The Guild of Dungeoneering Review

The Guild of Dungeoneering is a fantastically drawn 2D turn-based dungeon crawler RPG adventure game that sees you in the roll of a guild master controlling every element of gameplay with the twist of it being card based. Using cards drawn from your Guild decks, you lay down rooms, monsters, traps and of course loot! The death toll is high but the gameplay is a lot higher, as it hits you with a Monty Python style song audio track as you enter this hilarious little game.

A hero has entered your dungeon, you can rename the little chump by don’t bother it will only be something you read on a gravestone in a few minutes as he is brutally hacked to death by a hideously aggressive rat or far worse.. a menacing rubber duck (who was not ready to end his bath time, so it’s rather upset). Armed with nothing you flail into combat with cards being drawn like cower (the curl into a ball and cry to mummy tactic) or the lucky shot which actually causes two hits to your opponent. You will acquire much better loot when you start defeating people, I mean you’ll need to as who else wades into combat armed with a fork, a cup of tea (fire based magic) with the protect abilities of a straight jacked with a paper crown pride of place on you head?

As you progress, selecting three cards with each turn, placing corridors, junctions, gold/silver coins, loot and enemy’s you get drawn into a fantastically simple little world filled with so much joy, I laughed so much as most of my brave hero’s died and were placed into my graveyard.

As you build your guild your hero’s become stronger and you unlock new weapons, armour and classes. Entice, coax and bribe your heroes to clear the dungeons you build by strategically placing rooms, monsters and loot from the cards you are dealt. My favourite being the Cat Burglar who inhales cat nip for extra attacks and his or her special ability is throwing a cat for huge damage. I have four cats and although I have never thrown one, even when playing with them they hurt….so launching one at an assailant wouldn’t be a great experience for either party I’m guessing.

It’s a great game filled with endless possibilities, that are all kinda decided by yourself. Sometimes the choices aren’t great but you literally work with the cards your dealt, some boss battles are frustrating as a large volume of hero’s are slain but eventually one will be victorious only to be killing in the next dungeon by an evil plant, a zombie, ghost, ork or grape (I made the last one up but it wouldn’t surprise me). It has me hooked trying to level up my guild, hero’s and plunging forward into another dungeon.

Manage your guild well and spend your hard earned ‘glory’ wisely to level up and unlock more rooms and equipment. Improving your guild means you’ll have a better chance at beating the harder dungeons as you progress and take down the ultimate dungeon overlord. My guild has grown and grown with a blacksmith, train ground, library and is filled with three awe-inspiring hero’s, as I step into my next dungeon I have a really bad feline about it (an actual joke, not one of mine) as I have to fight off scary spiders, goblins and fire imps to reach my new objective….reach the two large treasure chests. The cards aren’t in my favour and I am blindly throwing cats as I protect myself with a small board, my life is low and I can feel me losing everything. I get head butted by a goblin and my world spins, inhaling some catnip to steady my mind.. I’m focused, I lash out with my twig landing three hits. This is purr-fect (again an in-game joke) I can smell the oak of the first chest within reach! But my life is taken to soon, one set of cards couldn’t protect me and I was torn from the dungeon and my name etched on a gravestone for evermore.

The Guild of Dungeoneering is a fabulous game, which provides hour after hour of addictive gameplay for kids or a thirty-three year old man-child like myself. The game is currently locked at 30 FPS and will run on virtually any PC and I would thoroughly recommend it to any RPG lover. It’s a true little masterpiece that will be played for years to come. Forgive me, I’ve got to go and hunt down a goblin and shout rude things while my stone mason gets his tomb ready.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.