Guild of Dungeoneering review

I had the privilege of seeing Guild of Dungeoneering earlier this year at PAX South and remembering instantly falling in love with it, if you need proof you can read my Guild of Dungeoneering Market Fresh Indies preview. I couldn’t wait for this unique indie, RPG, dungeon crawler archetype to hit Steam. Gambrinous were gracious enough to send me a review key, but I liked the game so much and wanted to see it succeed that I dropped the $15 in support. I know right, a real humanitarian I am.

Anyways, you came to read about a Guild of Dungeoneering review,  not hear my humblebrag about how I support indies. For those of you who don’t want to read my previous post out of spite or laziness, here’s the gist about Guild of Dungeoneering.

Guild of Dungeoneering is a creative take on the Dungeons & Dragons RPG type genre, except you become somewhat of the crawler and the Dungeon Master. In that genre there’s also a card combat element, really meta I know, combining both into a card combat/dungeon crawler-esque RPG. That’s the basics of what Guild of Dungeoneering is if you wanted to try and define it into a “genre”, when you dive deeper into what Gambrinous has done, you’ll see something unique and highly addictive.

The creative aspect, the part of the game that had me raving about it to everyone I talked to at PAX South was Guild of Dungeoneering‘s actually dungeon crawling system. As you paved your dungeon path you also put down gold and enemies along the way to help coerce your dungeoneer to head a certain direction, because well, you really have no control of him. That’s right, like the luck of a dice roll, you’re hoping your dungeoneer will go where you’re hoping he’ll go. This aspect becomes increasingly important as you explore more difficult dungeons that require you to be in a certain room after so many turns, so bribe your dungeoneer wisely.

Guild of Dungeoneering could of course not have the word “Guild” in the title without actually having a Guild, well I guess it could but it would make utterly no sense, so in it not only do you build dungeons as you crawl along, you also earn gold and expand your Guild. Recruiting different classes to help you along your travels. My favorites happen to be around the second tier with the Barbarian with a deathwish and the quick and nimble Ranger, if you want to start with a bruiser early, go with the…Bruiser, he’s spiky.

I will admit this Guild of Dungeoneering review could have been much, much different had I written it during my travels through the second dungeon vs the first real “boss” and pre the latest patch. I had a conversation with the Gambrinous dev team, frustrated about the games jump in difficulty, only to look like a complete idiot after they hinted at how I could be successful. You can see the twitter conversation above, and notice, yes, I’m an idiot. Hey, this whole card combat stuff is foreign to me, I’m still learning, and still sucking at it.

After the patch the combat changed a bit making it finally apparent what was actually happening, because with out it I wasn’t understanding what moves were doing what and when. Like I told you, this is all French to me. And finally, my achievements started popping up, instantly letting me know that I’ve filled my guild’s dungeon up to the gills with 20+ dead dungeoneers.

Guild of Dungeoneering may not be 60 fps, multiplayer, or have flashy hero’s (I mean, you can send a Mime out for Christ’s sakes), but it’s brutally cute, funny, addicting, and is topped off with a hilarious and bardriffic soundtrack. You can’t help but smile through the entire game, unless you’re dying, a lot, but even then, it still manages to force a smile to my face, even in death.