Added: 15.07.2015 1:14 | 5 views | 0 comments

Guild of Dungeoneering is not a story of heroes. It is not a tale of bravery. It is not a tale of gods and demons and the men caught in the wake of their eternal struggle. It is the story of petty street trash looking to die an ignoble death to buy a better bedroom. It is the story of anonymous, disposable failures casually flitting through a death maze of your making towards dubious fame. It is a game for losers. And that is what makes it great.

On the surface, it's pretty simple. You're presented with the journal of a douchebag: A guy who was kicked out of the world's premier guild of heroes before deciding, out of spite, to start his own guild of famed adventurers. Having neither fame nor adventurers, he settles on your first character after he answers an ad on a poster: The Chump.

No, really, his class is Chump. He fights like a chump. He defends like a chump. The narrator sings ballads of his chumpery. And the chump has been chosen to conquer a dungeon full of rats, zombies, and goblins.

The gameplay exists in some beautiful nexus of all RPG styles, flitting between being a card-combat title, a turn-based system, and good old-fashioned Dungeons & Dragons. The format, with its focus on leveling up fast in quick bursts of gameplay to survive the ultimate challenges, pleasantly recalls Pretty sure this is exactly what Chuck Norris’ dreams look like.

And oh, die you shall. There is quite a bit of trial and error involved in figuring out how and when to place which enemies to make for a nice steady curve of difficulty over time, but the game is very good at throwing a curveball by placing stat-debilitating fountains in your way, or giving a low-level enemy the Fury buff, which gives them double damage after half their life is gone. It's times like that the game makes quick work of killing heroes. It does occasionally frustrate, leaving so much of your success up to the luck of the draw, and it makes quite a few dungeons altogether irritating, but those stretches never last long enough to result in a thrown mouse. Mostly, it adds to the game's snark. Every hero can be renamed, and it fast becomes a fool's errand even bothering to get attached, when running into the wrong bear or bat in the maze means we're looking for another Barbarian in 10 minutes.

What happens instead is getting attached to specific personalities, to the awful, hilarious puns and the ridiculous variety of makeshift armors and weaponry gleaned in your travels. Facing a Fire Demon armed with a tree branch, while wearing a straightjacket and a cooking pot for a helmet, is the best kind of absurd--a brand we don't get often enough from modern RPGs.

There may not be much more to the game than the constant adventures, but it's tailor-made for short, easily-digestible chunks of gameplay. It would've been right at home as a 3DS or mobile title, but it has an honest shot at displacing Minesweeper as a go-to timewaster whenever there's 5 minutes to kill, and you feel the need to slay a rampaging hellbeast with a fork. If that's not a need you've ever had, don't worry. After a few go-arounds with the Guild, it will be.

Added: 15.07.2015 1:11 | 3 views | 0 comments

Legends of Eisenwald has just about everything except Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on a church door. Developer Aterdux Entertainment has traded in the usual Dungeons & Dragons-influenced fantasy realm common to tactical role playing for a more realistic story and setting based on medieval Germany at around the time the Reformation was starting to annoy the popes. The concept brings a unique feel and an absorbing (if occasionally workmanlike) campaign to a been-there, done-that genre.

Nevertheless, the heart of Legends of Eisenwald is based on the same structure that has powered fantasy role-playing/tactical combat since the glory days of

At times, however, all this realism dragged. Legends of Eisenwald lacks the pizzazz of more fantasy-oriented tactical RPGs. Loot drops just aren't that exciting when you know you're not going to score a wand of fireballs. (There is a good range of items on offer, both from defeated foes and from the markets scattered around the maps, although most of it is average stuff that lacks the glitz of what's found in traditional fantasy games.) So little magic in the game makes the priest and female mystic units bland; their being stuck mainly with healing and cursing spells means they don't have the impact of full-blown clerics and mages. Combat grows repetitive and predictable, as there are only so many ways you can mess around with garden-variety soldiers and archers. A hippogriff or a neo-otyugh might have livened things up, though the quick pace of battle means you have little time to be bored.

A few aspects of the design are somewhat problematic. Quests are not always spelled out clearly. At times this is good, as it promotes more exploration. At times this is bad, as you can get lost when a destination and/or the maps are too dark and cluttered with complicated terrain features. Some quest descriptions leave a lot to be desired, and locations are often given different names in quest dialogues from the maps. Also, be wary of bugs: I had the game crash to the desktop with exception errors on a few occasions, although generally the game was stable.

Visiting a virtual medieval Germany probably isn't at the top of the to-do list of any tactical RPGers, but maybe it should be. While Legends of Eisenwald is something of a grim, brutal experience much like the land in question back in the 15th century, the game is certainly a unique addition to a genre that has mostly settled into a high-fantasy comfort zone. Strong storytelling and sheer novelty make guiding Heinrich and his pals around the dark forests of old-time Deutschland enthralling...even if you do miss the magic missiles and elves every so often.

Added: 15.07.2015 1:11 | 3 views | 0 comments

Legends of Eisenwald has just about everything except Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on a church door. Developer Aterdux Entertainment has traded in the usual Dungeons & Dragons-influenced fantasy realm common to tactical role playing for a more realistic story and setting based on medieval Germany at around the time the Reformation was starting to annoy the popes. The concept brings a unique feel and an absorbing (if occasionally workmanlike) campaign to a been-there, done-that genre.

Nevertheless, the heart of Legends of Eisenwald is based on the same structure that has powered fantasy role-playing/tactical combat since the glory days of

At times, however, all this realism dragged. Legends of Eisenwald lacks the pizzazz of more fantasy-oriented tactical RPGs. Loot drops just aren't that exciting when you know you're not going to score a wand of fireballs. (There is a good range of items on offer, both from defeated foes and from the markets scattered around the maps, although most of it is average stuff that lacks the glitz of what's found in traditional fantasy games.) So little magic in the game makes the priest and female mystic units bland; their being stuck mainly with healing and cursing spells means they don't have the impact of full-blown clerics and mages. Combat grows repetitive and predictable, as there are only so many ways you can mess around with garden-variety soldiers and archers. A hippogriff or a neo-otyugh might have livened things up, though the quick pace of battle means you have little time to be bored.

A few aspects of the design are somewhat problematic. Quests are not always spelled out clearly. At times this is good, as it promotes more exploration. At times this is bad, as you can get lost when a destination and/or the maps are too dark and cluttered with complicated terrain features. Some quest descriptions leave a lot to be desired, and locations are often given different names in quest dialogues from the maps. Also, be wary of bugs: I had the game crash to the desktop with exception errors on a few occasions, although generally the game was stable.

Visiting a virtual medieval Germany probably isn't at the top of the to-do list of any tactical RPGers, but maybe it should be. While Legends of Eisenwald is something of a grim, brutal experience much like the land in question back in the 15th century, the game is certainly a unique addition to a genre that has mostly settled into a high-fantasy comfort zone. Strong storytelling and sheer novelty make guiding Heinrich and his pals around the dark forests of old-time Deutschland enthralling...even if you do miss the magic missiles and elves every so often.