If you like Dungeons and Dragons styled games, the Windows Phone game Dungeoneers might be something of interest.
The game is a dungeon exploration game where you create a party of four adventurers from a handful of unique classes . Dungeoneers has tons of monsters to defeat, plenty of gold to fill your pouches and a few treasure chests to plunder. The game is available for low-memory devices and while I enjoyed playing Dungeoneers, it may take you a little time to get used to the interface and dark graphics.
When you launch Dungeoneers, the main menu greets you with two options. You can start a new campaign or continue where you last left your adventurers. From there you will go to a navigation screen where you can visit the local inn, market, barracks or the town gate.
The local inn is where you can rest, store inventory and recover from your battles. The market, as you would guess is where you can pick up new weapons and gear.
The barracks is where you begin the game and where you will recruit/create members of your party (more on this in a second) and the town gate will lead you to the dungeon.
When you visit each area for the first time, tutorial windows will pop-up to explain what each area is about and what you can do while visiting. You will start the game in the barracks where you create your team of adventurers.
Dungeoneers has six unique classes of characters to choose from as you create your party of four. You have what is basically a human warrior, a human wizard, a dragon creature, a dark elf and horned, demon-like creature. Once you choose your character, you will need to choose their discipline, which includes soldier, ranger, berserker, shaper, rogue and priest.
From there you choose the person's gender and give the character a name. There are descriptive windows that appear for each of these choices so you are better informed on your selection.
So far the game's navigation is straightforward. Once you create your recruits you will need to add them to your active party at the bottom of the screen. Just tap the empty slot, and then tap the character you want to activate. Your party will be displayed at the bottom of the screen throughout the game.
There is a menu button that sits mid-screen with options to view your party member's status, equipment, skills and the option to save and quit the game. It is advisable to save the game frequently to avoid having to start at ground zero when your party is destroyed (and they will be destroyed).
Dungeon Exploring
Once you've set your party, you will need to head to the town's gate to begin exploring the dungeon to find gold and treasures.
The dungeon screens will have your team's point of view displayed in the upper half of your Windows Phone screen with your party displayed in the bottom half. Each member's vital statistics will be displayed besides their player icon.
You can swap out your party view for a map view of the dungeon, which helps in the navigation. Only portions of the dungeon you have discovered will be displayed.
Movement is simple. Swipe up at the screen to move forward, swipe down to move backwards and swipe left or right to turn in that direction. You will run across piles of gold, treasure chests and doors as you move about the dungeon. Just tap on the object to collect or open them.
As you travel through the dungeon, you will also run across a stray monster or two. This will prompt the combat menu to appear, which gives you the option to choose each character's action or tap "auto" and the game will choose the best course of action for each character.
As you are successful in combat, experience is awarded to the survivors that will go towards advancing them in level. This will increase their abilities and hopefully aid in the party's overall success.
Overall Impressions
Dungeoneers has a slight "old school" feel and the game reminded of the older D&D games like Baldur's Gate or maybe even the Bard's Tale) video game. Once you get the hang of moving around the various screens of the game, Dungeoneers does begin to grow on you.
I'm not a big fan of the dark graphics though. Granted, dungeons aren't exactly known for having an abundance of lighting, but I think the developers could lighten up the game screens just a touch and reveal a little more game detail without hurting the mood.
I also wouldn't mind seeing a help menu available from the game's menu. While the game does a good job of presenting you with instructional screens when you start game play, these screens toss a lot of information at you. It would be nice to have the ability to go back and review that information as needed.
Overall, the developers behind Dungeoneers are on the right track. They have created a classic dungeon exploring game that is not a bad time waster of a game. The game is relatively new to the Windows Phone Store and is pulling down a 4.5 Star rating, which we would probably dial back about half a star. However, the more I play the game, the more I'm beginning to agree with the current rating.
The trial version of Dungeoneers does have some limitations (number of dungeon levels, skills, bosses to fight, etc. are less) but gives you a good feel for things. The full version is currently running $3.99. If you give Dungeoneers a try, let us know in the comments what you think and be sure to rate the game in the Windows Phone Store.
