Guild of Dungeoneering

In her autobiography Felicia Day said I should sometimes focus on things other than video games. Completely forgetting that she and Ryon had reviewed a video game that I put in my steam wish list. She's personally responsible for the hours Eryn and I are wasting playing Guild of Dungeoneering. Or at least 50% responsible.

I've followed the same pattern I use for XCOM and most other turn-based strategy games.  I've named the fighters after family and friends.  Here's Erwood the adventuring chump, and Kyle and Bruiser.  He should have known to call himself Kyle I.  He didn't last long.

See.  Kyle II.  Yet still with that Robert Smith The Cure look.  That's totally like him.

The game lets you build a dungeon around your characters and then engage in card battles with the enemies you place (and a few you don't) to finish the levels.  A bit like Cardhunters, but much more fun and the music - along the lines of Brave Brave Sir Robin - is 1000x better.  As you adventure, you accumulate gold to buy new classes and a few new card types.  The attacks and defense are limited to magic (blue) and physical (red), blocks against those colors, bypassing defense, and speed (go first).  That's 95% of it except for gaining or losing cards beyond your basic three.  Each class and each monster also comes with some special skills (block all damage and your opponent takes a damage for instance) to vary the pace.  I like the ranger with his speed.  Very easy character to play.

There's also a trophy room and, best of all, a cemetery. Here you can see the tombstones of those who have gone before.  Jen's name fits on her tombstone, but calling her Jennife is a joke because often they cut her last letter on forms.

And then I played some more (there's a mime class, hence Marcel).  Wehttam is Matthew spelled backwards.  Really.  It is.

 And then some more.  Kyle III has been lasting longer than his predecessors.  It's rough, because with every adventure you start over completely from scratch.  No armor.  No weapons.  No skills.  So it's a bit more like a puzzle game than an RPG in that respect.  I suspect if they ever Version II it, they'll add some retention of items and skills and some impact for the rooms beyond the good and bad fountains that show up sometimes when you place a hallway tile.

Worth my time.  I hope the developer puts the money toward making it even better.