This was my first time playing this game, and first time doing a DCG game of the month. I think I made it to about level 4 or 5 before deciding to move on. Apparently this means I didn’t even make it past the tutorial levels, perhaps I should have persevered for a better experience! In my defence, I did get a little side-tracked this month with the birth of my second son :-).
I think the approach to combat (or lack thereof) is ultimately what put me off going deeper into this game.
On the positive side, I really liked the dark vibe of this game, the gritty dungeons, the beastly creatures inhabiting a grim underbelly, the overtly lovey-dovey township names, the misanthropic narrator, and general doom and gloom. The game is really quite unique in this regard.
The dungeon building was kinda fun (once I got the hang of how big to build each room), but started to feel somewhat formulaic after a while. I also liked the excitement of exploration, and trying to prioritise which rooms to build when and where.
But I just couldn’t help feeling that when it came to combat it was all just a bit random. Each fight just felt like I was flailing about helplessly and ultimately succeeding, and that it was ultimately just a numbers game (number of creatures and training level).
I think I will revisit this game eventually, but I’ll have to start from scratch as I accidentally lost my save game in an overzealous clearout of my DOS PC (also a pentium MMX, although I’m using a CF card so no defragging on that!).
