What is Shake & Roll Detection?

Shake & Roll Detection is what makes iYacht different from other dice games. When you play with real dice, you shake them and then you roll them. In other words, shaking and rolling the dice are separate actions and iYacht recognizes this.

To “shake” the dice, all you have to do is shake your iPhone¹. And just like with real dice, shaking is optional.

To “roll” the dice, all you have to do is turn your iPhone to landscape orientation, wait for the dice to slide off the screen and then make a motion similar to throwing dice at a craps table, snapping your iPhone back to portrait orientation and “throwing” the dice back onto the screen. It’s a lot of fun!

What are the benefits of distinguishing between shaking and rolling?

First, it provides more opportunity to undo your selections. You can stop shaking the dice, restore them to what they were when you started shaking them and then you can either change which dice you are holding or which scoring category you just selected.

Second, it adds a personal element to the randomness of the dice. Some people might shake the dice a lot, some might shake them a little and some might not shake them at all. This constantly alters the output of the random number generator, making the outcome of dice rolls more random.

Third, if you’ve played other dice games that allow you to shake your iPhone to roll the dice, you’ve probably accidentally rolled the dice by either bumping your iPhone or while handing it to another person. That won’t happen with iYacht because you must make an intentional throwing motion to roll the dice. You still might accidentally shake the dice, but that can be undone by selecting the “Restore Dice” button.

If you don’t feel like shaking and “throwing” your iPhone, you can always use the Shake & Roll Die that’s located on the bottom right corner of the screen instead.

More features:

Play a game with up to 4 other friends

When playing with friends, iYacht will tell you who to hand the iPhone to when your turn is over and will temporarily disable it’s Shake & Roll Detection until they press a button to acknowledge that they are ready to begin their turn. This eliminates accidentally rolling the dice for the next player!

You always have the option to change your mind until you actually roll the dice

Your great game won’t get ruined because…

…you didn’t hold the right dice

…you selected the wrong scoring category

…you accidentally bumped your iPhone and rolled the dice

…you accidentally selected a scoring category when you still had rolls left

Smart Scoresheet

The Smart Scoresheet constantly updates each of the scoring categories with the points that can be earned for the current dice, allowing you to quickly evaluate your scoring options. It's also helpful to people who are learning the dice game and don't know the point values of all the scoring categories!

Bonus Tracking

This feature keeps you informed of what affect your scoring selections have towards getting the 35 point bonus associated with the Aces through Sixes scoring categories. The 35 point bonus is based on scoring “par” for each of these scoring categories, with “par” being 3 Aces, 3 Twos, 3 Threes etc. But, if you’re short in a scoring category, you may make up for it in another. Take a look at the this screenshot:

The scoring categories are color-coded:

green - the scoring category has not been selected

white – the scoring category has been selected

The Aces scoring category is green, which means it hasn’t been selected. It has a yellow -2 and a green 1. The yellow -2 is a bonus tracker.

Bonus trackers are also color-coded:

yellow – warning (under par)

green – good (even or over par)

The yellow -2 means that if you were to select the Aces scoring category, you would be 2 points short of “par” for Aces.

The Total also has a bonus tracker. On the screenshot, it’s a green 5. The green 5 means that if you were to get “par” for the remaining unselected Aces through Sixes scoring categories, you would be 5 over par and you would get the 35 point bonus. Why 5? The Twos, Fours and Fives are white, which means they’ve been selected. If you do the math, you can see that “par” was scored for the Twos and Fours, and an extra 5 was scored for the Fives.

Bonus tracking frees you from having to do the math and allows you to quickly see what affect your scoring selections would have towards getting the bonus, making the game more enjoyable.

Game play is all on one screen

You can always see your entire score sheet and don’t ever have to scroll it!

Hall of Fame & Shame

Not only does iYacht keep track of High Scores to see who has bragging rights, it also keeps track of Low Scores to see who shouldn’t play dice games for money. Or, for a different challenge, try to earn the lowest score possible!

Includes a "Wizard" that let’s you pick the scores you want to see:

“When?” – All-Time or Daily

“What?” – High or Low scores

“Who?” – Everyone or one Player

Listen to your own music while playing

iYacht will not turn off your music.  Sound effects will play right alongside your music!

Doesn't require double digit MB's of storage

Wouldn’t you rather use it to store music, pictures and videos?

Nicely presented, easy to navigate and thorough sets of Rules and Help pages

Always available if and when you need them!