The match three section is arguably the most overstuffed virtual aisle of the App Store, second only to Doodle games, and more recently, Angry Birds knock-offs. Regardless, developers keep making them, I keep trying them, and rarely do I find one that I’d play over match three staples like Bejeweled 2 [99¢]. Dungeon Raid [$2.99] is a rare exception to this, as it not only has solid matching gameplay with a clever twist, but it also has entirely too many things that I like in video games, making it incredibly hard to put down.
Dungeon Raid begins with you inputting your character name and selecting a difficulty. Don’t worry if you can’t come up with a good name, the game will suggest tons of random names that fit wonderfully in to any fantasy setting. From there, you’re greeted with one of several random introductions to the game explaining how it is that your character has come across this dungeon. These intros are awesome, so I highly recommend actually reading them instead of instinctively mashing buttons to make large blocks of text go away. (I think we’re all guilty of this on some level.)
The matching component of the game is quite similar to Azkend [$2.99 / Lite] (Which is another fantastic matching game.) in that instead of swapping pieces around like Bejeweled, you draw chains of similar blocks with your finger. These chains can go any direction, including diagonally, often resulting in massive board clearing matches. In fact, with only five types of blocks, huge chains are quite common.
By now you might be scratching your head wondering why I’m piling shovels full of praise on to a matching game with a matching component that’s so simple that it usually doesn’t take much skill to clear half the board in one move. Well, it’s because of the layer on top of all this that makes Dungeon Raid the game that stole my entire day today. You see, each match you make serves a purpose, and deciding what you’re going to match when seems to require quite a bit of strategy, and often some luck, as you never know what’s going to replace the blocks you just cleared.
Strategy comes in to play because while Dungeon Raid may initially appear to just be a simple matching game, there’s a fairly complex subset of RPG elements that drives everything you do. Enemies are represented by skulls on the game board. “Killing" an enemy involves matching skulls with enough swords to total up more damage than their hit points (which is displayed to the right of each enemy). After every match, every enemy on screen damages you, and special enemies also appear randomly which have increased hit points and other special abilities. One such ability involves their attacks “poisoning" you, at which point you take constant damage until you match healing potions. (Matching healing potions, as you can probably guess, heals you.)
Each skull cleared awards experience. Earn enough experience, and you level up, getting the option of increasing two of your character’s attributes. These range from random active special abilities usable with cooldowns, or just flat out increasing your statistics which passively boost how much you’re healed, how much damage you do, and things like that. Matching shields repairs your armor, and adds to a upgrade bar. Once your armor upgrade bar is full, you’re given the option of improving one of your items, imbuing it with magical properties to increase your health, experience earned, or other effects. Having your armor repaired reduces the damage you take from enemies, so it’s important to keep collecting shield blocks regardless.
The last type of block is the coin block. Clearing coins adds cash to your coin purse, and with enough coins saved up you’re able to buy brand new items with better statistics than your old items. Also, matching health potion blocks when your health is full does nothing, and matching swords by themselves without skulls also serves no benefit aside from clearing our unneeded sword blocks from the game board. Matching more than three of a particular block gives a bonus, potentially allowing you to collect more of whatever resource it is your matching.
The game is over when your hit points reach zero, and while Dungeon Raid initially starts fairly simple, the more you play the more intense it gets. For instance, when faced with an entire game board full of skulls (often with special enemies as well) and you’re forced to figure out whether you’ve got enough health to handle taking damage for a few turns while you clear blocks to set up a massive skull-slaying chain. Alternatively, you could dispatch the skulls in smaller groups, which potentially would allow you to take less damage and sneak some healing if you’re lucky enough for the skull blocks to be replaced with healing potions. Or, assuming they’re not on cooldown, you could bust out whatever special abilities your character learned while you leveled up.
Each play through is different too, as the items, abilities, and equipment upgrades you’re offered are completely random. One game it might make more sense to play as more of a wizard-type character, focusing on training up active abilities with each level. Alternatively, on another play of the game you might find yourself constantly increasing the raw statistics of your character, focusing on damage, defense, or a balance of the two. Some abilities seem quite powerful, such as one that increases the effectiveness of healing potions. If you have access to this ability early in the game, it can substantially alter how you choose your matches since you can let skulls stay on the game board a little longer as completely healing yourself is as simple as popping that ability off and matching some potions.
The variety and depth of gameplay is just insane for a game, which at the end of the day, is just a simple match three with an entirely too clever RPG layered on top of it. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to bust out a 1,000 word review on a match three, and that’s saying something. Dungeon Raid is an effortless recommendation. It boasts a tutorial that is incredibly approachable, making the game appropriate for even the most casual of puzzle gamers, while offering a top-end that’s full of strategy, a bit of luck, and an entire trail of character development decisions. In other words, download this game now.
My bet is that Activision will do zero with their old titles. This is just Activision protecting their IP and making sure nobody thinks their games are public domain. It's a bummer, but totally expected. Nevertheless...I say, "BOOOOOO"!
They may have to protect their IP, but what they should do is re-open the same old games WITH their blessing, pay the developer for his work, and throw some ads on to pay for it all. (Not a huge ad fan, but it IS the main way to pay for a web site!)
In my initial emails with the developer, I asked about all this and he seemed open to absolutely anything Activision wanted to do in order to get their "blessing" of these games. I understand they need to defend their IP, but sending a template C&D letter seems to be about the laziest way to do that... Especially since Martin was so open.
I totally agree. Feels like someone was told: "can you go ahead and send the generic threat to these guys when you have a minute yessss?."
I agree with you. I'm not at all a fan of Activision's approach here.
Pay the developer for their work? Labor of love it may be, but it's also clear-cut piracy. No way is an IP holder going to reward people for this type of thing. Martin should be glad they only send a cease and desist letter, and didn't sue him for damages.
Pay him IF and only if they use his hard work. I think it could have value to them.
What damages, though? Such hobby projects may increase the interest in the brand and show Activision more venues for revenues, no?
All titles mentioned in the C&D are actively being sold.
I wonder how many times they want us to pay for these old relics?
*Adds Activision to ever increasing boycott list!
Yep. The usual. 1 million dollars that Activision will just sit on these games like an old dragon on a mountain of gold. Doing nothing. The usual.
Now you’re making me mad at dragons >:( Sitting on billions of dollars in gold like its a friggin’ giant jingly sofa cushion, while peasants are starving and their kids can’t afford medicine!
Not surprising since all of these games have become available on gog.com in the past few months. You can blame Activision for being greedy, but I bet the people who made the games and get royalties from them would disagree. But yeah, always easier to blame the big guy than look at reality.
Spare me. There are nearly zero royalties being paid to the Sierra dev team or Ken & Roberta Williams. I believe that Activision bought Sierra lock, stock and barrel. Those old games may be on gog.com, but I highly doubt they're generating tons of sales.
Their partnership with GOG.com is generating more than $0 in sales which is more than they can say about Sarien.net.
OK. I'll agree with that; however, this is extremely low hanging fruit for Activision, and any income that is being generated is likely to be nominal. Honestly, if their old titles were a significant source of revenue, don't you think Activision would likely build a new series based on that old IP?
Have you considered the possibility that Activision may be contractually obligated to defend their IPs that are currently being distributed? That is a very real possibility.
And as for modern sequels, check out King's Quest 9: The Silver Lining. It is fan made and approved for distribution by Activision (even though it's not making any money.)
Yes, Sarien.net was no doubt a labour of love and it has been shut down. But Activision still might want to make use of the work in the form of mobile ports or some such. They have shown that they can be reasonable on occasion. I'm hoping for the best.
Activision didn't buy Sierra, Vivendi Universal was formed out of Sierra's corpse and their parent company *bought* Activision. Activision has all but entirely pulled out of the iOS market, so unless they license the IPs to a third party, you are never going to see these in any legitmate form on the device.
I've worked for most of the big guys for years. Believe me I know the reality. And it's ugly.
Moral of the story. If you find some cool web site that has illegal versions of games you like don't bring attention to it.
Not surprising at all, but it nevertheless puts a bad taste in my mouth for all of these big publishers since Activision and LucasArts (to some extent) are sitting on top of so many fantastic classic games and are doing absolutely jack s**t with them. At least the old president of LA was encouraging looking at their back catalog of awesomeness where we got the great redux versions of Monkey Island 1 & 2, but to not offer even the base, original versions of all their other classic and same with the Sierra classics seems completely idiotic. These would sell like mad if only someone would release them on iOS devices. They are on Steam, so what exactly is the holdup???
The holdup is usually just a bunch on incompetent idiots who don't even know these games and are too lazy to market them.
The problems is they simply don't make enough money for Activision to care. Even if iOS remakes sold a million copies (which they wouldn't). It's not nearly enough money for Activision to care.
Actually some of Lucasart's creations are still being developer in the hands of TellTaleGames (even for iOS)...
Companies shouldn't be able to defend IPs they don't even use against people making no money off of them.
That would take a fundamental uprooting of Copyright law. Corporations are bound by law to defend their IPs. If they don't, their stockholders can sue them.