen. Luck is measured after every roll against what the position was worth just before it, so over many games it evens out to nothing, whichever way someone plays. A bad game can now be told apart from bad dice.

Credits and licences

No third-party engine — it draws to a plain canvas. The typefaces it does use are embedded under the SIL Open Font Licence, with the copyright notice retained in the shipped file. Cover drawn from the game’s own table, tray and dice code.

Luck Aside is original work by Launchway Games.