Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition – Review
Follow Genre: Turn-based dungeon crawler
Developer: Gambrinous
Publisher: Gambrinous
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition – Review

Site Score
8.0
Good: Dungeon crawling with a unique touch, Lots of incentive to keep upgrading your guild
Bad: Becomes very grindy late-game
User Score
9.0
(1 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)

Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition is a rerelease of Gambrinous’ 2015 game, with all the DLC added included, and various patches and new content added on top. An impressive title is the result, with plenty to explore and a unique touch, as it’s a turn-based dungeon crawler with a twist: instead of taking control of the heroes themselves, you are in charge of building the dungeon around them while they explore. Every dungeoneer has a mind of their own, and you’ll be working overtime trying to keep them from heading straight to their death. But hey, if you manage to do so, they’ll bring in lots of loot for you to upgrade your guild with.

Story

There’s not really a lot of plot here. In fact, you are dropped almost straight into the game as soon as you start it up. All we’re informed of via the opening text is that we’re the owner of a brand new guild of dungeoneering. What starts out as a measly one-room exploit can be upgraded and expanded to form a thriving business for heroes to join and go dungeon crawling from. Sadly, a real story won’t be found in Guild of Dungeoneering.

Graphics

Guild of Dungeoneering has a very special look to it, one that might not appeal to everyone. The sketchy art style is reminiscent of the content you might have found on Newgrounds and similar early-internet animation or flash game sites. This makes it not the smoothest or best-looking game you’ll ever play, but it’s got a certain charm to it. The use of colors is fun too, with most of the game being monochrome, and specific colors only being used to highlight the elements they’re connected to – such as red always popping up for enemies, gold for loot, etc.

Sound

Do you like medieval-inspired bard songs? Well, we hope you do, if you’re going to be playing this game. Aside from a whole soundtrack of instrumentals in that genre, there are also unique ditties that are sung by the snarky narrator for every new type of dungeoneer you unlock, as well as on a few other occasions, not to mention the title song. They’re very funny and really a highlight of the game. There is some other voice acting in the game coming from the heroes themselves, but these boil down to different noises of dismay and joy. On top of that, there’s a whole array of sound effects that breathe life into the game.

Gameplay

Guild of Dungeoneering is a turn-based dungeon crawler with elements of deck-building thrown on top. Your main goal is to expand your guild – which starts out as a single room – into a stretching series of buildings with all the commodities heroes might need to level up and go exploring. To do this, you build connecting rooms on a sort of grid map that represents your guild. Every room has a special function as well as the potential of enabling new types of dungeoneers to join your guild, with each type in turn coming with specific stats and abilities that could be helpful in upcoming dungeons.

Speaking of dungeons: that’s where you’ll be spending most of your time. Quite different than most dungeon crawlers, however, in Guild of Dungeoneering you don’t control the hero character themselves but instead, you’ll build the dungeon around them. The map is laid out in a similar grid as your guild is, with only a handful of disconnected rooms on the map to start with. Your job is to use the cards you draw to build new rooms, put down enemies and loot, and lead your dungeoneer in the direction of the final boss. Heroes can have a mind of their own, so getting them to cooperate will be tricky, especially when you can only play three cards per turn. But once you start throwing down a trail of gold for them to follow, things usually work out.

When your dungeoneer encounters an enemy the game engages you in turn-based combat also using the card mechanic. You draw cards in your hand and play these against the opponent. What cards you can find in your deck are dependent on the type of dungeoneer you’re playing with, as well as what buildings you have back at your guild. Sometimes you won’t make it out alive, but then you’ll just have to use the loot you already earned to upgrade your buildings and start with a new dungeoneer, hoping they’ll be able to level up and defeat the dungeon next time.

This last part is also where the game’s biggest issue lies: it does become very grindy, especially in later levels. Since your dungeoneers always start from level one, and it can take a lot of time to level them up, dying becomes a big issue. It also doesn’t help that later buildings and upgrades for your guild cost a ridiculous amount of money, while you don’t earn as much with low-level dungeons, forcing you to repeatedly grind them to be able to pay. It takes a little of the fun out of what would otherwise be an extremely casual experience.

Conclusion

Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition is a great game both for fans of the original as well as people delving into this deck-based world of dungeon crawling for the first time. Especially the first hours will keep you entertained, but after that, you’ll need to be willing to put up with more tedious grinding gameplay if you want to keep expanding. At least the snarky but hilarious narrator will keep you company through all your suffering.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 9.0/10 (1 vote cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Guild of Dungeoneering Ultimate Edition - Review, 9.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating
Jessica


Games are my escape and writing is my passion.

No Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.