Ark's Wonder Dungeon

my friend recommended this game to me, and lowkey i had zero expectations going into it besides the other reviews and the short steam page while simplistic and quirky on the surface, this game got really in-depth really quickly. there are so many combinations of skills, enemies, items, status effects, etc. that it took me a solid minute to really figure out what exactly was going on. don't get me wrong, the creative characters, underlying story, and unique artwork are all lovely to experience, but the gameplay was a bit overwhelming to be fair, i dont have that much experience with RPGs, so take this from an amateur-grain of salt. i think the main thing was that the icons aren't too self-intuitive, and you can't read them unless they're already active. basically, this meant a lot of experimenting in the beginning (which is probably the intention) to figure out which icon meant what. ill be honest, i died a lot in the first like 15-30 minutes, but after i caught onto the patterns and "rules," it became more fluid i'll also say another gameplay feature that i didn't understand until like an hour in was the "agility" stat. obviously, i knew that that meant you would move faster, but i didn't know how it exactly applied. i thought the game was more like a turn-based RPG where your allies go first, then the enemies, then you, etc. but it seemed like everyone was moving all at the same time. apparently, each character has a bar that grows to a limit, and once they hit that limit, they can do an action. and agility makes that growth grow faster (also non-attacks need 2x the bar limit...?) maybe it was explained somewhere or it's more intuitive to seasoned players, but it literally changed the game for me to make that connection. my favorite strategy became maxing agility and attack to spam strong consecutive attacks with one character and using support/mage characters to back them up. there are a wholeeeeeee bunch of other combinations, and i've only barely explored the vast capabilities of magic stuff, so i'm excited to try that later but like i said, story, artwork, dialogue, etc. are all pretty wholesome. it's obvious that the game was made by a passionate indie developer who has a lot of ideas and creativity, so i think the gameplay needs just a little bit of polishing and clarity to really make the game shine. as of writing, i've unlocked the first 3 characters and 3 chapters, so im very curious to see what happens in the end! 8/10 :) ** also i think there's a minor bug where if you pick up and consume an item, it still counts as a slot in your backpack. so it takes up weight even though it's already been used (and can't be used again)

A charming JRPG meets Binding of Isaac game with a simple but good art style and a lot of content for the price point. The concept of the game is fairly simple, you navigate through random rooms, outfit your party with equipment that augments their stats/skills and then slam your face against the occasional random encounter and bosses. Menus are snappy, it doesn't waste your time and overall just has a good pace to it, which is perfect for a game where you are likely going to die a lot. It also has a good difficulty curve, where the game gradually ratchets up global difficulty as you get further and unlock more stuff. The only relatively minor downside is that it does not have native controller support; you can get about 80% of the way there with keybinds but there's a few elements that will still require a mouse to utilize. Still, those are infrequent enough that you can play the game without issue on the Steam Deck. Overall if you're a fan of JRPGs, Roguelites or RPGMaker games make you don't miss out on this game. It took me about ~40ish hours to fully complete the game and I can safely say that the game held up during the whole time; the new items you unlock are fun and the game progressively ramps up the difficulty as you progress through the plot. Strong, strong recommend.

game good

This is an absolute BLAST of a roguelike / roguelite dungeon crawler. The characters are entertainingly written, the art is fun, the soundtrack is good, and oh man the combat! The character skills and itemization allow for a good amount of strategezation in battle. Definitely a recommendation from me.

With such a low price, I will be honest that I did not expect what I experienced. Especially with the Steam page having art from the game that looked like it was drawn in MS Paint. However, this game is worth every single penny and more. I find it almost criminal, that this game is almost a year old at the time of writing this review and has only had a handful of reviews. Yes, the game has graphics that look like they were made in MS Paint, but it honestly adds to the charm and appeal. You can see so much of the game was made with an intent on the story and uniqueness of the characters. The visuals help more than any high definition graphics ever could because they add to this. Gameplay wise, it's a unique roguelike dungeon crawler, where you learn little bits of each of the characters as you unlock them and dive deeper and deeper into the Wonder Dungeon. Using an ATB system and abilities that don't end your turn, while you try to get the best equipment to make your way through and hope you find the other piece to a great combo of equipment and abilities. At no point did I think things were skewed unfairly, but sometimes the Gods of RNG do have it out for you. Story wise, you see the past and goals for the characters you unlock. While trying to learn more and more about the mysterious woman known as Ark and her purpose within the Wonder Dungeon while you fight your way to the magical hat Magnifico. While I only played about 9 hours on my stream, I still play this in my spare time because of how fun it is to just pick it up and go and I've yet to truly get deeper into this game. It still has a lot of secrets within it and achievements to unlock, so I'm not done just yet! This is a game I fully suggest and believe you will enjoy it too.

Just completed my first run beating a "First Main Boss" and unlocked the third character in the game. I gotta say this game is very fun. I really like the music, the atmosphere of this dungeon is very strange and its got a crude but enjoyable art style, don't know too much about the story yet but its definitely got a lot more play time I wanna get out of it for sure. My favorite area had to be the third area, it was this yellowish ruin looking place and the music was just a total jam! Combat is fun, nothing incredible but its not trying to be, the game rewards you for ignoring boss doors and continuing through the floor to find stronger items, sometimes you'll get put in tough situations but you just gotta manage your abilities. Something so so good that I love this game for, is that it fixes one of the most tedious problems so many rouge likes have. No item descriptions, this game has a little box when you find an item that lets you read what it does before you pick it up, so you'll never screw yourself over without knowing what you are in for. Now my biggest issue which is more of a nit pick than anything serious, is that the point in which you click on an enemy or character to select isn't highlighted and can be a bit confusing to find when you are really into a battle. It feels a little unpolished there and I Hope the developer decides to change that personally, but once again this is not a huge deal and doesn't take away from the great parts of this game. I will say the one thing that I'm kinda mixed on is the way it presents certain elements of the game, like I entered a room and then now all enemies are buffed and I don't exactly have an explanation as to what caused that. My only guess is 50th floor onward is a sort of Hard Mode switch. There are little faces on the wall that I don't quite understand either, it could be intentional but I have no clue what they are supposed to mean honestly. The story is interesting so far, this weird dungeon was built underneath a desert to experiment on a poor girl who been trained to become a violent killing machine on random monsters. This hat mage is the one who taught her and its really unique and quirky. Anyways definitely give this game some well deserved love! Will be playing MUCH more.

This was randomly in my new games discovery queue (or whatever its called) and it's a total gem of a game. The person who described it as turn-based binding of Isaac got it pretty much spot on, but the vibe is a little bit more enjoyable and a little less grotesque for the sake of being grotesque. Plan to play more eventually, but even if I don't it was well worth the $4 already. Also, I have a curator page! Yay! All opinions are of games I've personally bought: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45733614/

Super cute RPG with a charming MSPaint artstyle. Great value for cost considering replayability.

ENG: It’s a very unusual RPG dungeon crawler roguelike with simplistic exploration where we go through rooms, blindly choosing doors: left, center, or right. There we encounter enemies, items, spells, and other things to equip the character(s), who also get unlocked and found in the dungeon. The graphics are very striking with that hand-drawn style, while the story part looks like it was drawn by a 6 year old. Now, everything’s nice, but there’s an important point to note, and that’s the difficulty level. It’s foolproof, so you can’t just build anything and pick spells at random here. If you don’t use skills, secondary effects, and items very consciously, you’re going to have a hard time. [quote] [i] Check out [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44959158-Critiques-Sans-Frontiers/] our curator page [/url] to discover more unknown games like this one. [/i] [/quote] ESP: Es un rarisimo RPG dungeon crawler roguelike con una exploración simplista donde vamos atravesando salas, eligiendo ciegamente puertas: izquierda, centro o derecha, y ahí vamos encontrando enemigos, ítems, magias y demás cosas para ir armando al/los personajes, los cuales también se van desbloqueando y encontrando en la dungeon. Los gráficos son muy llamativos con ese estilo dibujado a mano que tiene, mientras que la parte de historia parece dibujada por un niño de 6 años. Ahora sí, todo muy lindo, pero hay que hacer una gran observación y es su dificultad: es a prueba de idiotas. Acá no vale armar cualquier cosa y elegir spells al azar; si no usas los skills, efectos secundarios e ítems de forma bien consciente, la vas a pasar muy mal.

Fun roguelike game with a charming art style and a reason to keep replaying it with new items, story, levels and bosses being unlocked with each run. Those who like hunting achievements will be happy. The game stays interesting as you need to start making more optimized builds to beat the secret bosses which require fulfilling certain conditions to meet. It's interesting to play a little indie game like this that has no wiki to give away the secrets, instead relying on the little hints given in-game and a bit of trial and error to figure out how to reach secret levels and bosses. It takes a bit of time to get use to the iconography for buffs and debuffs. You'll be confused for the first few runs but eventually you'll be able to understand everything at a glance. There's in-game manuals describing everything you've uncovered so you can take a bit of time to read them between runs to clear up any confusion.