The Guild of Dungeoneering is a playable dungeon creation game that is currently in alpha. Being developed by Colm Larkin, with original art provided by Fred Mangan, the game is an interesting take on the dungeon exploring genre. There have been games like Dungeonland where you play the dungeon maestro trying to kill the heroes or play as the hero, but this game is something else. The Guild of Dungeoneering has players controlling the dungeon creation, enemy placement, and trying to help the poor adventurer get through their own dungeons.

You have no control over the adventurer in this game; instead you must guide him to victory by placing down rooms one by one, and choosing when to place monsters and treasure. If you place too strong of a monster down before the adventurer is strong enough to deal with it, he can end up dying, resulting in you losing. Treasure, enemies, and rooms are all cards in the game that you can use for the cost of hope (in the case of treasure) and fear (in the case of enemies). You gain hope by killing enemies and thereby fear every turn. Expanding the size of your dungeon, however, costs nothing. Every turn you draw three cards and are forced to play or discard three cards.

The art style of the game is simplistic; black and white, except for the occasional blue and red thrown in to add to the cards and characters. While I do appreciate simplicity and I don’t think the game looks bad, I do think it needs more color and maybe a few more detailed drawings. But the art style isn’t my biggest gripe with the game in its current state, though it does add to its biggest problem.

Currently, the worst thing about the game is that there doesn’t seem to be much incentive to play. There is only one endless level of you continuously placing cards that all basically do the same thing. All the land tiles provide more space for the adventurer to walk, enemies are basically a way to lose the game or get hope, and treasure just ups the basic stats of the adventurer. Scenery doesn’t change and there is no apparent goal to be had. Because I wanted to give the game a fair chance, I played for a long while. Right up until the devil came off the side of the screen and into the level, by which time I only had one life, so I ended up simply dying to him.

The Guild of Dungeoneering is in an early state and has a unique concept going for it, though it does have its problems. If it can separate the gameplay into multiple levels with different themed cards for each level and new end bosses, I think it could end up being a great game. Moreso if it did something else that gave the player better motivation to play. Vote for it at Greenlight now because I am excited to see what the developers do with the game.

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