About a month ago I wrote a tips and strategy guide for a fun new game in the App Store. Since then Dungeon Maker: Dark Lord ($3.99) by GameCoaster has basked in glory at the top of our Hot Games List. After spending a whole month as one of TouchArcade’s hottest games it makes perfect sense for me to come back and review it. We are dealing with a highly addictive strategy game incorporating card, tower defense and rogue-like genres. Actually it incorporates a huge amount of rogue-like gameplay; you pick cards each turn to decide whether you will fight, rest, or upgrade you dungeon. Along the way you collect relics and equipment for you monsters, which increases you chances of surviving.
Be prepared though, surviving is not going to be easy until you get yourself a good plan of action. If you are struggling, head on over to our forums as plenty of Dungeon Maker: Dark Lord fans are sharing their tips and strategies. We all have different tricks to help keep the Dark Lord breathing down their minions neck and fighting the (not so) good fight.
As you have probably worked out by the name, you are playing the bad guys in this game, vanquishing heroes left, right and center. You chose which Dark Lord you would like to play and start the game with a random selection of monsters and a single battle room in the center of your dungeon. From here it is up to you to choose where to put you facilities and which monsters to place in the different rooms. Do not underestimate the importance the location of your traps and battle rooms have on the outcome of your combat. Place your facilities haphazardly and it will doubtful you and minions will see more than 40 days before rebirth. With a bit of forethought however, you will be passing 100 days easily. In case you are wondering 100 days is the magic number for unlocking the next difficulty level, not that the lowest difficulty is all that easy.
The concept behind Dungeon Maker: Dark Lord′s gameplay is simple and you will pick it up easily, but mastering it to stay alive for long enough is quite another matter. You will need to work out the right mix of rooms and upgrades as well as picking the right Dark Lord at the beginning of the game. There are seven Dark Lords to chose from, but only two are unlocked for you when you first download the game. The five Dark Lords, along with other locked elements, can all be unlocked without spending real money. You collect devil stones as you play and these can be used to purchase upgrades and add-ons; with patience you will eventually open everything. If you are a super impatient person however, you can grab the in-app purchases to instantly acquire what you want.
In the interest of giving a fair review, I recently unlocked all the IAPs, curious to see if it enhances gameplay. Personally, I feel there is enough value in the game at its most basic level, without having to spend big money to play or win. Furthermore, there was a sense of achievement lost with unlocking the game through purchases, so I advise the savvy player to use their devil stones and unlock slowly. Learn from my mistakes; after all I ruined my sense of achievement just so I could tell you spending money is unnecessary. Just look at the sacrifices I am willing to make for you all.
Whether you choose to pay or play to unlock your upgrades, Dark Lords and relics, doesn’t really matter in the end. Play the way you like, but make sure you take the time to enjoy the experience and creativeness GameCoaster have brought to the mobile gaming world. The game’s visual design is part of what makes the Dungeon Maker: Dark Lord experience so amazing. The graphics have a great Manhwa feel and the battles give a top-down view of the action. It’s a cute and fast-paced game, playable offline, which makes it a great game for travelling. Switch to airplane mode and you can still access a perfect game to while away the hours stuck in those uncomfortable and tiny plane seats.
Another great thing about Dungeon Maker: Dark Lord is the developer’s frequent updates to keep it fresh and fix bugs. GameCoaster have already released an update to fix balance and minor issues as well as provide more card packs and achievements. Another update is coming very soon, adding around 98 new items and achievements. The developers are not just pumping out a game to make money and walking away; there is a level of pride and appreciation for their game, they love it and want to make sure the players love it too.
If you aren’t already playing Dungeon Maker: Dark Lord do yourself a huge favor and go and download it. It will quickly become the most played game on your phone. I played it for about 12 hours straight when I first purchased it, and even now with all the new games I download to review, I still keep returning to my favorite Dark Lord, Tania. She will vanquish every hero dumb enough to enter her dungeon, or die trying. Ok, so it’s mostly die trying, but together, Tania and I keep trying.
Good review. I have to say your style was a bit off putting for me personally in earlier reviews, but you’ve improved a lot since then. Nice job!
The most strategic & exciting game I have ever played. Great Stuff!
I bought the game after reading your review for an iPhone 6. The game crashed 6 times in the hour I could play it. The final crash seems to have broken the game to a point where when I click continue the game immediately closes. As for the hour I got to play? I’m not seeing where the supposed difficulty comes in, with no idea what I was doing I managed to quickly tap myself to day 52 as the vampire lord. Having only one ability doesn’t really leave me with much options for strategy, not that it was necessary. Perhaps I’m missing something or maybe it’s the fault of a 5 star system, but giving this game a rating equal to Card Crawl and higher than Guild of Dungeoneering just seems wrong.
It is not my hobby to compare with other games, but Dungeon Maker is better as a 'mobile' game than Card Crawl and Guild of Dungeoneering those you have suggested as 'examples'.
IMHO, You are missing something. This review has had a one month review period since the game was released. Over the last month and now, this game is one of the most popular games in Touch Arcade. The rating of this review seems to reflect the user experience on this game. If so, it is appropriate. Since the release of this game, I have enjoyed this game almost every day. I recommend this game, and this game deserves 5stars.
Recently, a huge content update happened at once, so a crash problem is happening. The developer is already aware of the situation and has been notified that the update will be done as soon as possible.
If you need more information or feedback on this game, please visit the Dungeon Maker Touch Aracde Forum.
https://forums.toucharcade....
That’s entirely possible, I’ll keep on trying and perhaps how I feel will change. I can only speak to what I experienced and that was dozens of crashes and a corrupted save that caused me to have to start over.
We need to respect the thoughts & opinions of our editors.
A month ago I got a lot of help with this editor's guide & tips on this game. It was easy to understand and impressive. I agree with the review of this editor. This game is quite fun, strategic and enjoyable. Above all, the developer's efforts in this game and comments from users have made me more involved in this game. Dungeon Maker is a game with fresh ideas that I have never seen on mobile games. I enjoy playing with it very much.
I enjoyed it for a while, but got to a point where restarting a new game just wasn’t fun at all, early game has got to be as much fun as mid / end
Impressive review! I recommend you to share this review with the last guide. Then you will be able to better understand this game. And if you are interested in this game, check out the thread for this game in the TA forum. As far as I know this is the best place for this game.
I am enjoying this game considerably. Dot pixel art is perfect for my taste. And developer feedback is great. This game is now updated. It seems that the performance has improved and the errors reported so far have been corrected. I really like this game! At least for me, dungeon maker is worth more than 5 stars.
Hello, I got to know Touch Arcade thanks to Dungeon Maker. The reviews, guides and forums here helped me a lot. I wanted to leave a word of thanks. Good to Know. Thank you very much!
Love the game - the replay value is huge on this one. My only struggle is when your games start hitting 150+ it gets a bit boring to get back to the higher levels. Would love to see an option to skip ahead or another game mode. That being said, one of the best games to come out in a long time.
Thanks for the review. I played it and got my money's worth, but I'm just not enjoying it enough to play it long-term. Some comments:
The music is an afterthought, a short repeating loop. Some variety would have been appreciated! I had to turn it off before it drove me insane. (Too late?!)
The "card-based" aspect is purely cosmetic. There's no deck-building, no drawing from an inventory of cards you own.
The challenge curve is too slow for my tastes. After several hours of play I think I'm on the 10th world, and it's the first time the boss battle has even barely troubled me. For regular battles I generally don't need spells at all. I'm wondering how much longer before I hit a wall, and when that happens, will I be able to recover, given how long it takes to make significant changes.
If I played for 10-20 more hours I'd presumably get to a point where I would need to pay attention to specific monster, room, and item characteristics. There are an overwhelming number of effects, some of which stack. But any arrangement seems to work in the early game. I haven't been forced to learn any strategy yet. I've just been mindlessly clicking and upgrading things.
I don't regret spending a few bucks on it. I'm just disappointed I didn't like it more.
Clearly some people love it, and more power to them. I would just advise new players to be prepared for an extremely gradual experience (might be exactly what they are looking for) and that they should turn off the music much sooner than I did. [slaps hits side of own head ineffectually]
Hi Sarah, are you still playing this game? :)
Excellent review. I've been playing this game regularly for roughly a year (I'm a latecomer), and I'm still hooked -- it's my #1 mobile game on tablet. The dev keeps adding improvements and bug fixes (though bugs have been negligible for me). I unlocked all the Dark Lords awhile ago, but I'm still addicted to reaching that next difficulty level by playing better and earning devil stones to unlock more perks. I've come a long way, but there's still a very long way to go.
I recently decided to try Story Mode -- there are very few hints and it's been a challenge even with the walkthrough linked in the wiki, but I enjoy this mode as a change of pace and have unlocked seven of the nine endings.
Amazing amount of content for a reasonable price! There are two other game modes, Rogue-like and Total War, that I haven't even touched yet. I think I had to buy one or both of those modes via DLC (also reasonably priced). It's so refreshing to find a deep and fun mobile game that doesn't try to nickel and dime you to death with IAP... no nagging for the existing IAP either. As noted there are IAP besides game modes, but I have not bought any of the cosmetics, I did not pay to unlock Dark Lords or other elements for the base game: as Sarah says, it is not necessary. No reason to rush through, just play to keep improving your Dark Lords and enjoy the ride along the way.
At this point, the only downside for me -- and it's a nitpick -- is that the music is simple and gets repetitive. It can be turned off, but I haven't bothered because it doesn't really bother me.