Guild of Dungeoneering Review

Keep it simple, grow it big. That is a tactic that most companies in the indie scene are smart at. Most AAA companies today over complicate things in terms of gameplay. Doing most things where focus looses its sharpness, things flop around like a Jenja block being pushed over. Guild of Dungeoneering keeps the style of table top games simple for anyone to leap into, yet hard to master. Entry level or advanced players can pick up the pieces and construct a randomly generated dungeon and work on things from there. During your game game you may give the adventurer some new gear, but you merely play as a ongoing dungeon master rebuilding your Guild from its former glory. Visually the game presents the format we all know from table top gaming, everything looks almost homemade. The game itself limits a lot of animations other then transitions and paper like death whenever your dungeoneer passes.

You start off bare with no extra classes or extra items to find along the way. You begin as the Chump character. using a basic card set, of light blocks, and melee abilities.  So in order to do so you basically do quests that each extra you build and explore, doing objectives per board. At first it can be far or cruel. The game relies on a RNG like system where if you get the right cards first then you luck out during combat. Another factor to those good rolls is finding gear that represent cards you may per combat scenario. The combat itself is much like a game of rock, paper, scissors. You have offensive cards that are both magic or physical. Defensive which both defend from magic or physical damage too. It is a old school format from perhaps many card games you have already seen from most card battler games from new and old. Battles between enemies are relatively quick. Averaging from under twenty five seconds or so depending on the enemies level. Or if you find good equipment early on during the dungeon run. Many things can benefit you quite a deal and bring some more great depth into the game once you unlock a few of the fifty gold tabs in the guild map. At the middle of my experience I really began to enjoy the puzzle like strategy of fighting monsters for quest objectives. Starting with the first level monsters, working up to the level threes. The game itself is screaming rogue-lite tossing around elements like a jumbled ninja blender. Most scenarios are the same just you get random cards making each dungeon a bit more different then others if you must retry levels. Each experience feels a bit fresh until the objective is at foot. By default your Dungeoneer is stupid. Where you can not control where it moves, per-say. Coins, Fountains, enemies all help direct your character in the direction you need them to aim too. Otherwise if a level three monster is near by and you are only level one, it will usually end nasty. Fighting monsters is a crucial part of this game, that would otherwise make it dry without. You are given a wide choice of themed monsters to fight. Such as Goblins, spiders, rats, mummies, vampires, zombies, orc warlords, and the list just goes on. I could easily see this game go onto the mobile surfaces and do quite well. Specially with folks with Kindle Fires or whatever that have large screens. One thing during the game play that was a bit frustrating was activating buttons. I would go to click on a button, lets say “Go Exploring” and it would require me 6 constant clicks for it to move forward. Every time. I thought maybe my mouse was on the friz. So I swapped out a few mice and tried this out. Same issue.

                                                   The story itself is pretty funny actually, the whole time you have a matured man playing a lute while trash talking your Dungeoneers as you move through completing, or failing dungeons. Personally it could use more sayings or trash talk, more praises to be correct. Hearing the same old ones more often then rarely wares a tiny bit on you. I really love the artwork on the game, as it feels homey/organic, if that makes a bit of sense. Sort of the vibe Don’t Starve offered as its style. Every character is mostly bald, unless you see buns on their heads or a Mohawk. With their eyes that came out of the isles of 1980’s store shelves of the toy department Treasure Trolls section. Armor does show on your characters every time you find a new piece or swap out. On the topic of armor one thing is a bummer is whenever you restart a dungeon you lose all your gear from prior.  I understand if a new character is replacing your old one, but all the work you put in should be shown except to resetting your character to level one. The level reset for every dungeon you delve into should obviously feel fresh there. Originally the game went with a 8-bit style during the early stages of the game(you can go Google that for yourself after). This current art style prior does outclass it. It is very simple, charming and sets the tone very well.