Good to hear! By the way, it has been discussed in the past, but when are you planning on adding an actually "finishable" game mode? Regards, and keep up the great work. Paulo Tavares
Game Impressions I am very surprised by this game! The screenshots looked completely uninteresting. The youtube movies looked completely uninteresting. But a lot of people who usually have very good opinions recommended it despite of this... ...and boy, the game is interesting! It distills (deconstructs?) the dungeon hack genre into something perfectly suited for whipping out your iOS device during a micro break. Amazingly impressive, when you take the time to get into it!
I was very hesitant to buy this game as well, but the 99 cents sale got the cheap-o in me over the hump. Glad I bought. While in some ways I prefer the Puzzle Quest concept of a "character" that upgrades as you grow, this is a great time-filler on the go. And yes, very addictive. One of the places I've really found best to play this -- on the bowl. Perfect for playing with one hand!
Thanks for the tips links, by the way. I used two of those tips, and boy did it change everything. 1) Always upgrade damage first. I previously was going for defense, but it quickly got a point where I couldn't get them before they got me. 2) Always clear as much as possible. I would just clear whatever was necessary and "save" potions, shields, etc. Upgrades game much quicker this way. From those two tips, my high score went from 2,200 to 11,000 on my first game with the new strategy, on Normal. Excited to play more. Damn work.
Interesting. I'll have to try upgrading damage first. Like you, I've been going for defense, and I usually end up dying at about 3k.
So excited My new record on normal mode I think the combo BANISH + DAZZLE + ENCHANT + SKILL ELIXIR is very powerfull I Really love this game!
Here are some tips I have found, my high score on Normal is 22,000 and my high score on Hard is 5212. I'll just run down my high score game and tell you about the strategy I did there. This is by no means the best/only way to play...just something I found that worked after hundreds of games. Skills: Dazzle, Teleport, Skill Elixir, Repair Skill Elixir and Repair: I really like these skills because they instantly collect all the tiles without using a turn. Since enemies get stronger each turn, this can drastically reduce the amount of turns you use throughout the game. IMO collecting large amounts of XP early is the best thing you can possibly do, so Skill Elixir is quite useful. Repair is also amazing because it can help you in sticky situations plus getting item enhancements is the second best thing. Be aware though that if you use these in tight situations, you run the risk of getting even more skulls on the board so do so with caution. If you have a clean or easily manageable board, I suggest using these every time they are off cool down Dazzle is incredibly useful in two situations: 1) You are in a lot of trouble and have a decent amount of coins on the board, even 4-5 coins can create an epic sword/skull chain and save you from a certain death. 2) I would argue that coins are the least important thing to collect and so sacrificing your coins in order to get more kills is always great. Even if you are not immediately threatened, Dazzle can be great to give you a board full of Swords to take on tough bosses or when you get to late game and enemies start hitting like trucks. Use Dazzle preemptively for best results. The only thing I could see being better than Dazzle is Disarm, although Disarm has a longer cool down I believe AND you can lose lots of EXP this way, which can be detrimental in the long run. Teleport: Arguably the best skill in the game, always take this if it is available to you. Some bosses are MUCH more difficult than others and can be extremely annoying if not dealt with properly. For instance, I generally teleport EVERY time I see a Spike boss (returns damage on attack), a Fire Boss (Damages you when you attack around it), or the boss that makes your Cool downs not refresh. This skill is just amazing. Stats: Early game your primary focus should be on getting as much EXP as possible while making sure to keep your damage upgraded. I'll give you a brief overview of what I think are the most important stats. +Str should generally always be taken early game if it is an option for you. It is probably the best stat in the game +EXP So amazing early game. If you can get large amounts of +EXP and damage with a good skill set, you will easily make it to late game. +Durability: Generally an overlooked Stat. Insanely powerful into late game, even after the nerf you should ALWAYS get this stat if it is available as an upgrade. +Dext: Dext is great as it not only gives you extra shields on collection, but the chance of getting bonus shield as well. +Life Leech: Generally avoid this early game as there are other stats that should take priority. However, once your damage becomes more significant (lvl 15+) life leech should take priority over everything except Durability. It is incredibly powerful. +Vita: Always make sure you have a decent HP pool, do not overlook vita at any point in the game. Vita should be prioritized over +HP because vita gives the extra potion as well. +Luck: Decent stat, the +potion is excellent for late game. +Blunting: Not a bad stat combined with high durability, although with the nerf to Durability, blunting is not as powerful. I generally avoid this as it doesn't help much late game anymore. Spikes: Honestly, just completely avoid this stat all together. +Base Damage: Only take this if none of the other stats are available. Strategy: Always keep your board manageable, don't wait until an Oh **** moment before you utilize your skills. Early game, make chains AS LONG AS POSSIBLE. Even if the chain gives you more damage/health than you need, you should always use the longest chains possible. I can't stress this enough! Late game, this strategy will change, but early game always use the largest chain possible for every move. That's pretty much it, hope this helps some people out .
Thanks for the tips @TheKeywork! Off now to apply this on my next session of dungeon raiding and hopefully exceed my current hi-score of 7K+ on normal mode
No problem, PM me if you need any other advice I have definitely been playing the game for a while now
This game is ridiculously addictive Been playing exclusively on hard, gotten to a high score of 6038. Edit: Ack... still playing. Raised my score to 9408 and 310 turns on hard.
Greetings. OK, this post had to wait a couple of weeks, since I was far more interested in playing the game than posting about it. Very, very nice job. I've had 1 awesome game (was #2 on harder when I finished, #5 or so when I last looked - hopefully top ten still?) - and a whole lot of forgettable games. WARNING: Lots of comments and ideas to follow Cosmetic Niceties * I'd really like to be able to see turn count mid-game; ideally on main screen, but stats view would be ok * Numerical information on the XP/Upgrade progress bars would be nice (perhaps an option?) * I'd like to see total +UP, +Gold, +XP summarized on the stats page (along with the other "stats" that aren't currently there) * For stats that have a hard "cap" (LifeLeech,Durability,+UP,+XP,+Gold,Quicken?) - providing some indication that the cap has been reached would be nice, and stop folks from wondering why they aren't seeing those options anymore. * Id also be very interested to be able to see the total number of things I collected: potions, shields, swords, skulls,coins including bonus ones. Balance Observations/Suggestions * In general, there are way too many ways to get +repair (Enchant:Repair, LevelEF,LevelEX) - while critical to get to 3-4 and useful to keep around 10-25% of your total armor, I'm never happy to see it come up as a choice. My suggestion: have the base be 2 repair/shield, and have DEX improve Armor directly, and remove the LevelEF option. Make Repair only available through upgrades/store. * The concept of armor for the monsters is useless. The only impact it really has is on spike damage. It's a losing strategy to kill monsters over multiple turns where their armor would be anything other than extra HP. Even bosses typically lose all armor after 1 attack even if they dont die. I'd be in favor of scrapping the concept (ditching the Armor Piercing enchant and the ghost boss, too) * I'd love to see an alternative functionality kick in once the %bonus chance maxes out at 100. Incidentally, we shouldn't be given Charisma as a Level option once it'll have no effect - either give it some benefit once everything is maxed out or stop offering it. I recommend doubling the other benefit: STR->+2 base damage,DEX->+2 Repair/Armor,VIT->+10HP,LUCK->+2HP/Pot. I'd remove the Level:+10HP,Level:+2 Base Damage options, but that's me. * I'm in favor of having bonus effects become deterministic. Keep a hidden counter that increments by the bonus % and you get a bonus effect each time it rolls over 100% - you could then show what bonuses you'll get while choosing your path for the turn. * If you make bonuses deterministic as above, you could then let matched swords (beyond 3) double (with STR modifying the bonus %) and still show the damage/kill results while pathing. * An interesting option to consider: lower the starting base bonus % (down to say 10%?), but have it ramp up with collection length - matching 4 gives the base % of a bonus, the 5th match has a base+5% chance, the 6th: base+10%, etc until for really long chains (or with high base%) every subsequent match produces a bonus. Some Individual Stat/Skill/Boss Comments * All of the cap-able stats are worth capping * Blunting - surprisingly good, scales appropriately, not overpowered * Spikes - great in early to mid-game. Doesn't scale - becomes nearly useless. I'd consider increasing the effects - flat +2 per enchant, or some sort of reverse diminishing returns until maxing out a +5 or so enchant * Regen - great concept, never really useful as is. Not needed in early game, too small to be useful in late game. At +4-5 regen per enchant, I'd start considering it as a viable choice. * Poison - Again, you shouldn't be letting monsters linger after you attack them. Might be interesting if spike damage triggered it. But probably better to just remove it. * Assassin boss - You should clarify his effect in bottom row - is it double damage? I've played a bunch and I'm not even sure. * Overseer boss - really killer, I'd just have him change a random tile to a skull, not exclusively swords. * Vengeful boss should have some scaling. Really, it should increase its attack (not its health) by 3-5 per skull killed. * Spike boss should have damage returned capped at his own health * Should be some more bosses that boost other skulls. Id have the Medic boost health of all other skulls by some % of his attack value each turn (min +1). Id make some other boss that boosts attack of all other skulls by some % of his health each turn (min +1). * The base damage enchant is pointless. As is the repair enchant (unless it becomes the only source for repair) * Big Game Hunter Id give some secondary conversion effect (potions -> swords?) so it has some utility in Harder * Boost Health seems very weak, especially since overflow healing has no effect. A coin->potion conversion would be more useful/tactically interesting * Counterattack does too little, compared to the skills that convert tiles or collect tiles * Freeze too similar to counterattack, has same problems * Earthquake too random. This effect is much better as an annoying boss ability than something a player would desire * Exorcise/Banish too similar in effect, neither is really strong but either is a fine emergency skill * Explosive Armor doesnt scale well, is generally pretty weak. Along the same concept how about detonating all shields? Either like explosive potions, or just collect them and deal damage to skulls based on the number of shields detonated * Fireball/Slash very weak as is. Maybe interesting if given an aiming interface, possibly just relegate the skill to scrolls at the store. *Scavenge/Golden Touch Conversion skills are good, but theres little need/desire to convert swords into anything else. * Mana Potion I lost all interest in the spell when I discovered that the potions stopped healing me when activated. Id be very interested to see this work more like skill elixir (collecting potions at the same time) though should probably have the effect unable to recharge the Mana Potion skill itself. * Shatter weak effect, much rather have the similar Disarm * Steal weak effect, perhaps convert skulls -> coins? * Trap weak effect, consider removing One last comment (assuming youre even still reading): While I think the idea of classes is good (assuming itll impact starting skills and weight the distribution of abilities offered), I think the best expansion of the gameplay is to add small chances of special tiles spawning tiles that match everything without providing any benefit, multiplier tiles, combo tiles that count as two types, tiles that rotate the board when collected, etc. Make the board itself more interesting, not the character sheet and items.
hey there. i'm new here. just got an iphone this week and have been browsing apps ever since. this thread convinced me to pick up dungeon raid on sale yesterday evening, and i just wanted to say that i'm immensely impressed with it. i'm generally not a big puzzle guy, but this game strikes the perfect balance of being engaging and great for both short trips on the subway or long sessions in the middle of the night. fantastic.
Don't know why, but I played a round on easy and it's lasting forever... I'm surprised that there are still item upgrades . But as PaulSC said, there are definitely issues with the other skills, and it'd be nice to see a few things changed around.
done. i also seemingly made the mistake of starting on easy. been playing the same game over the course of several hours and have never really come under threat. how many active skills are there overall in this game? i assumed there were only four, since i have four and only have the option to upgrade what i have, but that doesn't seem to be the case?
There are a bunch of skills (30ish), though once you select your 4th, you only get the option to upgrade those. I'd recommend just suiciding an easy game once you feel invincible, it's a much more interesting challenge at higher difficulties.`Normal games can be quite long, but get challenging eventually. Hard and Harder games are usually pretty reasonable in length, and terribly fun if you get a little lucky and get ahead of the curve for a while before you succumb to some bad luck (fragmented boards or hideous boss combinations).
Hey Paul, thanks heaps for the excellent feedback, I'll be implementing a lot of the balance suggestions and I'm especially liking the idea of occasionally spawning special tiles that change the flow of the game. Will definitely have a think about that and try to add a few in one of the next updates Also, here's an interesting situation someone emailed in, I thought a dead end was impossible to achieve, anyone else ever get into a situation where there's no move possible?
What does Boost XP exactly mean? It says: +Experience per skull +XP: +.25 Instantly? Once? Why two "+" signs? Isnt it like XP per Skull + 0.25? Thank you!
