This mostly very good port of the card game One Deck Dungeon did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do. It made me think it didn’t need to exist.
They are working on the Forest of Shadows expansion but it’s going to require additional feature implementation, etc.
I concurr that the “no swapping” thing, although occasional, is really annoying.
But you may also look at it on the bright side: it provides a stimulating mind game of calculating what you are going to do with that hand, before clicking that “remove dice” button. Join the gaming optimists clan!
At least, unlike some other games mentionned in Tom’s review, the undo button hardly ever puts you in a non-playable state. I’ll never commend Handelabra enough for their diligence at fixing bugs — or merely not creating them.
I love this game. And after about 20 tries, I finally beat the easiest boss on novice.
Now to read this review!
Picking the mage on the first dungeon can be quite a challenge! Congratulations!
I didn’t know that. It sure seemed hard! So many things that require yellow dice…
I read the review. I thought it was really cool how we had to fill in the armor spots first, but I’m not having much trouble keeping the options straight in my mind, so I rarely have to remove all of the dice and start over. Also, I never played the table version.
But I can see why someone who has played it would wonder why the app forces plays onto the armor spots.
Dude. Paladin.
In other news: this game is great, regardless of Tom’s score.
Of course they are. Given their Sentinels port, I didn’t even have to look it up online to know that! :) I mainly miss the characters from Forest of Shadows.
For me, it just adds an annoying extra step without the benefit of the results tracker in the lower left corner. I just scoot the dice around on the screen near the boxes I want to fill and adjust accordingly. In other words, exactly what I do on the tabletop version. The only difference is that in the videogame version, I then have to go back and manually click each die into place after I’ve settled on an arrangement.
And, yeah, the undo button is nice. Again, just like the tabletop version. :) Seriously, though, any boardgame port without an undo option is pretty much a misbegotten heap of digital junk that I have zero interest in playing.
You misspelled “rogue”!
I wouldn’t know. I can only speak to how I felt about it. :)
Yep. It’s a fundamental part of the game design, and it forces you into some really tough situations. In fact, without it, I’d say the game would be a lot more “lite”, more of a time waster than any sort of challenging puzzle. But Hadelabra had to go and add an extra layer…
-Tom
I don’t think your feelings are invalid, but I do think they are significantly influenced by having played the cardboard version (and that’s perfectly reasonable). For someone who has not, but is interested, there’s a lot to like here. More than the score might perhaps imply if someone were to just glance at it. I’m not trying to nitpick the score. I accept you have good reasons for it.
Won (with the paladin) on my first Standard delve into the beginner dungeon. But boy I did not think I was going to. Some of those floor 3 perils were IMO worse than the boss.
Oh, absolutely! And as usual, I would hate for anyone to pass up on something they might like just because I had issues with it. I’ve always said my review scores aren’t supposed to be a value judgment on the quality of anything, which is what I meant with my reply.
It gets easier. And harder. And easier. My experience with the game – I hope I mentioned this in the review of the tabletop game – is that it’s built as a bit of a rogue-like in terms of “grinding” to upgrade your character so you can play the harder dungeons/difficulties so you can upgrade your character so you can play the harder dungeon/difficulty levels…and so on. I remember someone in that thread (maybe @tyjenks?) mentioning that he’d only been playing standalone games, which misses out on one of the main pillars of gameplay.
-Tom
Isn’t that exactly what your score will do though? By rating the game, your score will be picked up by the aggregate sites, then, since this game will not get a lot of reviews, this will be horrible for it. You have all these considerations about your reviews, but they mean nothing on the aggregate sites. Beating a dead horse, I know.
That said, I quite enjoy the game. It’s a great tablet game.
We are creatures of words living in a stupid world dominated by numbers. It seems harsh to put it on Tom.
I need to go to sleep.
From Touch Arcade:
Heya, developer of the game here! Version 1.0.1 is now up with fixes for the low memory issues affecting older iPad devices. It should run great on them now.
We will be considering a phone version on the roadmap. It’s important to us that a phone version has a great UI, made specifically for that form factor, not just a tablet UI crammed into a small screen. Our focus right now is additional content (heroes, dungeons, Forest of Shadows) but we’re just getting started with One Deck Dungeon!
My point is that it’s never my goal to tell someone whether they should buy/play/read/watch something. If they want to infer that from what I’ve said, that’s their prerogative. But it’s not my goal.
Seems to me the usual discussion about review scores, the idiocy of the 7-9 scale, and the aggregates is another topic entirely. That, yes, has been done to death, but we can always do it again if you want.
-Tom
“Older iPads”? I have a 3rd gen iPad; the 2012 one I think. I really want to check out One Deck Dungeon, but I’m afraid my device won’t run it. I think it stopped at iOS 9 something too and iOS 10 was mentioned in the requirements.
Anyone know if it will work on mine?
Both Bottom of the 9th and One Deck Dungeon require iOS 10 sadly, which makes your iPad out of their reach. (I made the mistake of buying Bottom of the 9th from my computer for my iPad 2, but I got a refund for it)
Darn. Thanks for confirming though. I was getting really tempted to purchase it.
My opinion remains you would better serve your work and its aims by removing scores or thumbs entirely.
But you know this. Just replanting the seed in the hope it might take root one day :)
No way! I like scores! I refuse to abandon them because other people abuse, misinterpret, or get distracted by them.
-Tom
