Source: Cashmoneys
Price: £10.99 normal, £14.99 incl. Soundtrack, £5.59 separate soundtrack.
Where To Get It: Steam

Guild of Dungeoneering is, in essence, a game about how impressionable and petty adventurers are. There’s more to it than that, obviously, but at its core, it’s about how a shiny thing, or an easy kill, is one of the easiest ways to lead an adventurer in a dungeon by the nose. In fact, the game counts on it. Because while there’s some things you can directly control about the illustrious (?) members of the Guild of Dungeoneering, where they go isn’t one of them.

When you get going, you really get going, and reveal new dungeons to loot as you go!

Now, it’s not often I comment on the visuals of a game, but Guild of Dungeoneering hits a sweet spot with me, because the look of the game is a better version of how I used to try and draw my dungeon maps, back when I was a younger, harder working Dungeon Master. It’s charming, and a lot of effort has gone into making a seemingly simple looking game… Look good. Not in the “It is shiny, and has lots of pixels” sense, but in the sense that it fits the theme really well. It’s a small thing, but it counts for a lot, hearing the scribbles, and watching the map tile being etched into the graph paper that is the world of GoD. In fact, the feel of the game is amazing, and the music… Has to be listened to to be believed. On that, I will only say two things: The game is filled with Ye Olde Bardic Limericks like in the trailer for the game, and they are all pretty awesome, making the soundtrack (£4 or £5.59, depending on whether you buy the Deluxe edition, or buy the OST separately) well worth the purchase.

As far as gameplay goes, it’s again, fairly simple, but meaningful. Adventurers like, in this order, unguarded loot, a monster that will gain them sweet, sweet XPs, aaaand… That’s about it, actually, but the value of the loot is always a factor. Combat and loot, however, requires a bit more thought, because the adventurer will take the shortest path to what they want (Which can definitely be a bad thing) and the classes you choose have a bearing. Will you enter a dungeon with an Apprentice, who starts with no physical defences, but powerful magic? Or maybe a Bruiser, the thug whose spikey demeanour (or armour, it’s not certain which) is so cutting that blocking all damage means you hurt the enemy? And once you’re there, will you go for magical kit, or physical? More blocking, more damage, more healing? Simple choices, but they add up to make a challenging experience. Even putting down more map tiles may open up pathing options for your poor, dumb adventurers that you really, really didn’t want them to pick right now.

The more loot you get, the more powerful you are! Simples!

So, for all that I’m talking up the game, is there anything I would complain about? Yes, but it’s niggles. There is always the possibility of a fail from turn 1 (For example, the only dungeon tile card you have bridges you straight to higher level wandering monsters), but death of an adventurer… Has no consequence I can see, so feel free to abandon quest if you see that. Animations play at a set speed, and while I’m fine with it, preferring the tension, the option of speeding it up could be put in for the less patient (A concession toward this has been added to the game with the ability to turn icon animations off). It’s also slightly unclear when a guild expansion is going to close off building directions, so a little extra mention there would be great. But, as I mentioned, these are niggles. The difficulty curve seems just fine, as you get a feel for a dungeon and its challenges after only one or two plays, and the game is mostly pretty intuitive. In short, it’s the best idealisation of Monty Haul dungeons I’ve ever seen.

Want to spend around £11-£16 on something with charm, wit, and simple play that’s easy to learn, but hard to master? Guild of Dungeoneering is a turn based strategy game for you. But if you’re the kind of person who groans whenever you have to wait for a movement, or attack, or animation to finish because you want to play quicker, it might be a better idea to wait, see if animation speed options get patched in. Overall though, I think you can tell that I’m enjoying this a hell of a lot. Now, to send a Mime into a Boss Dungeon… Muahahahahahaaa…

And, of course, the more you earn, the bigger and more powerful your guild gets!

The Mad Welshman was put in charge of The Guild of Dungeoneering, and within a week, the hero population dropped drastically. There is no correlation between these two events, honest.

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Source: Own Cashmoneys
Price: £6.99
Where To Get It: Steam

Card Dungeons, like many roguelikes, can be short and painful… Long and glorious… Or long and painful, and, in a sense, this is exactly its problem. It’s an interesting game, in its way, but it definitely isn’t for everybody.

A typical Card Dungeon Intro.

There are two core gimmicks of the game, one visual, one in core gameplay, and both have their flaws. On the visual end of things, you may be noticing why it’s called Card Dungeons. That’s right, every character and door is a card stock figure, and everything else is a tile. You know, just like old RPGs used to do! In any case, again, like these old RPGs, you take a turn, the monsters take a turn, and opening doors reveals rooms, monsters, and, of course, loot. However, while this may appear like a run of the mill roguelike with a different visual style, there is a core difference, the other meaning behind Card Dungeons.

Every time you start the game, you start with a bonus (A card) and a downside (A card). At the beginning, these options are simple: A random heal that drains mana when it happens, and not being able to buy more than one upgrade when you find a shopkeeper, regardless of your gold. Your attacks are also cards, and you only get three of them. But do you know what happens to cards when they get used, slapped down on the table, and generally subject to the abuse of play? That’s right, folks, they degrade, until they’re eventually useless! And the same thing happens to your equipment (Cards) and your attacks (Cards!) So again, you have a downside… On the one hand, you can switch out abilities at will. On the other, you have to switch out abilities, and at the worst possible time, you could run out of uses on an ability (Say, in the middle of a boss-fight), and have to survive long enough to pick up what you hope is a new ability!

Hrm… Decisions, Decisions… Let him melt, hit him some more, or set him on fire?

It’s very gimmicky, and, despite it being an interesting idea, that gimmick is also its greatest flaw. It took me almost the entire first run to realise that everything that isn’t a trap and can be used may contain treasure. It took me almost the second to realise that no, looting everything in the hope of a snazzy new ability isn’t the best way to play, and almost a third to realise that matters a whole lot less once combat begins. See, this game is presenting itself as a roguelike, but, while it fills many of the criteria of a roguelike, it only inconsistently provides an enjoyable experience. For example, I mentioned running away. I found a few “hit things and run away” style moves, along with the equivalent of teleport other (again, random in both strength and effect), but of course, there is no guarantee you’ll have one at the right time… And some cards, honestly, I ignored for being obviously toss. Stun, for example, doesn’t stop movement, only attacks, so something that only stuns isn’t actually that much use to me, because I can still be cornered. Bleeding, on its own, is a painfully slow 1 damage. And conversion, for the most part, is of dubious use.

The glare of blooming rays can also obscure tiles you may want to click.

It doesn’t help that there are certain enemy groupings, later on, where it’s extremely difficult to do anything but waste time. Multiple Eyeball type creatures, for example, can heal each other and stun you… Which makes a certain boss tedious, and later still, there are enemies that can stun, curse (Drains health and mana), and heal each other… And they can come in large groups. What can you do about it? Not a lot if your cards run out.

This sounds somewhat like bitching that I’ve run out of ammo for my favourite guns, left with “only the pistol”, but in Card Dungeons, it’s somewhat worse than that. In the final screenshot I’m going to post, I’ve shown an excellent example of being hosed. This is about halfway through the game’s several dungeons, and I have a somewhat ineffective area attack ability, a powerful, but erratically effective “GO AWAY” card, and a broken (And thus unusable) melee attack. I was trying to reach a chest as I died. I had been stunlocked, cursed… I couldn’t close the door, and going to another door… Would just as likely have killed me as badly, as the room I had just left contained three of the same kind of creature that killed me here. Just like any dungeon crawl, monsters won’t politely wait in their rooms… But unlike a normal dungeon crawl, you can’t open a door, peek inside, say “NOPE!”, and slam the door shut with the fondest hope that next time, your DM won’t be sniggering so loudly when you say you want to open something.

When Card Dungeon goes bad, it rather frustratingly doesn’t fuck around.

In the end, Card Dungeons is an interesting experiment. But other games do the whole “card dungeon” gimmick better, such as the more expensive Hand of Fate (The game colloquially known as “Asshole Card Wizard”), or Boss Monster (Cheaper, currently Early Access), and while it’s got replay value in the sense of multiple tries needed to “beat” the game, or 100% complete it, and it’s got time value in the sense that a single “good” run took me an hour and a half to get roughly halfway through… I don’t personally feel it’s got that much enjoyment value. Still, if you like the idea of an “oldschool” dungeon crawler with heavy randomisation in abilities (Monster types stay the same in each dungeon, and dungeons themselves are always similar in style), you could at least try it.

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Source: Review Code
Price: £6.99
Where to Get It: Steam

Auriga: A sentient world, doomed to a slow death by an ice age it cannot escape. Many folks live on Auriga, and now, with the Guardians expansion, there’s a fair bit more to do. One of the difficulties with reviewing expansions to games is that, many times, you have to ask “But what’s it actually adding to the game?”, as quite a bit of DLC is cosmetic by nature, and so… Can be summed up by the phrase “Wellll… If you want to look like this, then yeah, sure, go for it, otherwise… Don’t really bother?”

Guardians lets you know, from the very beginning, that this isn’t the case. Global Events. Legendary beings. Co-operative and competitive quests… This DLC adds a whole new dimension to the game, and it’s been my pleasure to see how it changes the gameplay.

Awwwh crap, who’s building that before me… WHOOOOO?!?

And, from the very beginning, a new goal presents itself: The Museum of Auriga. A whopping 20% approval for each level of the building (Which is based on the city’s expansion), and +20% Research and Dust (the game’s nano-magical currency) across my entire empire if I build it first and keep people happy? That’s… One hell of a first prize, and I can see very few factions, AI or human, not wanting to go for that as soon as humanly possible. And already, I’m wary. Research and Dust are pretty much the core of at least two factions’ playstyles, and 20% at the first tier of the game is not to be sniffed at. The second tier, equally, is pretty powerful… 25% extra industry, over my entire empire, per level? These are game changers, and I’m not entirely sure I like that. I like it even less when I look at my research indicator and see that someone else is building it. That’s pressure, because firstly, I’m playing Broken Lords on this particular review playthrough, and both of those boosts could help my play, and secondly, because I have random factions as enemies, and I’m guessing, judging by the early score boost, that either the Drakken or the Ardent Mages are sharing my version of Auriga, and the empire building could just as equally help them. It’s not insurmountable (After all, I could, after a point, steal the improvement by conquering one of their cities)… But it adss tension I’m not sure I need so early. Helping, however, are Unique buildings, that help shore up weaknesses in strategy, and, later in the game, unique Legendary Units (1 in Tier 3, 2 in Tiers IV and V) with useful abilities like Mind Control and the like, armies unto themselves (No, really… They can’t join armies, they’re that big.)

It’s pretty rare this infected village doesn’t belong to somebody else. It’s even more rare they’ll deal with it themselves. Have fun!

Empire goals, on the other hand, are a little more welcome. They unlock technologies (Much like certain story missions do for each faction) or resources (The one I got in Tier 1, Wealth Harvester, gave me enough Dye to use its special bonus for much of the early to mid game), and, like Legendary Buildings, their bonus only applies on a first come, first served basis. Co-operative quests also fall into this category, as they require dealing with a common threat. The one I got early on in the game (Pictured), added tension in more than one respect, because the plagued villages in question, which were making all non-pacified villages more aggressive and lethal? Were firmly in the territory of the Necrophages, who were unwilling to relinquish their favoured sons for the good of Auriga. Again, it adds tension, it adds stories, and that’s the true value of the DLC.

Overall, this DLC is a game changer, adding tension to an already tense 4X game, and whether you want to purchase it or not genuinely depends on whether you want to add more swing to the game, more moments of crying “Oh shit, now they’ve got that thing” or “HAH, Now I am the better builder, and I worry about you no longer!”. Multiplayer is also a consideration here: I’m mainly a single player kind of guy, but in Multiplayer, global events and the competitive and co-operative quests add a new dimension that’s honestly welcomed as a shakeup, variation in what can often be a competition of adaptation and optimal building. The difference shows almost from the beginning, adding impetus to certain goals, and so, if this is what you’re after, then it’s definitely worth the £6.99 Amplitude are asking for. Just be aware that it can seriously change the dynamic of your game, and you won’t be disappointed.

Either extra research, or shoring up a weak research town? YES PLEASE.

Endless Legend: Guardians was released on the 29^th April 2015. It was the Ardent Mages who got the first Legendary Building before me, and they cleaned my clock in the mid-game. I was sweating the whole time.

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Source : Early Access backer
Price: £10.99
Where To Get It: Steam , Official Site

INSPIRED BY… More than just Power Rangers, Saban, come the hell on…

“IF IT ISN’T STARFORCE! CEREBRO SHALL BE MINE, TO SHINE MY RED LIGHT ALL OVER THE WORLD, AND STOP THE WORLD IN ITS TRACKS!”

“TRANSITMANCER, YOUR TRAFFICKING IN EVIL ENDS NOW! WE, STARFORCE, SHALL -” Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there. I was adding my own mental soundtrack to Behold Studios’ Chroma Squad, a turn based strategy game about being the cast and studio of a Sentai studio.

For all that I outgrew some sentai shows (like Saban’s Power Rangers, who unfortunately didn’t like Chroma Squad, judging by the “Inspired by” that Behold had to slap on their title splash…), I don’t think I’ll ever really outgrow the Sentai genre, where bright, colour coded heroes fight rubber monsters and hammy villains with acrobatics, cheap pyrotechnics, and occasionally, forming a giant robot to SAAAAAVE THE WURRRRLD. Just writing that last sentence makes me grin, so you can imagine that I bought an early access copy of Chroma Squad as soon as I could humanly manage. The game is now released, and… It’s already a somewhat different beast to how it was earlier in production. Not completely different, but… Somewhat. I’ll occasionally mention some of these differences for contrast.

This is not a spoiler. They promised giant robots, you *get* giant robots.

One of the first things I’m going to mention, however, is that, as a game, it nails the broad feel of Sentai studios and their works. You start with extremely cheap costumes, and, if you’ve done well, by the end of Season 1, you’ll have upgraded to… Just really cheap costumes. Each “episode” is basically a simple, objective based fight, usually involving three kinds of enemies: Mooks, Mooks Who Can Shoot, and the episode’s Big Bad (In the case of Season 1, this includes the Fat Alien, the Cardboard Boxer, and the Transitmancer, the mysterious and enigmatic wizard of traffic!), and this also fits the feel of a Sentai show. Your well being depends on being popular, and so a lot of the challenge comes from pleasing your audience, whether through being cool with the fans (Signed photos, for example), or fulfilling audience challenges in a mission. Heck, there’s even a few “live episodes”, where the power of your fans literally powers you up (And yes, this is a thing actual Sentai shows do, it’s pretty awesome.)

Writing wise, it definitely has its strong points. There’s one episode which, if you hadn’t played in Early Access, you’d never know was a reference to the fact that, originally, the hostage really was a lady who’d not been paid enough for a speaking role (Bravo, Behold, for not only changing that up, but referencing it!), and the good natured moment where a fan bursts into the show to take a guest role (And the cast are won over by their passion) is really sweet. It also says a lot that among the first upgrades you can get is an SD Camera. Not HD… SD. I dread to think what they were using before I bought that.

Wait, where the hell did you come fro- Oooooh, *neat line*!!!

This isn’t to say that I don’t have some criticisms. I kinda liked being able to get hold of individual ingredients, but, presumably based on feedback, that’s been replaced with item lottery boxes. I’m also not a big fan of only having one skill upgrade to my team members per season, because the combination of these factors makes the first season… Well, drag on a bit. The special abilities don’t really need to be used until the finale of Season 1, and it makes the first season, despite its good writing, feel a litte slow. Only a little, though, and it picks up again once you get a Giant Robot, more costumes, and the first possibilities of the promised branching storyline.

Still, I can’t deny that I’m having fun. I’m enmeshed in fulfilling the fan challenges, finding ways to make my limited toolbox of abilities work best for me, and I like the fact that there are two parallel stories going on (The actual Sentai show, which is suitably silly, and the drama surrounding the studio, which I won’t spoil). For £11, it’s definitely got enough content (5 seasons, extra game features that unlock as it goes on, upgrading), and it claims multiple endings, so… If you like light strategy titles with some management thrown in, or Sentai shows, I don’t think this is a bad purchase. It’s not, as it stands, an amazing purchase… But it’s got charm, it’s got a sense of humour, and it does have surprising levels of challenge, even if that’s mostly been on the studio end.

It’s not *all* great though… LOOTBOX, WHY DO YOU TORMENT ME SO?

Chroma Squad released April 30th. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to fighting evil. Oh, and playing Chroma Squad.

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Source: Early Access backer
Price: base price £14.99 (Sale going on right now)
Where To Get It: Steam Page , Official Site

Start with two, maybe get four. Stun *all* the guards.

Even as a member of the awesome technological rebellion that is Invisible, Incorporated, I feel sorry for the security. One poor soul has been tazed for the third time in a row, and is no doubt thinking he might want to seek out a medical professional for what is obviously narcolepsy. I can’t feel too sorry, however, as the IT department of this particular company seems to want to eat my babies. This is just one of a large set of feelings I have for Invisible Inc, the latest offering from the creators of Mark of the Ninja, Klei Entertainment. Most of these feelings are positive.

The game boasts that it has 2 animated cutscenes, and I must admit, when I first saw that boast, I was leery of the release product (I’ve been following it since it debuted on Early Access), but my fears were put to rest within minutes. You see, the atmosphere in this game doesn’t depend on cutscenes. It depends on emergent stories, and I’m happy to report that what’s under the hood matches the aesthetic and themes of the game really well. So let’s go into that.

Sometimes, it can go horribly, disastrously wrong. And by god, it’s entertaining!

Invisible, Inc, despite its name, is not about a Syndicate like corporation, smashing all before it with soulless, mind controlled soldiers. It’s cyberpunk as all get out, and II are the little people, fighting back against the corporations that sought to stamp them out… And almost succeeded. The game’s premise is that the few free members of Invisible Inc are on the run, and have 72 hours (3 days) to, if not win their fight against such entities as Sankaku, the droid centric Japanese corporation, or the German arms supremos, [insert], at least kick them where it hurts. And all we have for that is the means to quietly slip into corporate buildings, a friendly, but limited AI, and not very much else. While options open up the more you play the game (characters who are better at killing, characters who can disable machinery, more hacking options), and you will get more powerful if you play your cards right, at the beginning, you’re up against it, and the clock is ticking.

Gameplay wise, it’s turn based, squad level strategy with some RPG elements. Two to four agents infiltrate a building, either beat down, hack, or avoid security measures, and try to both rob the place blind (Your finances and levelling up are dependent on this) and complete their objectives. And it’s pretty intuitive. There is a tutorial that gives you most of the basics, and the rest is quite helpfully shown in tooltips, in one of the three vision modes you can quickly switch between. And here’s where it gets fun.

Tactical View, where the necessity of hacking that one camera drone becomes so very clear.

See, Klei thought their design through, and it shows. It’s isometric, but not only can you rotate the view, you can switch to “tactical” view, which reduces the clutter, or “Incognita Mode”, which is where all the hacking takes place. It’s a risk reward game, where rushing will, done well, ensure the steadily creeping Alarm Level of the building won’t screw you over at a critical moment… And, done badly, will quickly and efficiently see you cut down, your cause lost. But there are very few moments where I’ve put down my keyboard and muttered “That was bullshit”, and, on reflection, most of those were definitely my fault. Like the time I went for a safe that I knew would take more to get to than the three turns it would take for the guard to wake up… And neatly trapped myself, with no backup because I split my agents too often. Or the time I hacked a camera drone, and realised afterward that it had nowhere to go.

Stacking the deck either way, allowing you to fine tune your experience, are Rewinds and Expert Mode checkboxes. Rewind modes are your “Oh sod, I didn’t mean to do that” button, allowing you to turn back time… But they’re a limited resource, adding a layer of tactical depth that remains intuitive. Meanwhile, expert mode restricts you in challenging ways, like adding a turn timer (Oops, now you can’t just sit back and think about it, because there’s ten seconds left to do something aaaaaaaaa-nuuuuu!), or making enemies harder. At its base level, though, the game encourages stealth over violence. Killing most guards will not only up the security level, it’ll cost you money, and that cost… Can quickly ramp up. Add to that that ammo is not always a guaranteed find, and… Well, it’s better to be dodgy, or sneaky, than to be violent, is all I’m saying… And I love it.

Do not do this unless you are confident each agent can handle things.

You’ll love it too, if you like turn based strategy and cyberpunk, or roguelikes and cyberpunk (As the levels are procedurally generated). If you’re not the patient type, however, or strategically minded… Don’t say I didn’t warn you when I say this game definitely wants you to think really carefully about whether you want to hack that Daemon protected safe open, or try and knock out that guard.

Invisible Inc released on the 12^th of May. A camera droid is watching me write this review, and it’s creeping me out a little.

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