Elder Dice: The Color Out of Space dice reviewed!

I have written about Infinite Black's Elder Dice before, and commented here, and I've even used their dice to highlight things like the importance of theme and contrast. With three wildly successful Kickstarters under their belts, and having sold hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dice, their latest release, The Colors out of Space (nicely, if unintentionally timed, I must say), it was their largest, most ambitious, and also their most confusing and chaotic KS campaign to date.

Now that the dice have finally made their way stateside, a great number of fans are posting pics, and taking to social media to express their feelings about their new acquisitions. I am, it seems, no different.

I won't get into the peripheral things that ended up showing up in the box for two reasons: 1. I have real, deep, and tangible buyer's remorse over the amount of money I spent for things I not only don't need but will never use, and 2. The dice are all that really matter at the end of the day. So let's get into this and see what's what.

The Colors out of Space Dice by Infinite Black
SCORE: 3.5/5
Clarity...Yes
Heft...Yes
Color...Sorta
Theme...Yes
Value...No

 (click to enlarge)

These are the tubes of d6 dice I bought, mostly because it was included with my pledge group. I specifically got the Mark of Cthulhu dice in green because, well, Duh! And I've got other games that use the d6s, so these will work just fine. Between the three campaigns, I have forty-five d6 dice from this company. That's...quite enough d6s.

 Of course, the packaging and presentation continues to be top notch with Infinite Black. All of the boxes look like mythos tomes, and there's a protective sleeve over the box to allow for all of the retail stuff you need, and none of that once the product is home and on your shelf or gaming table. Cool.

 Packaging inside is, also, top notch. Dice are sealed and also come with a ziplock bag for those of you who, for some reason, don't want your dice rattling around in the box. Kinda defeats the purpose, if you ask me, but you do you.

 You get a set of nine dice, including 3d6 for old school characters (right?) and a "Lore Card" that relates to the symbol on the face of your Elder Dice.

 This is nice, but it's wasted on me. Granted, it's well done, but I'm never going to use this for anything except maybe a book mark if I really need one. I'm sure there are game-based uses for it, but I won't try to invent them.

I feel this way about the "Lore" GM screen, too. It's a stellar product that I will emphatically not use, unless I paste four completely different sheets of information on the inside. It's just Not For Me.

In addition to the Drowned Cthulhu dice, I got these, the "Astral Elder Sign" dice. The first version of these were blue. These are purple. They are lovely, very purple-y and very visible and easy to read. Yay!

Finally, I got the redone King in Yellow dice, which look a lot like Mardi Gras dice in the purple, green, and gold color scheme (which actually works great for the King in Yellow). These are about 100% better than the first try, which was yellow ink on black and yellow dice. I will use these in games.

 This set of dice is their Doom Edition, and we all had to eat a lot of veggies to get to the dessert. Basic, simple, clean, iconic. Black dice, red ink. Boom. Done. Looking at these, I really have to wonder why they didn't start with this, and work up to the nutty stuff. I feel like this would have been much easier to source and also sell.

One thing I noticed: there is a difference in plastic between these dice and their swirly-twirly counterparts. It's a slickness, almost a sheen, that I can tangibly feel.

In the end, I ended up doubling up on the sets I wanted, and not getting a lot of the sets that were offered. I wish I'd not done that, because I already have a shitload of these dice to begin with. If you're a collector, though, this is your jam, because of all the styles and colors and boxes and what not.

I just wanted some cool eldritch dice to roll. That's all.




I really hate these things. There's no such thing as a "d2." It's stupid. That said, I like these "d2" coins better than any of the others I've gotten. Mostly because of the size. But mind you, I won't use it in a game. This goes into the jar of dice oddities, never to return.

It didn't cost me anything, so I'm not bummed about it. But I would have been remiss to not include a picture.

So, after three of these campaigns, what did we learn?

The Good: They make good dice, with a few caveats. The color options were great on the dice that I chose, but I also ordered the unlocked stretch goal dice to correct past purchases of the same style, and that, to me, is a zero-sum gain. Packaging, presentation, and theme are spot-on, and have only gotten better. Superb design work, with easy to read numbers and nearly always legible symbols. If you want Cthulhu-Themed dice, look no further.
The Bad: That said, these boogers are not cheap. $25 for nine dice. Granted, they are the least expensive when buying during the Kickstarter Campaigns, but if you want the bonus dice, the extra dice, the dice that you REALLY want, you may find yourself having to buy dice you don't want or need. I know I said I wouldn't talk about it, but I take it back, I feel kinda bamboozled.

The Ugly:  Unless something changes, I doubt I'll be buying any more dice from Infinite Black. They simply cost too much, and for what I got in my shipping box, I was decidedly underwhelmed by the add-ons. Again, it's all high quality stuff. It's just not the stuff for me.

I suspect the next Kickstarter campaign they do will be to publish their role-playing game system (presumably one that uses all of these friggin' dice). I only hope that the next campaign they do is something more basic, more simple, and easy to follow.

But if they wanted to do more dice, here's my unsolicited advice: ditch the swirls. Make a line of opaque dice with the same symbols. One color of plastic, one color of ink. You could do them all in black plastic, with different colored inks: bright green for Cthulhu, Yellow for The King in Yellow, Orange for Azathoth, etc. Dice are all heavy black with no stunt colors. Ink is high contrast with no surprises. I would buy all of those, and I bet you a plugged nickel everyone else would, too.