Spark Dice – A story writing tool

Like many creators, I often struggle with writers block. Over time I have learned to recognize my personal symptoms, and I have found a few tools that help keep me from getting caught in a negative feedback loop.

I am a huge fan of Rory’s Story Cubes, which I discovered a few years ago. The core concept is that these d6 are printed with unique and evocative pictures, and you roll them and link the images together to create a story. As soon as I heard about these, I latched onto the idea, and I found them to be incredibly helpful when I got stuck.

The trouble I found with them is that the base set has only 9 cubes, and purchasing all the expansions adds up quickly between cost and shipping. I found a few digital apps, but nothing can really replace grabbing and rolling a handful of dice. So I set out to create an alternative.

Purpose, goals, and process

The tool I’ve created is called Spark Dice. I wanted to take the idea behind Story Cubes and amp it up with variety, as well as provide this as a “free” option for other people so they could spark their own creativity. When I say free, the project still costs time and raw materials, and you need to have a lot of extra d6 kicking around. So it doesn’t cost zero, but it is an order of magnitude less than for comparable resources.

I started with Game-icons.net, a collection of over 3000 free icons that are made available with the CC BY 3.0 license. For the purpose of this project, these provided exactly what I was looking for – a huge collection of images (mostly fantasy themed) that could be used and shared.

I downloaded their collection, which at the time had 3,324 images, and slowly went through all of them until I’d curated a collection of 1620 that I felt fit my purpose. My criteria was subjective, but my goal was to focus on fantasy elements, evocative or universal themes, and a good variety of images. I also used some science fiction or modern images that I felt would spark my creativity.

Once I had my collection of images, I created a dice template that would print and fit over a standard d6. Then I created 10 full page images, each with 27 dice templates, and I placed the 1,620 icons on the sides of the dice. My goal was to keep each dice unique, so I avoided having doubles on a particular dice (like two weapons, or two faces).

After a few print tests, adjusted the image sizes slightly until they fit my dice nicely, and then I printed out all 10 pages. You may need to adjust the print size slightly depending on your paper size and your dice size, so I recommend doing some test prints and taping before you start cutting everything at once.

Dice sheet images are here, and direct links on imgur also available at the end of this post.

Cutting and pasting the dice

The next part of the project was probably the most time consuming. Once I had established that I needed 270 d6 to create all these dice, I had to make a few trips for supplies. The first was, of course, to my local Dollar Store, which is the cheapest location for standard white d6. After that it was to my local office supply store for some tape that was not wider than the side of the d6. Once I had all that, it was a matter of sitting down and cutting out all the d6 and taping them together.

At first I would fold each edge of the d6, but it soon became apparent that it was both unnecessary and super time consuming. Rolling the dice would flatten out the corners, and with the amount of hours it would take to make all these, it just took too long. In general, I am a big believer of “good enough”, and for my purposes the dice did just that.

For taping, the simplest method I found was to put a tiny piece at the end of the long part of the T, and then fold it around the dice and tape into place. Then I would take a second longer piece and wrap it around 3 sides of the dice and secure the other two flaps. This way I was only using two piece of tape per dice and the process moved relatively quickly.

I set up a production line, cutting out a few sheets at a time, and then taping all the dice at once. It was a great opportunity to catch up on a few of my podcasts, because it took probably more hours than I had expected. Regardless, the completed project was exactly what I had hoped for.

Total cost of the project was about $45 for raw materials: 2 rolls of tape each around $3 (about $6.00), and 27 packs of dice at $1.25 each (about $36). Printer paper and ink I consider to be zero cost. In terms of time, selecting the images and creating the templates took about 4 hours. Printing, cutting, and taping the dice took about 6 hours, and was the single largest part of the project.

Using the Spark Dice

Once I had my giant bowl of 270 dice, I immediately took to using them with reckless abandon. I have been working on a large project and been stuck in a rut, and rolling a handful of these dice and putting three or four of them together was enough to instantly kick myself into gear. Suddenly I felt like I had limitless combinations, and the project moved ahead quickly.

I will say that at the start, I had printed only one page worth of dice, which is 27. After a few hours of using them, I felt like there wasn’t enough variety, as I kept getting the same combinations. For me, more is definitely more, and I feel like now with all 270 dice I will not run into the same challenge. Your experience may vary.

I would recommend using these for your own creative projects if you have a tendency to get stuck. I really like them, and although they might not work perfectly every time, the investment in each particular roll is so low I can just grab another handful and roll again. Over time I can see that the ink on the dice will start to fade, but given that the cost is relatively low, I can simply reprint the whole project and recycle the dice.

I hope you like this project. Please download the full page images I have posted of the dice templates and print your own Spark Dice. Again, the images on the dice are licensed CC BY 3.0, and sourced from Game-icons.net.

Happy creating!