
Deciding which type of hero to send on a quest is a strategic decision that can make or break the mission – the character archetypes boil down to warrior, thief, wizard and, uh, mime – and carefully choosing which cards to play in which order can make the difference between success and failure in combat. It’s all very light and cute, but with gameplay mechanics that are robust enough to be fun in their own right.

And your heroes’ exploits (as well as their many, many failures) are chronicled by a cheeky bard reminiscent of Brave Sir Robin’s minstrel in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, singing lyrics like, “Who’d have thought, the way you fought, you’d be so very brave / Now we need somebody else to fill this empty grave.” The whole thing is presented in a hand-sketched style, with pencil crayon doodles for the characters and cards, and dungeons that are mapped out on graph paper that makes the old-school Dungeons & Dragons nerd in me nostalgic. All you can do is hope to lure her in the right direction with critters to fight and gems to collect. While you can control the layout of the dungeon to an extent, you can’t really control your hero’s path. Snakeyhair in the final chamber before time runs out.
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Knowing the creature will petrify my hero in 10 turns, I carefully lay out a series of corridors from my randomly drawn hand of cards, populating it with monsters for Taia to battle and (hopefully) defeat, so that she can level up yet still reach Ms. Battles are also fought with cards, a simplified (and more accessible) version of what you might find in games like Magic: The Gathering.įor instance, Taia, my stalwart ranger, is on a quest to defeat Medusa. Instead of exploring pre-built or randomly generated dungeons, players are dealt a hand of virtual cards – monsters, treasures and dungeon tiles – which they use to create the dungeon on the fly, laying down connecting corridors and rooms and populating them with beasts to fight and treasures to collect. While Guild of Dungeoneering falls into that category, one of the things that makes it unique is it’s a card game - sort of.

This is well-trod ground in video games, so much so that there’s an entire sub-genre that cleverly riffs on the cliche of gold-hungry warriors, wizards and rogues plumbing monster-filled caverns. Guild of Dungeoneering puts you in charge of its titular academy of adventurers, with the goal of raiding and plundering an increasingly dangerous array of dungeons. Unless you’re hitting the links with Rory McIlroy PGA Tour or beating the crap out of Hades in God of War III Remastered this week, now’s a great time to cast about for something smaller and fresher.

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If the chaps from Monty Python were asked to create a video game with silly drawings, funny songs and the sensibilities of their 1975 movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the result might look something like Guild of Dungeoneering.ĭeveloped by tiny Dublin-based indie studio Gambrinous and available for $15 on Steam and GoG.com, Guild of Dungeoneering is one of those PC gaming gems you tend to stumble upon in the slow summer months when not much of note is being released. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
