I would recommend the game, but on sale. It is not great, not terrible, it's fun for an hour or 3, but after that, you really have seen all it has to offer. I found it a tad on the simple side, yet poorly explained at the same time. I got to the level 12 boss before I died for the first time, and I am not a 'good' player, so I would say the difficulty level is on the low side. Every level is basically a rinse and repeat. You can replay levels as often as you like to get more experience, loot, and gold, so if you get stuck, there is always the option to grind your way up a few levels. I did find the gear sets quite underwhelming. Gear is about as bland as an unsalted cracker. There is basically one set of gear. It will just have the grey colored version, then 4 versions with a little bit of a color accent that indicates added damage/resistance to: fire(red)/ice(blue/poison(green)/electric(yellow). Not hugely creative. Leveling of gear is not in the least bit exciting. Simply collect x number of copies of the same piece of gear and combine them for Y amount of gold. That's it. Nothing fun. No new appearance, just number in the corner to indicate level.
The font in the game is rather annoying. Each letter looks like it was based on the old 3x5 pixel grids. I found myself just clicking past the character dialogue and messages just because I didn't enjoy staring at the 1970's font.
There is no timer, so if you fall asleep, nodding over your keyboard, jump scare yourself awake (rocketing your mouse off the desk in the process) and have to go reassemble the mouse (now where the hell did the battery go?), you won't lose your loot or your progress. Which is a good thing, because the excitement level is low enough that a nod-off is a real possibility.
So in summary, yeah, I think it's worth a buck or so. It does hit a point where a ton of grinding will be needed to progress, so if you are a completionist, you've got a fair chunk of time ahead of you. If you are a filthy casual, like myself, it's worth a couple hours before you hit that grind. I think I paid $.59 for it. Less than what a Twix costs, and won't leave a chocolate stain on the mouse pad.
Just FYI, there are a couple complaints I have seen in other reviews that I did not seem to have the same issues with, so I'll touch on those as far as what I saw. You might not have the same experience. Since two of them seemed graphics based, it could well be issues with graphics settings, resolution, screen size, etc. I can't remember if there were multiple options when I originally launched this, but I played in windowed mode.
Complaint #1 "You can't scroll the board." Yeah, you can. Click and drag the screen. You just can't do it while a gem is selected. To deselect, just backtrack back to your character portrait and release the mouse button. The limitation is you can not scroll your character's board position off the screen, you can only move the map as far as the character icon will go without going off screen.
Complaint #2 "You can't see the whole board." Yeah, you can. It is the parchment scroll looking icon in the bottom right corner. It opens up a sepia toned overview of the entire board. It only shows specific tiles that you have already uncovered on the play board, but will show the overall size and shape of the board as well as those revealed tiles. It does not show enemies.
Complaint #3 "I couldn't start the next level." There is a star requirement to advance levels. You can complete a non-boss level without earning any stars, by simply jumping in the first door you see, but that seldom grants stars. Just beating the previous level does not necessarily grant you access to the next one. However, the stars earned are cumulative and do not reset. If you missed a star or 2 on the first run, you can go back and just focus on those objectives, you don't have to get a 'perfect run' in one go. 1 star in first run, 3 stars in second run, 2 stars in 3rd run? You can keep them all.
