Forem: M. Brian Dunson

Building Five Dice Math: My MVP Works, But I'm Not Sure It Matters

M. Brian Dunson — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 20:54:58 +0000

UPDATE (Dec 29): Based on analytics feedback (aka - no one tried it out!), I completely redesigned the onboarding flow. The app now lets you start playing instantly without any login wall.

Try it now: www.dicemath.app

ORIGINAL POST

I started working on Five Dice Math 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 a crossroads: should I continue 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

Help me understand this code, please

M. Brian Dunson — Sun, 02 May 2021 12:38:47 +0000

I'm working through 'Eloquent Javascript' (www.eloquentjavascript.net) and I'm not grasping how this works.

function multiplier(factor) {
  return number => number * factor;
}
let twice = multiplier(2);
console.log(twice(5));
// → 10

I guess where I'm getting lost is how does this line worK:
let twice = multiplier(2)

In trying to understand, I did some other console.log commands to see what they would return:

console.log(multiplier(2));
// → x => x * factor
console.log(twice);
// → x => x * factor

Can someone help me get over this mental block that I'm having? How does 'twice' have a parameter? Is 'twice' a reference to the multiplier function?

Recreate Azure Dashboard with CSS

M. Brian Dunson — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 20:23:04 +0000

Azure has a customizable dashboard wherein the user can select a series of tiles or components that relate to various resources or activities. Each can be positioned and/or sized according to the needs of the user. Some are 1x1, others are 2x3, and so forth.

I'm looking to recreate this dashboard concept in a web application with CSS and I'd like to know if there's a particular grid style or technique that would be best suited for dynamic creation based on a configuration stored in a database. Are there ways to do this with CSS Grid with things like colspan and rowspan like styles?

I want to create a mobile playing card game...where to start?

M. Brian Dunson — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 21:50:35 +0000

I have an idea for a mobile playing card game that I would like to develop. I'm a seasoned business application developer, mostly C# and JavaScript on the desktop and web, and generally work in Visual Studio. I've never done anything specifically mobile (other than responsive websites) and I'm not sure where to start.

It's not going to require a complicated user interface...maybe some animated cards or dice or such thing, but certainly not 3D action.

Do I start with one platform or plan for cross-platform from the beginning? I don't own a Mac, so I don't think I can do native iOS development (might be wrong on that?).

Where do I start?