A Playdate game inspired by a classic

Yacht is a free casino title made by indie developer Nathan North. It is a dice game that was inspired by the classic Yahtzee and was specifically created for the portable handheld gaming console Playdate. Its goal is to play dice rolls and aim for the highest combined scores.

The gameplay and rules of Yacht have some similarities with poker games like Governor of Poker 3 or Prominence Poker. Players are essentially trying to create the “perfect hand” to form the best combination of dice and score the highest points they can at any given round.

Roll the dice

Yahtzee is a classic dice game developed around the same time as Poker Dice. It’s no wonder that some aspects of its gameplay have something in common with a classic card game, Poker. The goal is to roll five dice to score points based on a set of predefined combinations. Yacht is a modern revival of the dice game. It’s developed specifically for the Playdate handheld console.

Given you use five dice for each roll, the number of possible combinations you can land on can range in the hundreds. Some point-winning hands include a Full House(25 points), Large Straight (40 points), or Yacht (50 points). Viewed from the Playdate, everything is present in retro LCD bit graphics and is quite a nostalgic experience. You also get extra options for adjusting animation speed and reducing flashing effects.

You will need to manually sideload the game yourself to your Playdate, but the developer offers a handy guide for you to follow. One thing to note before proceeding is that it’s still in active development so there are still plenty of changes to come and bug fixes to perform in future updates. It would be nice if the signature crank mechanism gets integrated into the gameplay.

Yahtzee!!

If you played the electronic handheld version of Yahtzee back in the day and are looking for a way to experience it again, Yacht is a charming revival of the classic dice game that can be experienced by owners of the Playdate console. It looks great, plays just like the original, and offers some nice accessibility options for better gameplay. Highly recommended.