Roll five program dice, read what comes up, and guide your cat to the Golden Fish — a light board game that lets you feel what programming actually feels like.
The story
There’s a rumour that goes around at every one of our tea parties. If you ever spot the huge, glittering Golden Fish in Middle Pond, right in the heart of town, something wonderfully lucky is supposed to happen.
Every cat dreams of catching it one day.
Then, out of nowhere, the news arrives.
“The Golden Fish is here!!”
Quick — catch it and show it to our human!
But at the very same moment, a second rumour starts making the rounds.
“Tom from the auto shop dropped a whole load of tires and they’ve rolled everywhere!”
Oh no. To reach Middle Pond you’ll have to weave past tires scattered across the whole town, and for that you’ll need to borrow your human’s brains.
Roll the dice, build the code, and guide your cat home!
What makes it special
Programming concepts, rolled as dice
All five dice are named after ideas from programming. LOOP, JUMP, DEBUG, META, SHIFT — you combine the faces you roll into a “program”, then run it to move your cat. The habits of programming settle in while you’re simply playing.
A satisfying balance of luck and thought
The dice are luck. How you order them, how you rotate them and what you make of them is not. Chance keeps shaking the board while your head keeps finding answers — and in 10–20 minutes that rush of “got it” arrives again and again.
Simple, yet deep
The rules are simple enough for a six-year-old. The strategy is deep enough that adults playing seriously don’t get bored. It’s built to work across a table of mixed ages — family, friends, anyone.
House rules open the game up
Nyaice! Code deliberately leaves room for players to write their own rules. Puzzle positions with one perfect solution, brand-new dice symbols, two-versus-two matches — designing how you play is part of the fun, and it makes the game effectively endless.
Fun, yet these ways of thinking grow
Nyaice! Code isn’t just a dice game. While players are busy enjoying themselves, a few kinds of thinking quietly stand up on their own.
Programming thinking
Read the dice, then assemble an ordered set of instructions for your cat. Putting things in sequence and choosing between branches — the heart of programming — arrive through play rather than instruction. Programming became a required part of Japan’s primary curriculum in 2020, and this game makes an easy first door into it, at home or in class.
Fixing things through trial and error
Sometimes the program you built doesn’t do what you pictured. That isn’t failure; it’s the next clue. Enjoying however the dice fall while rebuilding your plan around them is exactly the thinking programmers do every day: debugging.
Rule-making and systems design
Because the game leaves deliberate room for house rules, players end up writing rules themselves — and new rules produce unexpected contradictions and broken balance. That moment is worth as much as any lesson. Making a rule, watching it break, repairing it builds the ability to see a whole system at once: the same vantage point a programmer needs when building something large.
And these grow along the way
Beyond programming thinking, a game of Nyaice! Code sets several things going at the same time.
- Logical reasoning — reading your opponents’ intentions off the board
- Hypothesis testing — plan, try, revise: the research cycle in miniature
- A feel for probability — the mathematical instinct that comes from rolling dice a hundred times
Components
| Contents | Qty |
|---|---|
| Rulebook | 1 |
| Story sheet | 1 |
| Game board tiles | 9 |
| Program dice (4 movement dice + 1 condition die) | 5 |
| Cat meeples (players) | 4 |
| Home pieces (goals) | 4 |
| Golden Fish piece (the treasure) | 1 |
| Stray tire pieces | 12 |
⚠️ Contains small parts. Choking hazard — not suitable for children under 5.
Language-dependent parts
Only three parts of Nyaice! Code depend on language: the rulebook, the story sheet and the box. Everything you actually handle — meeples, dice, tiles — is language-neutral, which keeps the translation load for a new edition unusually light.
The world of the program dice
Every one of the five dice maps onto a programming concept.
Movement dice (4 types)
| Name | Movement | Programming concept |
|---|---|---|
| BUMP! (トン！) | One square, orthogonally | A single move instruction |
| BOOM!! (ドッ！！) | Orthogonally until an obstacle or the edge | Continuous execution |
| SWISH! (シャ！) | One square, diagonally | A single move instruction |
| VROOM!! (シュンッ！！) | Diagonally until an obstacle or the edge | Continuous execution |
Condition die (1 die, 5 effects)
| Name | Effect | Programming concept |
|---|---|---|
| META (メタ) | Use it as any one of the four movement dice | Metaprogramming |
| DEBUG (デバッグ) | Re-roll one or more dice | Debugging |
| SHIFT (シフト) | Move the stray tires somewhere else | Data manipulation |
| LOOP (ループ) | Take part of your movement and repeat it twice | Loops |
| JUMP (ジャンプ) | Leap over an obstacle | Jump instructions |
Each die also carries one blank face.
How to play
The goal
Guide your cat well and be the first to claim the Golden Fish. Whoever carries the treasure back to their own home first wins.
A turn in five steps
- Roll — Roll all the program dice; the faces you get are your program code for the turn
- Build the code — Put the results in any order you like and rotate the arrows to decide how your cat will move
- Run the program — Move your cat exactly as the program says
- Check — Did your cat get home while holding the Golden Fish?
- Finish — When someone wins, salute each other with a shout of “Nyaice! Code!”
Full rules — how to build a program, how to pick up the treasure and steal it, plus a Q&A — are in the rulebook.
In education and training
Nyaice! Code is fun first, but it also does real work in classrooms and training rooms.
Where it fits
- A first step into programming education — an easy entry point before anything screen-based
- Logical thinking workshops — a short warm-up for the brain
- After-school and childcare programmes — playable from age 6
- A conversation tool for families — parents and children thinking as equals
- Team building — trial, error and ideas, shared out loud
Group size
2–4 players. For group work, run several tables of four in parallel.
Time needed
10–20 minutes per game. A 45–50 minute class period fits two or three games.
Bulk purchase enquiries
We’re happy to discuss bulk orders for schools, educational institutions and training providers.
The world of house rules
The possibilities are endless — invent your own rules and play!
Nyaice! Code sets out to be a board game where you can feel what’s fun about programming. Adding a rule can make it more thrilling — or it can create all sorts of faults until the game stops working at all.
So how do you make it more interesting and keep it sound? Have a go at writing rules and find out.
A few house rules to start you off
- Build a “Nyaice! Code puzzle” — a fixed position with exactly one winning line, like a chess problem
- Put the home pieces somewhere new
- Arrange the board tiles into different shapes
- Invent a new dice symbol and the rule that goes with it
- Re-roll blank faces until a symbol comes up
- Set a time limit between the roll and the finished program
- Get into character and end every sentence with a “meow”
- Play two versus two
- Design a solo variant
- Combine two copies and play with eight
- What would it take to make it first to ten points?
If you come up with a good one, please share it on X — we keep an eye on the hashtag #ニャイスコード.
Around the world
Global partners
| Region | Partner | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 🇹🇭 Thailand | Siam Board Games | Released |
| 🇨🇳 China | Yaofish / Gameland | Released |
| 🌍 Every other territory | Open for partners | Licensing enquiries |
Language editions
Alongside the Japanese edition, an English edition of Nyaice! Code is in preparation. Because the components themselves are language-neutral, a new edition only requires translating three things: the rulebook, the story sheet and the box.
Licensing enquiries
We welcome enquiries from publishers and distributors outside Japan.
Where to buy
In Japan
- Amazon — Buy on Amazon
- Game Market — check our next convention appearance
- Stockists — List of retailers
Japanese retail price: ¥3,300 (incl. tax)
Bulk and wholesale
For schools, educational institutions, training providers and retailers.
Bulk and wholesale enquiries →
Credits
- Game design: Takuma Tsuneta
- Product design: SAURA
- Package design: Nozomi Sakai
- Illustration: Haruko Negishi
- English translation: Mari Watanabe
- Published by: Aqoocan Games
Go deeper
There’s a dedicated site for anyone who wants more of this world. Story background, the cats themselves, strategy guides, the player community — everything about Nyaice! Code that wouldn’t fit here.