Card Dungeon – Preview of pop-up roguelike

I was granted the chance to get a sneak peak at Card Dungeon. In this fantastic rogue-like dungeon game, we are immediately warned that we can only do one action per turn & we must choose wisely. What a great start to describe the experience of this upcoming IOS game by Fredrik Skarstedt and Ryan Christy.

In Card Dungeon, and that won’t be a stretch to wrap your mind around it, it’s all about the cards. The background music definitely has a medieval feels to it, which helps putting us in the right ambiance from the start. So the gameplay goes a bit down like this; we are a pop-up knight in a dungeon and we must defeat other pop-up enemies. There are plenty of loot and gear to go around, the game is definitely generous with you. However, we are facing permadeath should we be unsuccessful in our venture, which keeps us on our toes. After a few plays, I had the strong feel that these are randomly generated levels and not a set dungeon we need to beat. This keeps the gameplay fresh and alive.

While everything, even the equipment are cards, you really only get to have 3 action cards on you. This isn’t obviously taking into account your equipped loot. So you get to hack and slash, or send a swarm of bees unto your foes, all with the help of the cards you hold. So each time you gain a new one, you must make the heartbreaking decision to either add it, and discard one of your held ones, or just let the new card go. Choosing wisely is indeed always on in this game.

I won’t lie, I did get pretty frustrated with the game closing on me randomly when I was in the middle of some epic fights, but that’s the price to pay for a preview. Since I obviously expect these issues to be fixed by launch, I won’t hold it against anyone. If I could make the remark, I feel the game would benefit from being played on a bigger screen than that of the iPhone; it’s too easy to accidently do the wrong action if we are cursed with bigger fingers. Or clumsy hands altogether. I would recommend you play on an iPad.

Is Card Dungeon a good game in the making you should look forward to? Absolutely! Especially if you are a fan of the genre, because this is truly a beautiful execution. I’m not really into card based game and I still begged to be able to preview this one, so this should speak volume. I loved it.

All in all, Card Dungeon is refreshing and amusing, you will be entertained and it’s a very good candidate to become a game you won’t be able to put down. I know I won’t!

Follow the development of this game on http://card-dungeon.com/