Well, there was also Repulsa's recommendation. In any event, that's one of the nice things about iOS gaming. At $3.99, it's no big deal to take a chance on a game. And in this case, it paid off like gangbusters.
And people who bought No Mans Sky early said it was good. Then it ended up being repetitive and bad. At first glance it seemed revolutionary, but in the end it was a repetitive mediocre game. Who is to say these people aren't doing the same? Maybe they played for an hour and find it fun, but come 6 hours it isn't as good compared to games like Leap of Fate and Dungelot Shattered where I can get hours of gameplay for the same price It does look nice, however I would like to confirm it before purchasing. I'm sure people don't mind spending money, I'm not one of them. Call me cheap, but that's just me.
Well it's rogue like, you start over when you die and lose somewhat everything. Taking the elevator down takes all your gold earned. If you like rogue like game should love it, if you don't, you won't appreciate the game. For me like rogue like and this one is well made, frustrating, but very fun. To add, upgrading attributes are done via "hero tails", which are earned via enemy statues. Friggin love this game!
I've put in about 3 hours into the game so far. It's quickly become my go-to game on my iPhone. Dungeolot is not my type of game -- call me old fashioned, but I like to have a character moving around on my RPGs. It's funny you bring up Leap of Faith, because that's a game that I played for about an hour until I lost interest; just didn't feel like I was making progress. In some ways, Dungeon Tails is almost the opposite of No Man's Sky. It comes with zero hype, and, as far as I'm concerned, it's delivering big time. One more thing: I get it that you don't want to waste money, but you're kind of missing the point of a gaming community like TA. We often take leaps of faith (no pun intended) based on the recommendation of a fellow TAer. Sometimes we even TOFT and report back for other folk's benefit.
Well put Sqaurezero, game is well developed and like you, my go to game. Neglectfate, totally understand your side, but soon you'll begin to know which members are trusted reviewers that always take one for the team. You may be on a budget, or don't pull the trigger as often as others, but their insight to games are surely valued. Like Squarezero stated, sometimes it's a leap of fate, I should know, I found some awesome gems out there and this is one of them.
Thanks for the imps Squarezero & others. This is an awesome game. Can't stop playing. It's utterly charming. I agree the attention to detail is very Nintendo like. Such a good feeling when you achieve a good run. I will leave my 5 star review in the UK AppStore.
Thanks for everyone! Hiho nice people of TouchArcade! My name is Aki Martikainen, I work as a creative director of Timbermint Games, makers of Dungeon Tails. I´d like to give my deepest thanks for your kind words about our game, I felt like couple of years of hard work and stress released in one moment of enthuastic scream that scared my sleeping baby. We are Finland based studio, currently just 2 people (me and a coder). On Dungeon Tails we had more or less 4 people working quite consistently (got help from lots of other people also). We all met in Aalto University masters degree education. As someone mentioned earlier, this game has practically no marketing, so we were all very surprised that you found the game so early. Kudos. Our plan this week is to push press releases to every channel we can, and we are happy to get any and all recommendations of sites or channels. In Finland at the moment, the pressure to create a f2p-game has crushing effect on mobile development. We worked a long time trying to create our game f2p, but started to feel it was losing it's soul in the preocess. Our goal turned to create easy-to-approach with solid controls dungeon crawler with generative dungeons. We also wanted to appeal to larger audience than just hardcore crawlers, hence the nintendo-esque style and cuteness. We would love to keep improving the game, lots of things are missing that would be very important for casual audience (most importantly, a proper tutorial, translations). We would also love to create new mechanics and more interesting trap puzzles... we already have around 20 monsters readymade and animated, but lack of income (no salary for last year) made us drop them (as well as high stakes marketing) at this moment. I'm happy to answer all question. Thanks again everyone! Would love to see dungeon crawlers improve on touch devices. Yours, Aki Martikainen Timbermint Games http://www.timbermint.com
Thanks, Aki, for the valuable insight and welcome to the TA-community. I'm all the more impressed with your game now, considering only such a small team has worked on it. And kudos to you for sticking to a premium-approach when the f2p-way just did not feel right despite the current market situation. I have already had hours of fun with Dungeon Tails, so would have gladly paid more (or would pay for additional content or whatever you could integrate into the game). I'll do my best to spread the word and hope the game will bring the success it so much deserves!!
Welcome to the forum. You created a fantastic game. Every TA'er that likes rogue likes should show their support. It would be great if sales were good enough to expand the game. Thanks for seeing it through. This is my GOTY so far.
I only really have one question to ask and that's how much of your progression carries through after death? i.e. Do you carry skills/upgradesmoney/nothing. I don't mind a rogue like that offers some form of progression but I can't do with ones that are pure high score chasers. Thanks in advance
Yes there is progression. You carry over your coins that you can spend on items from the shop for your next run, or if you get enough, unlock new tiers of items in the shop. Also you find tails that allow you to upgrade skills or increase the size of your inventory permanently for example.
As you get deeper into the dungeon, you earn "Hero Tails" that give you permanent stat upgrades. You can also use gold to upgrade the item shop and get access to better equipment. Once you reach a "champion" level, it gets unlocked in your elevator, so you can go there directly in a new run. One interesting mechanic is that, even though you get to keep your gold after you die, you pay 95% of what you haven't spent in the store for your elevator ride, which keeps you from hoarding gold and encourages to upgrade the shop and try new items.
Thank you for dropping in I love what you said about making the game premium because as you were trying to get a f2p model going you felt like it was Losing it's soul. That is the feel I get from most f2p games. They are soul-less. This is why I am a premium only gamer. I really respect that you cared more for the game itself then the possible profit. I hope more people come here and read about this game and purchase it, it truly is a wonderful game and amazing that it came from a two guy indie team.
Welcome to TA and congratulations on releasing such a great game. I won't comment on the whole F2P vs premium debate, but I have to say that I appreciate knowing that every mechanic in the game is there to create a challenge or to add to the fun, not to get me to spend a cash-only currency. All I can ask for at this point is more: more monsters, more hazards, more items, etc. Not that I've encountered everything at this point (not even close), but I guess I see the potential of running out of new stuff. It might be great to add magic weapons and armor as loot. Maybe you can tweak the item system so that you use consumables directly without first having to add them to your inventory. I'd be happy to pay more for more content -- I already feel like I've gotten my money's worth and then some.
That is a very smart observation, squarezero. I am intrigued. martikainen, can you explain a bit about the "endgame"? When do you consider the game to be "essentially" finished? A particular level? A particular unlock? While I understand that the random generator in essence makes the gameplay unlimited, I like to know if there is still an "endpoint" where one can say that the game has been beaten.
