I first learned of this game by seeing someone play it in a class. I can't say I wasn't warned that my homework and other obligations would fall by the wayside. But my desire to play this mix of rpg ad puzzle overcame the warning and I was soon addicted myself.
This game is a perfect formula of a simple addicting matching game with subtle, but significant, rpg choices. The aesthetic is simple but enjoyable - a board of pieces falls from the top and you must match coins, skulls, swords, shields, and potions. It's straightforward what each does - coins give you gold, potions give you health, shields give you defense, swords give you attack power, and skulls are your enemies (and therefor give you exp). You can trace a line in any direction, including diagonally, and by tracing three or more of an object you create a match. Once the tiles disappear, a new set falls from the top. Simple right? The game first gets you with it's not-all-that-original puzzle formula. But then you become acquainted with the RPG side.
First of all is surviving. In this game you have health - after each 'turn', in that you make a match of tiles, the skulls on the board attack. Each skull does an amount of damage (the attack power of each appears as a subscript on the skull icon). Of course, matching potions gives you hp back. To kill skulls, you match three or more of them together and you do damage. You begin with a base attack - matching skulls deals that much damage. Swords can be matched with skulls, as well as give you extra attack for that 'attack' on the skulls. In this way, swords are important in being able to kill skulls on one attack. That's the game in a nutshell - kill skulls and stay alive, made into a simple puzzle game.
What surprised me and makes this game great is the surprising amount of depth. First off, the game gets harder and harder as the turns grow. Not only to skulls get more powerful and can withstand more attacks, eventually you encounter specialty enemies. You will learn that some are worse than others. Some of the more difficult include a skull who takes all damage until it is dead (as in the other, normal skulls on the board take no damage until the special skull is dead, meaning they can build up and kill you), and also a skull with spikes (deals damage to you equal to what you deal to it. There are specialty skulls that aren't that bad though, such as one that simply teleports around the board.
How do you keep up with the increasing difficulty. This is the part of the game that keeps you coming back for more. You improve your... well you aren't necessarily a character, but you 'upgrade' continually as you play. First off is leveling up. Each skull that you kill gives you exp, so with enough you get to level up. This involves choosing two bonuses. The first kind of bonus available is a skill. Skills can be used on any turn, but take time to recharge (time to recharge depends on which skill it is). These can be used to kill enemies more efficiently, turn tiles into tiles of other types, and many other beneficial manipulations of the game. The other type of bonus is to improve your stats, like health, base attack, etc.
In addition to leveling up, you gain bonuses by collecting enough coins or shields. Coins' purpose is to get you bonuses. They offer versatile bonuses that go far in determining your strategy. Perhaps the most important is giving you multipliers that result in higher exp, shield, and coin yields. These are essential to making it far into the game. They also offer benefits like poison damage and spikes (like the specialty enemy skull, spikes deal damage to every skull that attacks you). Shields first provide defense, which is a separate stat from health. When enemies deal damage to you (or the other way around, enemies have defense points as well) it is reduced depending on available defense points. The defense points diminish from being used, so collecting shields restores the available points for defense. However, collecting a surplus of shields results in points going towards equipment upgrades, which improve your available defense points as well as the amount of base and bonus damage.
The combination of leveling up, getting enough coins for an upgrade, and getting equipment from extra shields makes the enjoyable task of choosing how to improve your game occur quite often. It can be a little frustrating as every upgrade provides three to four choices, of which the options are random. For example, upon choosing a skill when leveling up, if you want a particular skill you may level up many times before you have a chance to choose the skill you want. However, this leads into the element of the game that connects the many, many times you will attempt the game.
Before each game you are able to choose a race and class, and edit the perks. You begin with human, but soon unlock other choices. There are the obvious choices like elves and dwarfs, and classes like archer and mage. However, there are 10 races and 10 classes, so unlocking them takes time, which is fine since you'll want to keep playing to get a feel for what you have unlocked. Each race has a set of bonuses and weakness, and each class does as well. The perks can be expanded once you level a class up, but must be planned well as each additional perk requires an additional weakness. The challenge is figuring out what combination will benefit you - the perks that do the most and the weaknesses irrelevant you your play style.
This task of trying out all the different classes, races, and upgrades keeps the somewhat repetitive nature of the game interesting. It's one of those games where each time you lose you think "I can do better" and find yourself playing much longer than you expected. The replay value is amazing as long as you get into the game's concept, so give the trial version a go and you will likely buy the full game quickly like I did. The game even has two challenge modes that aren't that bad, so those provide even more replay value. Dungeon Raid is able to pull many different rpg elements into such a simple puzzle formula, and choosing a strategy for managing health and defeating tougher enemies late game becomes very challenging. The constant choices for upgrades makes each game contain in itself a developing strategy and sense of progress, which only goes to feed the addicting nature of the game.
My rating: 100/100
Photo from Google Play Store
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fireflame.dungeonraid&hl=en
In addition to leveling up, you gain bonuses by collecting enough coins or shields. Coins' purpose is to get you bonuses. They offer versatile bonuses that go far in determining your strategy. Perhaps the most important is giving you multipliers that result in higher exp, shield, and coin yields. These are essential to making it far into the game. They also offer benefits like poison damage and spikes (like the specialty enemy skull, spikes deal damage to every skull that attacks you). Shields first provide defense, which is a separate stat from health. When enemies deal damage to you (or the other way around, enemies have defense points as well) it is reduced depending on available defense points. The defense points diminish from being used, so collecting shields restores the available points for defense. However, collecting a surplus of shields results in points going towards equipment upgrades, which improve your available defense points as well as the amount of base and bonus damage.
The combination of leveling up, getting enough coins for an upgrade, and getting equipment from extra shields makes the enjoyable task of choosing how to improve your game occur quite often. It can be a little frustrating as every upgrade provides three to four choices, of which the options are random. For example, upon choosing a skill when leveling up, if you want a particular skill you may level up many times before you have a chance to choose the skill you want. However, this leads into the element of the game that connects the many, many times you will attempt the game.
Before each game you are able to choose a race and class, and edit the perks. You begin with human, but soon unlock other choices. There are the obvious choices like elves and dwarfs, and classes like archer and mage. However, there are 10 races and 10 classes, so unlocking them takes time, which is fine since you'll want to keep playing to get a feel for what you have unlocked. Each race has a set of bonuses and weakness, and each class does as well. The perks can be expanded once you level a class up, but must be planned well as each additional perk requires an additional weakness. The challenge is figuring out what combination will benefit you - the perks that do the most and the weaknesses irrelevant you your play style.
This task of trying out all the different classes, races, and upgrades keeps the somewhat repetitive nature of the game interesting. It's one of those games where each time you lose you think "I can do better" and find yourself playing much longer than you expected. The replay value is amazing as long as you get into the game's concept, so give the trial version a go and you will likely buy the full game quickly like I did. The game even has two challenge modes that aren't that bad, so those provide even more replay value. Dungeon Raid is able to pull many different rpg elements into such a simple puzzle formula, and choosing a strategy for managing health and defeating tougher enemies late game becomes very challenging. The constant choices for upgrades makes each game contain in itself a developing strategy and sense of progress, which only goes to feed the addicting nature of the game.
My rating: 100/100
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fireflame.dungeonraid&hl=en