Guild of Dungeoneering (2015)

it's-the-guild-of-dun-gin-eering!
a fun game to play to-night
the guild of dun-gin-eering
is a pen and paper inspired rogue-lite

a while back i gave this a go and it rubbed me the wrong way. IT has a bit of a learning curve to it despite the whole thing being very simple every run is one of trial and error and as you play it enough you eventually get a feel for how things work and settle in on the classes you like. Overall this isnt a bad game but it does feel like a cheap gimmick (that entertaining bard narrator who rhymes at the end of an event time to time), but it still manages to capture the pen and paper like feel to games that dont let you make mistakes where every move counts.

Tip: unlock a second tier character with your gold as soon as you can. Until you manage to do that you're going to be stuck grinding for enough gold to do it again if you spend it all too early. I wont spoil the game but upgrades are pretty important and if you squander gold you will have to grind. if you keep losing think about the enemies you've been fighting and their abilities and look at what is in the shop that might help you.

overall this was a satisfying game. its fun to figure things out without the hand holding. it's not balanced in the sense that some upgrades (and classes) are great and some are crap, but it's fun to experiment and get the hang of it. There were parts of the game i could simply not figure out and seemed so hard, then after trial and error i would figure out a solution and a class (and way to gear them) and it would practically just be a cake walk.

equipment you find in dungeons isn't that straight forward. the card-based abilities you gain from them are NOT tied to the equipment themselves but your overall level... example you will have the same abilities if you have two ARMOR I pieces equipped as compared to a single ARMOR II piece, that is what your abilities are based on. I find its generally better to focus on a particular ability and build around it and try to get it to level 4, because that is where the best abilities are.

In conclusion, satisfying turn based game that doesn't let you get away with mistakes, and is fairly quick to jump back in to try again until you get it right (hotline miami style) It's simplistic and not balanced but struck me as a decent game system anyway. It felt gimmicky at first with the comical narrator, but after feeding it time i began to enjoy it quite a bit.

This game really jazzed with me, with its dungeon theme, the quirky card mechanics and the simple art style. However, mid-way through the game I'd felt I'd seen everything it had to show me as I ran out of new monsters and cars to discover. Worse, I hit a progress wall that meant I had to replay some missions a dozen times until the combination of cards my guy or the enemy drew allowed me to progress....but after I unlocked the cartomancer, it was pretty much all over. I knew exactly what strategy to take in order to beat the game, and I quickly did.

It a nice romp with a difficulty hump.

In this "game" you send someone to fight monsters in a dungeon. Fights consist of both fighters playing a card that deals/blocks damage or has some other effect (drain life, discard, draw). Along the way you find items that give new cards and gold to buy upgrades in your guild hall.

Every turn you also draw "map" cards that place loot, monsters or new rooms (kinda reminded me of the Labyrinth board game). It's kinda clunky because rooms have to fit on other rooms exactly. You also constantly see the same 2-3 monsters.

As you already guessed the game wants you to grind the same stuff over and over again before it lets you improve a tiny little bit. At least Loop Hero did the boring combat for you, this game thinks you're a Teletubby.

[Playtime: 39m]

Playing this was a conflicting experience for me. There were many things I enjoyed about the game, from the crisp and simple gameplay to the pencil-drawn aesthetics. And yet I just couldn't get to the end of the campaign. After twenty hours I had to shelve it (though I might return to it one day). So what happened? Here is the breakdown of my experiences:

--The Good--

The gameplay is simple without being silly or pointless. That means I was able to learn how to play the core game quickly but even after hours of play I was still noticing nuances and different ways to play. It kept me just engaged enough that I felt like I had to make some important tactical gameplay decisions and at the same time I did not need to be fully mentally engaged the entire time I played. This is the perfect recipe for a mobile game like this one (though I actually played it on PC myself). This game also borrowed and mixed game mechanics from CCGs and rouge-like games, both of these being genres I love, so it was easy to enjoy the gameplay overall.

This game's style and art is similar to the Munchkin card game in many ways. It is a little goofy, a little edgy, a little sarcastic, and even a little serious. And it is all done in a way that I think has wide appeal (for tabletop geeks at least). It is also a unique style without the game looking like it is trying too hard to be unique. Some of the humor is a little tired and may fall flat for some people but I found myself smiling more than once at the bard songs.

--The Bad--

I think the main problem I had with this game is that it is obviously designed for mobile platforms and I played the PC version. I tend to set aside time in my day to play games rather than snatching a few minutes here and there throughout the day. In the end I just don't think this game was designed for sessions longer than fifteen minutes. After that the game simply begins to feel repetitive. The battles do require some thought, but they rarely last more than 2-3 minutes. After an hour at that speed the battles begin to blur together like the constant string of random encounters in a JRPG. The game's aesthetic charm also begins to wear thin after an hour or two of continuous play. The humorous songs and sayings begin to repeat themselves over and over. The dungeons all start looking and feeling the same.

This is ultimately what pushed me to put this game on my hiatus list.

--The Verdict--

If I played more mobile games I think this would be one of my all-time favorites. But the truth is that I spend most of my time on my PC or on a console. The way I ingest games is fundamentally different than the audience this game was made for. So maybe it is a little unfair of me to rate and review it (but here I am). If you are considering this purchase I suggest you consider your own way of ingesting games. If you are looking for a mobile game that has wit, charm, and just the right level of engagement this might just be the perfect fit. Marathon gamers though might be better off playing something designed for longer sessions.