What
Went Wrong When Building Guild of Dungeoneering
A Game Review by Glitchiee:
Guild
of Dungeoneering is a rogue-like, dungeon adventure game that takes the concept
of dungeon crawling and gives it a new twist.
Instead of wandering around a dungeon and trying to survive, you get to
build the dungeon and try to survive.
This amazing take allows each attempt at a dungeon to be completely
different. And while that concept sounds
like a winner, there are a slew of downfalls that ruin Guild of Dungeoneering's
rise to gaming fame.
"Yes! I did it."
"Hey, Phil, I don't think you're supposed to die. Though I could be wrong."
"You're missing the big picture. 666 more deaths like that and I'll have just enough cash for
the final tier of expansion."
"Oh...sounds like fun. I'm going to go watch some paint dry now."
THE GOOD STUFF:
To
start off, there is a good amount of redeeming qualities that Guild of
Dungeoneering possesses. One of them is
the story. After being turned down by
the Ivory Guild, you decide to get back at them by creating your own. So you decide to self-appoint yourself as the
leader of the Guild of Dungeoneering.
This is where you start to see the humor in the game, if it didn't already
hit you while listening to the opening song.
Basically you are the butt of every joke, including those in your
family. Using your “brains,” you put up
posters calling for Dungeoneers: adventurers looking for fortune and fame to do
your dirty work. On top of this, humor
is also further riddled throughout the game in the narrator's dialogue, the
snippets that the Dungeoneers exclaim, and the adventure descriptions that draw
from popular culture.
You'll
also get a taste for the art style by this point, which somewhat resembles an
artist's sketchbook. The game features
cartoon styled sketches of items, characters, enemies, and anything else found
in game on colored cards. While moving throughout
each dungeon, the dungeoneer looks like they're on a piece of paper. And the background is even stylized in the
pattern of graph paper. It's a very
simplistic aesthetic, but eye catching nonetheless. And it helps keep that fun/humorous dimension
to the game.
GRINDING:
While
it may seem like such a creative game is of top notch quality, the buck falls
short when you actually start to play.
Dungeoneers do not keep levels gained in a dungeon when it's complete. So that means no matter what your characters
will always start at level one. While
this may not seem like a big deal, it still leads to a large amount of grinding
in the dungeons to be able to even complete the objective. In addition to that, Dungeoneers start with
no items, except for whatever “Blessing” is chosen at the beginning of the
adventure…that's if you even have one available. And Blessings do not last for the entire
dungeon either, making later fights harder or earlier fights less
valuable. What does all this mean? Well, that it's highly possible you will die
to the first monster you come across.
GOLD:
On
top of everything is the amount of gold that needs to be invested into your
guild. The starting amount of 50 gold
may not seem like a lot, and neither is the next level of expansions at 500
gold, but then it jumps to 2000 gold for the final tier of expansions. And even that may not seem like an extremely
large amount of cash. Until you see how
much gold you actually accumulate if your Dungeoneer dies, which will occur
very, very frequently. Unless you
complete the objective of a dungeon, you will only get whatever was collected
during your travels, which can range from 3 gold to 20 gold.
"Oh hey, Tom, I'm glad you walked by. Help me choose my loot. It's either an ugly stick, the puffy
shirt, or an eyeball on a string."
"Um...how are those finance reports coming along for the meeting we have in 10 minutes?"
"I'm just using last year's numbers for that. This is way more important. Now help me choose."
"Well in that case...I'd go with the Puffy shirt."
"Yeah."
"Yeah...me too. Puffy shirt it is. Cya in the meeting."
DUNGEONS:
The
gold, or lack of it, could be easily remedied if you could go back to
previously completed dungeons and play through them again for some extra cash. Alas, this is also not possible. All dungeons are roped off, never again to be
visited unless you start a new game. So
you have to send innocent, money hungry, Dungeoneer after Dungeoneer into the
jaws of death, over and over again until you actually beat that dungeon you are
stuck on…or you accumulate enough gold to purchase something new.
Movement
in the dungeons is a bit confusing as well.
When placing monsters, gold, and fountains in a dungeon, their amounts
will stack. The highest amount in a
certain spot is where the Dungeoneer will move to. Have no monster cards to bring your person
away from an approaching adversary? Too
bad, your Dungeoneer will rush into the jaws of death. Now, this could be easily avoided, but
instead, luck plays a major role in this part of the game.
LUCK:
As
with all games, there is some matter of luck involved. But Guild of Dungeoneering takes this to a
whole new level. From the cards you are
given to build the dungeons, to the items you can receive at the end of a
fight, to even the cards drawn in the fight itself, luck is highly prevalent in
the game. This is combated to some
extent by upgrading your guild, but as said above, when you get stuck in an
area and have no gold to speak of; your lack of options comes to the fore. Since Dungeoneers start with no items
whatsoever, extra abilities that could give you the edge in battle have to be
fought for. You can even get all the
items you need and then die to a small monster on your way to the big boss by
not drawing into the right ability.
Dungeon
design is the victim of luck as well.
When it comes to certain levels where you have to run away from your
opponent, being able to build an escape route is essential. Sometimes you will have no pieces that you
can actually use. And sometimes there
will be no monsters when you really needed to feed one to a hungry dragon. This is extremely discouraging as the
building aspect of the game is what sets it apart from other games in the same
genre.
HOPE:
There
is always hope that a game will get better.
That the next patch will introduce more balanced content, game changes,
or something that will help players enjoy the experience. Additions including battle animations, more
achievements, and different music scores are already in the works. But these don't correct the main game play
experience however and creators have stated they intend to keep this as is to
maintain its difficult, rouge-like nature.
Possibly in the future things will be included that create a faster way
to obtain gold, like the ability to retain items from adventures which would
greatly reduce the grinding aspect of Guild of Dungeoneering.
"Dammit, that bothers me."
"What? Your extremely large graveyard full of fails?"
"No...that one frigging grave of rocks."
"Um...your OCD is showing."
CONCLUSION:
Guild
of Dungeoneering is a creative game with a fun, entertaining, humor-filled
story line. But its grinding nature
really diminishes the highlights of the game.
And when you cannot progress any farther, money is extremely hard to
come by, and your Dungeoneers die repeatedly, rage begins to set in. So if you like grindy games that need hours
to just advance the story, open new areas, or purchase upgrades, then this is
the game for you. Otherwise steer clear
of Guild of Dungeoneering, or you'll want to rip your hair out.
2.5 out of 5 Stars (minus stars for grinding mechanics, no replay of previous dungeons,
lack of gold acquisition and too much luck required)
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