A-Z Backlog challenge: Guild of dungeoneering
From reviewing the game I enjoyed the least to perhaps the game I enjoyed the most. Unsurprisingly, in this game you are running a guild of dungeoneers. So what does this entail? Well you have a guild which you upgrade when you have enough money. To get money you send dungeoneers off to do quests.
Most of your time will be spent in these dungeons. Here you will come across the most interesting mechanics of the game. In the dungeon you have two decks of cards. The first are the dungeon cards. These are default to the quest you are doing. Here you will place tiles for your dungeoneer to move along, monsters for them to fight and treasure to entice them to go in the direction you want.
The second set of cards represents the skills of your dungeoneer. These allow you to do a melee attack, magic attack, heal and block. Some cards have multiple effects and some have slight variations such as attacks which are unblockable or quick attacks which can be useful in finishing off enemies as they hit before the enemies attack. Your starter character, the Chump, has pretty bad cards whereas the later tier characters have much more useful cards. Many are amusingly named and they all fit in well with the class they are assigned to.
In battle you are dealt a hand (usually of 3-5) from your deck of cards. You will then generally see the card your opponent plays and get to choose on of your cards which best responds to it. It is not always an easy decision as for example your opponent may attack for 2 physical damage. If you have a block 3 in hand do you use it then or do you focus on dealing damage and keep the block for a more devastating later attack.
After winning a battle you are given a choice of loot of the same level as the monster you defeated. Normally you choose from 3 but various skills, characters and items can change this. There is some common loot which is available from the beginning of the game, the chance to get better quality rare or epic loot comes from upgrading your guild. Loot is equipped in the weapon, offhand, body or head slot. Each item of loot has skills you gain from them which gives you extra cards added to your battle deck. These fall into many different categories such as: arcane. which focuses on card draw; holy, which focusses on healing and magic defense, fire; which focusses on magic damage; and armor which focusses on physical defense. Each goes from 1 to 5 with 5 being the most powerful card of its type. Items stack skills so for example if you have armor with armor 2 and a helmet with armor 2 your dungeoneer will have armor 4. Card Hunters was the first game I saw tying cards to equipment, although that had grid based battles and equipment which carried over between quests. The Huntsman does similar but with Final Fantasy style combat. Your dungeoneer also gains a level and 1 hp when they defeat a monster of the same or higher level than them.
The loot system allows you to tailor your dungeoneer to the challenge they are likely to face in that dungeon although each character class also has a trait which makes them better suited to certain skills. For example the Ranger has all physical attacks count as quick attacks, and ones which were already quick attacks doing +1 damage. It's sub- optimal to send him into a dungeon where magic attacks are better or to equip him with items focussing on magic attacks. The Holy Grail Knight had retribution which allows you to do 1 magic damage on any turn where you took 3 damage or more. For this reason you want to drag out fights and focus on healing so you can withstand these heavy hits. There are other bonuses which can be gained through equipment: resiliant, which sees you only die if you started the turn at 1hp; wise, which increases your starting hand size; bulwark, which allows you to not take any damage on a turn you would take exactly one and spikey which causes you to deal 1 damage any time you completely block an enemy attack. After completing a quest you will gain gold based on monsters killed, size of dungeon explored and any treasure found while exploring. Your hero also gains a combat wound which gives them an extra ability- some positive and others negative. Each character, if they survive 4 runs will have 2 wounds of tier 2. The tier 2 wounds generally balance out the tier 1 wound. So if the tier 1 wound was positive the tier 2 will add a negative trait and vice versa.
There are 4 different ways to upgrade your guild. As already mentioned some upgrades give better loot. Other upgrades give new character classes. Others give you a new blessing, which is a bonus which your dungeoneer starts a run with. Finally there are generic upgrades such as one which gives all dungeoneers +1 health.
I found most of the classes enjoyable and most of the skills pretty balanced although in the latter game I had a strong preference for Arcane- more cards means more chance of having what you need to counteract the strong enemy cards you encounter. I didn't unlock everything in the guild. If you really want to you should focus on building very big dungeons and not rushing to finish the quest as soon as you have what you feel is good enough loot. You can go back and repeat old boss battles if you want to grind more gold.
I haven't played the expansion pack yet but I'm sure I will purchase it soon. I look forward to seeing what else the studio comes up with and what else other developers do with the turn based tactics/ccg hybrid formula.
Release year: 2015
Steam price: $14.99
Best sale price: $5.09 (-66%)
Rating: 84
Most of your time will be spent in these dungeons. Here you will come across the most interesting mechanics of the game. In the dungeon you have two decks of cards. The first are the dungeon cards. These are default to the quest you are doing. Here you will place tiles for your dungeoneer to move along, monsters for them to fight and treasure to entice them to go in the direction you want.
The second set of cards represents the skills of your dungeoneer. These allow you to do a melee attack, magic attack, heal and block. Some cards have multiple effects and some have slight variations such as attacks which are unblockable or quick attacks which can be useful in finishing off enemies as they hit before the enemies attack. Your starter character, the Chump, has pretty bad cards whereas the later tier characters have much more useful cards. Many are amusingly named and they all fit in well with the class they are assigned to.
After winning a battle you are given a choice of loot of the same level as the monster you defeated. Normally you choose from 3 but various skills, characters and items can change this. There is some common loot which is available from the beginning of the game, the chance to get better quality rare or epic loot comes from upgrading your guild. Loot is equipped in the weapon, offhand, body or head slot. Each item of loot has skills you gain from them which gives you extra cards added to your battle deck. These fall into many different categories such as: arcane. which focuses on card draw; holy, which focusses on healing and magic defense, fire; which focusses on magic damage; and armor which focusses on physical defense. Each goes from 1 to 5 with 5 being the most powerful card of its type. Items stack skills so for example if you have armor with armor 2 and a helmet with armor 2 your dungeoneer will have armor 4. Card Hunters was the first game I saw tying cards to equipment, although that had grid based battles and equipment which carried over between quests. The Huntsman does similar but with Final Fantasy style combat. Your dungeoneer also gains a level and 1 hp when they defeat a monster of the same or higher level than them.
The loot system allows you to tailor your dungeoneer to the challenge they are likely to face in that dungeon although each character class also has a trait which makes them better suited to certain skills. For example the Ranger has all physical attacks count as quick attacks, and ones which were already quick attacks doing +1 damage. It's sub- optimal to send him into a dungeon where magic attacks are better or to equip him with items focussing on magic attacks. The Holy Grail Knight had retribution which allows you to do 1 magic damage on any turn where you took 3 damage or more. For this reason you want to drag out fights and focus on healing so you can withstand these heavy hits. There are other bonuses which can be gained through equipment: resiliant, which sees you only die if you started the turn at 1hp; wise, which increases your starting hand size; bulwark, which allows you to not take any damage on a turn you would take exactly one and spikey which causes you to deal 1 damage any time you completely block an enemy attack. After completing a quest you will gain gold based on monsters killed, size of dungeon explored and any treasure found while exploring. Your hero also gains a combat wound which gives them an extra ability- some positive and others negative. Each character, if they survive 4 runs will have 2 wounds of tier 2. The tier 2 wounds generally balance out the tier 1 wound. So if the tier 1 wound was positive the tier 2 will add a negative trait and vice versa.
There are 4 different ways to upgrade your guild. As already mentioned some upgrades give better loot. Other upgrades give new character classes. Others give you a new blessing, which is a bonus which your dungeoneer starts a run with. Finally there are generic upgrades such as one which gives all dungeoneers +1 health.
I found most of the classes enjoyable and most of the skills pretty balanced although in the latter game I had a strong preference for Arcane- more cards means more chance of having what you need to counteract the strong enemy cards you encounter. I didn't unlock everything in the guild. If you really want to you should focus on building very big dungeons and not rushing to finish the quest as soon as you have what you feel is good enough loot. You can go back and repeat old boss battles if you want to grind more gold.
I haven't played the expansion pack yet but I'm sure I will purchase it soon. I look forward to seeing what else the studio comes up with and what else other developers do with the turn based tactics/ccg hybrid formula.
Release year: 2015
Steam price: $14.99
Best sale price: $5.09 (-66%)
Rating: 84
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