The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Let’s see, what’s like, the oldest thing on my to-write-about list…

Oh wow, Dungeon Raid. How have I not talked about that?

Dungeon Raid is an iOS game you should buy. If you liked Puzzle Quest, but wish the outcome of games would be more in your hands, Dungeon Raid is a game for you. While there is no “quest” with a storyline you will skip, Dungeon Raid keeps randomish matching gameplay, but never feels like the computer is purposely screwing you over. Sure, eventually it gets to be a war of attrition that you have trouble beating, but you never feel like “that’s bullshit that the computer just took four turns in a row!” or whatever.

Basically, there’s a grid. This grid is filled with Gold Coins, Shields, Swords, Health Potions, and Skulls, which represent enemies. You pick one piece, and trace your finger along similar pieces until you can’t go any farther, then release to clear all those pieces. Clear gold, and you get gold. Clear shields, and you repair your armor and get “gear EXP” for enchanting your equipment. Clear health potions, and you get healed. The only thing that’s different is skulls and swords. Each skull has HP, needed to defeat it. After you take a turn, each skull on the board attacks you, with damage mitigated a bit by your armor value. Each sword you trace through increases your attack power, so you trace through swords AND skulls, and kill them to get EXP. Sometimes there will be special skulls on the board, which do special things. One “breaks” swords so that the swords stay on the board, but don’t do anything if you collect them, for example. One teleports around. One can only be hurt if it’s not the last skull in your line that you’re tracing, and so on. These bosses give you more EXP, of course.

The only weird part is the level system. You have several equipment slots. Fill up your gold meter, and you’re given a selection of equipment to buy and replace your current gear, which will hopefully improve your character. Fill up your “gear EXP” and you can add an effect to an item you own, like Poison, or +HP, or something like that. Level up, and you can pick a new spell or ability. These do things like turn all skulls into swords, collect all gold on the board, and so on. They’re actually dictated by what class you are, and you unlock more classes as you play through the game. The thing is, what the game offers you is random. If your level up offered you a +Luck stat boost skill one time around, there’s no promise it’ll be there next time. Same with equipment. You can’t count on anything. It’s sometimes frustrating like that, when you want to buff a certain stat and the game just won’t give you the option to.

Still, this is a great little time-waster. It requires focus, but not TOO much focus. It’s not a huge commitment: you can play a round for a few minutes, and pick it up later, and not be lost on what you’re doing. It’s just really good game design, and totally worth the three bucks I paid for it. I’ve stopped playing it now, but I really played it solid for a few weeks when I got it. Do consider it! It’s good.