Dungeons: A Review

Dungeons seems to be remarkably similar to Notorious, the heroes are the source of the most deviation, as they actually die. The dungeon has a crystal heart and minions that you can assign tasks to and you place Gimmicks about rooms to change their function. You establish contracts with monsters and geolocate their spawn sites.

At first I jumped straight into the campaign but I was baffled as to what to do first so I had to resort to playing the tutorial. Your psyborg tries very hard to maintain her “Suspension of disbelief” and muses about what she might do next, she also talks to herself a lot and uses the royal “we”. I actually felt a little but sorry for her seeing as I broke her out of prison only to bend her will to mine. There is a goblin called Mr.Sidekick who reminds me when I am getting attacked, most of the time I didn’t know as I was busy building things elsewhere in the dungeon. Deo found it amusing that I was so absent minded as to need this prompt.

Unlike dancing, having completed the basic steps in the tutorial I feel like I have mastered the game, so now all I have left to do is follow the parody of lord of the rings and rinse and repeat the same game mechanics. In dancing though I suppose there is only one mechanic “move like you know what you are doing”. Once you find out how to do a particular set of dance steps and they mesh with your partner and the other people on the dancefloor; Then you can start work on improving your finesse and efficiency (everything I better with a high score list). But before that happens I get distracted by another dance, still the same mechanic but the steps are different or I have a new partner and they move differently.

I wonder if Notorious will be as complex as dancing? It’s not simple a scaled up version of Dungeons as there are several extra mechanics. Eg you have to establish contracts with minions as well as provide them a home. The whole rumor system. And you never totally control anybody, they may always do something unpredictable.

My first impressions have me continuing with the game, it’s nice that I can go to the loo without any adverse effects so I’ll probably play this one whilst I’m making tea, just like the sieges in M&B:Warband. I like Dungeons as a step along the way even though I think Notorious sounds a little too feature heavy to be able to pull off.