Name: Dungeon Maker
Development: GameCoaster
Platform: iOS / Android
Price: NT$90
Following the two-week tower defense game "Dungeon Defense" at the end of 2016, South Korea's single-player GameCoaster finally launched his second work, "Dungeon Maker."
Similar to the previous game, although this work is a small game in terms of gameplay, it is unambiguous in terms of the amount of planning. The current version has 7 different demon kings, more than 100 monsters/brave types, and more than 70 kinds of dungeon facilities. At the same time, this game once again demonstrates GameCoaster's ability to use numerical design to extend playability.
Choose the top of the city RPG adventure experience
Literally, Dungeon Maker is easy to think of as a "land Guardian" city strategy game, but it is actually a "rogue-lite" role-playing game. The so-called "rogue-lite" refers to elements such as "permanent death", "endless level" and "random combination" similar to "rogue-like", but provides players with more means of "inheriting" the last round of efforts. For example, the character skills of the last round of unlocking are available in the next round, and the higher monsters from the previous round are brought to the next round.
The player plays one of the seven sexy devils in Dungeon Maker, the only goal is to survive from the brave attack. The longer the player survives, the more reward points will be awarded at the end of the settlement, and the bonus points will be used to purchase card packs to unlock other demon kings, monster soldiers, and even richer inheritance options.
The game is played in a round-robin manner. Each round is called "One Day" in the game. Everything that can be done every day is presented as a card. Every day, the player has to choose one of the three cards. Every 20 days is a "big round". The last day is Boss. After the customs clearance, the next big round will be played, and the difficulty will be significantly improved. Most people who play for the first time will encounter a bottleneck when they enter the fourth round (after D+61).
The cards are divided into six categories:
- Normal combat: Battle levels that match the difficulty of the big round
- Elite Battle: A battle level that is more difficult than this big turn, even harder than Boss, but it will lose the "general ~ advanced" artifact
- Activities: random events, all kinds of things
- Merchants: the most critical subsystem, the focus of end-game
- Dungeon: The place to rest upgrade, you can choose to restore the demon blood, upgrade the city or upgrade the monster soldiers
- Treasure Chest: There is a low probability that it will drop artifacts
As a single-person developer, GameCoaster is very smart in designing the game process to be completely single-line. By allowing players to do only one thing at a time, not only enhances the importance of "choice" in the experience, but also increases the player's investment level, and also saves a lot of development troubles. In the early game, I always think about it for a long time between three cards: whether I choose "normal battle" to get monster eggs, or choose "Elite Battle" to risk the blood loss to fight for an artifact, or choose "activity" To trigger an event of possible tragedy?
Fully automatic but low tolerance battle
The core gameplay of the game is near-automatic click-to-fighting. Players set up a "city" or trap and other "facilities" on a map of up to 18 grids to meet the wave of heroes. During the battle, you can manually click on the screen to cast the devil's acting skills, but because each cast will consume magic, not the traditional click game.
The "facility" in the game is divided into four types, the most important of which are the city and the trap. The former is the base where the monster soldiers can be stationed, and the latter is the injury or abnormal state of the passing brave.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the game emphasizes "selection", so the configured facilities are not mobile and can only be replaced by new ones. If you make a mistake at the beginning, you will have to waste a lot of days to re-adjust. Beginners will also start to get rid of the rehearsal of the layout because they are not familiar with the way the map expands. Since the map has a maximum of 18 grids, how to make the best configuration is the biggest part of the game.
In addition to the resources of money, monsters, and facilities, the battle is also the main means of obtaining more than one hundred kinds of artifacts. The artifacts are permanently valid in this round, and the gameplay changes are extremely significant. Unfortunately, the order of acquisition is random and it is difficult to customize for the special devil.
A more mature and more revealing developer's work
After contacting Dungeon Defense more than a year ago, I became a fan of GameCoaster, and this book "Dungeon Maker" made me more amazing, and I can clearly see his "dungeon" feelings that I can't hide.
What's more important is that his numerical adjustment skills always make the play experience very good. In addition, the content of this time is more abundant. It is just a magical monster with seven different performances and a diamond-level monster that feels strong against the light. It is enough for me to continue playing for a while.
Finally, the game itself has left a big unsolved mystery to me: I can't see the difference between the "gentleman mode" before and after the opening, but I am glad that GameCoaster is more and more self-explanatory, looking forward to the next one. Cut in.