Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers

Finally got to this in my backlog and I gotta say, I really don't understand these negative reviews. Despite its looks, this is just as strategic as Balatro and honestly a bit more my speed. The crux of the game is leveraging your odds and knowing when to throw in the towel. Your goal is not to play as many cards as you can to get some crazy number, it's about making smart choices and ideally getting a really nasty deck. I went back-and-forth against the President with a few duplicated Hierophant cards and a couple business cards for a good 10 minutes before losing to a dragon, and I think that's the beauty of a game that really leans into what it wants to be like this does. The sound design and music is fantastic, the gameplay loop eases you in while still refraining from becoming mindless, and is absolutely rife with references (don't think I didn't see what you did with the Bard's chip count). There's about every "King" or "Queen' pun you could think of (shoutout [i]Queen of the Stone Age[/i]) and such a variety of cards that you're encouraged to keep playing whether you're winning or losing — which I think is the most important part. There's also a surprising amount of customization through your "tavern ID," which only further invests me in both the gameplay and tavern-crawling environment. I'm glad to see the Balatro developer himself endorsed this, but sad that people have compared this so unfairly in the first place when this already stood out among an extremely saturated genre at launch. This truly feels like a dungeon crawler and is even bite-sized enough to run on my MacBook, which is something that understandably fewer and fewer devs are allowing but certainly wins it bonus points from me. Check it out.

One of the best roguelike deckbuilders ever for me, but one of the most frustrating games to 100% Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is made in such a way that even though it's based on Blackjack, you have vast absurd means to interfere with how the game plays out. In a way I think it's genius. There are so many cards, I mean, cards, not the numeric cards but rather cheat cards, these are your tools to mess with your opponents play, but the same goes for them, they will hijack you back too. The goal is forming the most unfair deck to ensure nobody can win against you. Due to game's nature, every run is kind of funny and chaotic. Rng still exists but you have a lot of ways to manipulate it as well. And if you don't know Blackjack, it might be a very good opportunity to learn it through this game since it teaches you super quick. I have nothing negative to say about the game itself, maybe except there could be PvP mode, it would probably a banger but oh well, achievements rant below: As for the achievements, ugh. Beat the game with every starting deck 5 times (to unlock their corresponding max difficulty) among 17 unique decks. Not to mention some of these decks are horrible to play on the highest difficulty. And then there's this massive card pool, and you'll have to beat the game using each of them at least once. It's a grind fest of restarts and more runs. But all in all, Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers gets a solid A+

this misses the mark by miles and miles the struggle of balatro is fun and rewarding. the struggle in this game only rewards me a refund and wasted time.

This game is amazing.

i love this game SOOOOO much if you like blatro you will LOVE this ga,e

bruh how long does it take to kill the ♥♥♥♥ ass manager man. I just started game didnt do anything but fight all everyone till I was at the manager , its so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring and repetitive. IM STILL ON THE MANAGER LEVEL I HAVE YET TO DIE OR KILL THIS BASTARD. SMH IT WAS FUN TILL THIS PART !!!!! nvm just beat it , but some battles do take long if you dont keep in mind what you have. I just killed the wizard !

inscryption if it was good

I just realized I haven't yet reviewed Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers. If you can't tell by my hours on the game I absolutely love it. This is, by far, the best Roguelike I have played. The deck you choose to start with will have a grand effect on your entire run, whatever it may be. And the sheer amount of cards you can pick up along the way means you really, truly will never have the same run twice. Not even close. From the very start you have to be strategic if you want to actually make it to the end which is something I really like. It's difficult, but not impossible, to get rid of cards. Which means every card you pick up and/or start with really will have a grand effect on everything you do. But, should you make a mistake, you can come back eventually. There's not really much of a story, but games like this don't really need a story. The graphics and sound design are absolutely beautiful. I especially like the music. This games soundtrack is absolutely amazing. My only complaint will be that the very beginning of the game forces you to start with the Hearts deck which, while it makes sense due to being vastly easier, may trick you into believing that health won't be that big of an issue. Didn't happen to me but I could see it happening to someone. Whatever the case may be though I genuinely believe this is one of the best games on my library. That was literally my only complaint. I have a suggestion, I don't normally include suggestions in my reviews but I can make an acceptation here due to my complete and utter lack of complaints. I would have enjoyed a starting deck maker after beating the game. Even if it just included the cards you have already discovered, that would make sense. I would just have liked that. Nonetheless, this game is definitely one of my favorite games ever. And it is my favorite roguelike ever. Overall if you enjoy roguelikes you will enjoy Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers. Unless maybe you just really hate deckbuilders. That's the only type of person I wouldn't suggest this game to, someone who really hates deckbuilders. Overall an astounding game.

Relatively simple but very fun gambling themed game, similar but completely different from balatro, lacking a "joker" mechanic or similar (not to its detriment!) and being all about stacking your deck in your favor

3/5 A fun game overall - I would give it a lukewarm recommendation. I feel as though I enjoyed the game more before I realized that most decks boil down to one of a couple of strategies with different coats of paint. Those strategies are fun enough and can be interesting to get to, but with the ways the game has to optimize your deck early, the time you spend getting to that point is usually not that long.