Hardcore Droid
  • Home
  • Spotlight
  • Reviews
    • Action
    • Strategy
    • RPGs
  • Most Hardcore
    • Devices
    • Gifts
    • Gadgets
  • About Us
  • Dragonheir:Silent Gods title
    Dragonheir: Silent Gods Review
  • Outerplane key art
    Outerplane Review
  • She wants to suck my blood feature
    She Wants To Suck My Blood? Review
  • PTTA2 Cover Art
    Please, Touch The Artwork 2 Launching On Mobile and PC Early Next Year
  • Mobile Suit Gundam U.C. Engage feature
    Mobile Suit Gundam U.C. Engage Review
  • Another Eden: A Cat From Beyond Time and Space
    The Cliffs of Wyrmrest Update Releases
  • MK Onslaught Feature
    Mortal Kombat: Onslaught Review
  • code geass title
    Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Lost Stories Review
  • warcraft rumble
    WarCraft Rumble Review
  • On Air Island: Survival Chat Characters
    On Air Island: Survival Chat Review
  • top-three-smartphones-0
    Top Three Smartphones with Large Screens for the Ultimate Mobile Gaming Experience
  • csgo-crash-0
    How to Play CSGO Crash Game on Mobile
  • Spongebob Squarepants Stumble Guys Featured
    SpongeBob SquarePants is Coming to Stumble Guys
  • racing master car 2
    Racing Master Beta Begins
  • best-detective-apps
    Eight Best Detective Apps for Android
Hardcore Droid
Hardcore Droid
  • Home
  • News
    • News
    • Spotlight
    • Interviews
    • Consoles
  • Reviews
    • Action
    • Adventure
    • Strategy
    • RPG
    • MMOs
    • Racing
    • Indie
    • Hardware
  • Best Of
    • Top 10 Games
    • Best RPGs
    • Best Action
    • Best Puzzlers
    • Best Strategy
    • Best Indie Strat
    • Best Indie RPGs
    • Most Hardcore
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Game Jobs
    • Archives
    • Attributions
    • Opportunities
  • Board Game
  • RPG
  • The Magazine

Card Dungeon Review

  • November 20, 2014
  • Sharang Biswas
Spread the love

Card DungeonThere’s no doubt that we’re seeing a resurgence in “analogue” games. Following in the footsteps of video games, which in the last two decades have managed to escape the basements of misunderstood tweens and antisocial loners into the world of the trendy, card, board and tabletop roleplaying games are enjoying a new popularity among diverse audiences. And forget Monopoly and Risk: today’s popular tabletop games have involved narrative structures, complex gameplay that can last well over a few hours, socially conscious messages, regional tournaments, and even… err…“adult” themes . So of course, one can expect the resulting cross-media derivatives: board games based on computer games, mobile games based on card games, and most bizarrely,  computer games based on board games based on computer games.

Games like Card Dungeon, however, fall into an altogether new and different camp. Created by Playtap Games, Card Dungeon is an original (as in, not based on any existing IP) digital game whose gameplay and aesthetics are designed to feel like a board game. Take a moment to think about that: videogame developers are attempting to make virtual games that make you feel like you’re sitting around playing a board game. If nothing else, that fact alone should convince you that we’re entering a new silver age of tabletop games.

So does Card Dungeon succeed at providing a satisfying gameplay experience? The premise itself is pretty ordinary (some might even say stale). You play as “Crusader”, a holy knight serving the divine but capricious “Lords” in a quest to “free the lands from the hordes of the Nethermist”. Like most games, it’s basically just an excuse to run around and kill zombies, evil shamans and menacing-looking bats (whose only crime, honestly, is to look menacing: the game specifically states that they’re harmless, and yet even the most righteous Crusader feel compelled to murder them for their ever-necessary Loot).

Card Dungeon

So if you’re looking for a masterful plot, you’ve come to the wrong place. If it’s riveting game mechanics, however, keep on reading. As a roguelike, Card Dungeon features the familiar procedurally generated, tile-based dungeons with turn-based combat and permanent death. Nothing new there. In fact, I tend to get frustrated by roguelikes whose only claim to the title is permadeath. If you have to start over, the game should let you reinvent your character somehow. Card Dungeon lets you do this in two ways. First, through character creation, which is refreshingly simple: there’s no lengthy class descriptions to worry about, nor any convoluted skill trees to meticulously comb through. The only thing you do is pick one positive trait (such as “Crusader’s Hex”, which makes it more likely for enemies to miss you on attacks) , and pick one negative trait (like “Cheapskate”: you can only buy 1 thing at the shop) . This means that when you die, you can easily change up your character traits to see if you fair better. Of course, “easily” might be too strong a word; unlocking new traits requires special “knowledge gems”, which are fiendishly rare loot drops. Nevertheless, you tend to progress pretty quickly through the game, so chances are that by the time you die, you’ve found at least one of these gems, and when you do eventually die, you can set yourself up for different experience.

The second way in which Card Dungeon adds variety is through the basic gameplay mechanic itself. Each turn, Crusader can either move or perform an action. Every action is represented by a card in your inventory, and it is these cards that make the game truly shine. Each card costs mana to play and can be collected as loot, and they run the gamut of actions you can take, from basic things such as healing, sword attacks and disabling traps, to more interesting and complex actions such as conjuring up thorny brambles on certain squares and vanishing and reappearing elsewhere in an explosion of fire. The twist is that Crusader can only hold three cards at a time, and that cards deteriorate with each repeated use (as in literally deteriorate: their colors start to fade and their edges get more and more ragged until they’re unusable). This forces you to be extremely thoughtful with your loot retention strategies, because getting stuck with no attack cards is…unfortunate. Should you take the common and weak poisoned dagger card to make sure you have fresh attacks, or should you milk your uber-powerful Lovecraftian-horror-summoning spell to the last drop, hoping that something else will turn up soon after? Should you waste a slot on a healing spell, or rely on healing potions that you may or may not find in the near future? The card mechanic is the pulsing heart of the game, forcing you to constantly be on your toes, keeping track of your precious card supply. It also means that the game never gets monotonous: Crusader is basically mutating new and different skills every few minutes.

Card Dungeon

Finally, the art style really makes you feel like you’re in a board game. Characters are paper-thin cutouts slotted into plastic bases, and move as though they’re being manually placed (one might argue that sometimes, enemies move a bit too slowly, but that’s only a minor annoyance), while the simple textures on the board really like they could have been painted onto cardboard. The camera angles can sometimes be a little tricky to manage (and have an irritating tendency to obscure your health and mana bubbles), but again, not a big deal. The visuals are charming enough to make up for any minor complaints, and it looks like the developers have been responsive to such player grievances.

For a digital game masquerading as a tabletop game, Card Dungeon ends up doing extremely well. Every rare card discovered and every mini-boss defeated packs a satisfying punch. It’s like that feeling you get when you cross things off of your to-do list, or when you finally fold that last piece of laundry: that warm glow of having accomplished something.  Then there’s the real desperate sort of drive to stay alive, that rush of adrenaline that comes with finding that one lightning bolt you need to obliterate that zombie you’ve been frantically dodging… Both emotions are here in spades. All in all, an excellent roguelike RPG.

Write Your Own review of Card Dungeon  >>>

 

Hardcore?
4

Yes.

A satisfying roguelike with innovative card-based mechanics.

Related Topics
  • Android Role-Playing Games
  • Best Android RPG
Sharang Biswas

Sharang Biswas finished two engineering degrees before deciding to attend Art School, studying Interaction Design and Creative Technology at NYU-ITP. He fondly remembers Age of Empires II, the source of his interest in Medieval History, and Neverwinter Nights, which spurred his passion for Dungeons and Dragons and tabletop RPG's. He's currently, a writer, game designer and "sort of an artist," though he still questions what an artist actually does.

Previous Article
  • News

Turbo Dismount…Dismounts Into Play Store: Hardcore Droid News

  • November 18, 2014
  • Zackery Cuevas
View Post
Next Article
  • Strategy

Civilization Revolution 2 Review

  • November 20, 2014
  • Meirion Jordan
View Post
You May Also Like
Dragonheir:Silent Gods title
View Post
  • Reviews
  • RPG
  • Strategy

Dragonheir: Silent Gods Review

  • Juan Carlos Huyke
  • November 30, 2023
Outerplane key art
View Post
  • RPG
  • Strategy

Outerplane Review

  • Daniel DeAngelo
  • November 29, 2023
She wants to suck my blood feature
View Post
  • Reviews
  • RPG
  • Simulation

She Wants To Suck My Blood? Review

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • November 29, 2023
MK Onslaught Feature
View Post
  • RPG

Mortal Kombat: Onslaught Review

  • Trevor Wells
  • November 28, 2023
GrandChase Mayden Official Showcase Artwork
View Post
  • News
  • RPG

Secret Service Agent Mayden Joins GrandChase

  • James Bell
  • November 19, 2023
Reverse: 1999 Title
View Post
  • Reviews
  • RPG

Reverse: 1999 Review

  • Michael Licon
  • November 16, 2023
Street Figter collab
View Post
  • News
  • RPG
  • Strategy

The Street Fighter Series Punches into Puzzle & Dragons

  • Tamanna Chandel
  • November 14, 2023
Tower of God Feature
View Post
  • RPG

Tower of God: New World Review

  • Trevor Wells
  • November 12, 2023
The Latest
  • Dragonheir: Silent Gods Review
  • Outerplane Review
  • She Wants To Suck My Blood? Review
  • Please, Touch The Artwork 2 Launching On Mobile and PC Early Next Year
  • Mobile Suit Gundam U.C. Engage Review
  • The Cliffs of Wyrmrest Update Releases
  • Mortal Kombat: Onslaught Review
  • Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Lost Stories Review
  • WarCraft Rumble Review
  • On Air Island: Survival Chat Review
Meta
  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Hardcore Droid
  • Reviews
  • Spotlight
  • Hardcore
Core Gaming on the Android OS

Input your search keywords and press Enter.