Hearts of the Dungeon List

[quote]A review copy was provided by the developer.[/quote] [quote]Follow my Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41363546-Fruit-N-Doggie-Reviews/]Fruit N Doggie Reviews,[/url] so you can be updated whenever I post a new review.[/quote] [h1]Overall Rating - Seriously Flawed ★★☆☆☆[/h1] [h1]First Impressions[/h1] As I looked into review games, I thought that Hearts of the Dungeon List (HDL) could be an interesting experience. It sounded like it'd revolve around dungeon-crawling, but with a few distractions tossed in for good measure, like fishing and romancing the local ladies. There weren't many reviews, hence my hesitancy, yet I decided it'd make for a game I could put some spare time into. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] At its heart, pun intended, this is a dungeon-crawler. However, it's less of an RPG, and more of a roguelike, with no equipment and a limited range of abilities you can access. It's possible to focus more on using abilities and landing critical hits than a damage-dealing tank, but your options are narrower in scope than other games would allow for. With the dungeon-crawling in mind, in order to clear them, you have to defeat multiple waves of enemies without your HP dropping to zero. The exact make-up of the dungeon will never vary, as it'll always have the same amount of floors and enemies, in a pre-set order, which can be helpful information. Needing to clear multiple enemies under these conditions does mean you'll have to level up though, as you have to survive against so many attacks. Clearing a dungeon at all will earn a green checkmark, which you can trade in at the tavern to unlock new features. Doing so opens up more of the town, activities to do, items at the shop, and other helpful boons. While fighting in the dungeon, certain checkpoints will allow you to rest and recover health. If you can clear the entire dungeon without resting, you'll earn a second green checkmark, and this feature is available for every dungeon. Adventuring is a separate task from dungeon-clearing, with the enemies centered around your current level. It's meant for grinding XP, as you'll have random tasks to clear, such as beating so many monsters. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006385633 [h1]Controls[/h1] HDL makes use of a color-coordinated system that might remind people of the Simon Says electronic toy. Any area of the village you want to access will be through one of the four colors, which opens up progressive sub-menus based around the same pattern. Since this all coordinates with my controller, it takes a little bit of time to adapt to, but is very easy to learn and incorporate. One thing to remember is that more often than not, the red button will back you out of the menu you're in. [h1]Story[/h1] After a local village is almost completely abandoned, you're sent over to vanquish the special enemy type that's infecting their area. You'll only have three people to interact with initially, but over time as you drive off more monsters, it'll grow into a village once again. Three might be a crowd, but it's definitely not a settlement. Much of the game's tale is told from regularly talking to these three ladies; Riona, Miri, and Arry. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006385099 [h1]Visuals[/h1] Considering how few villagers there are, it's not shocking that their character designs are pretty decent, with a handful of outfits and facial expressions to match various scenarios. I can see where the visual novel inspiration came into place, although with how HDL presents things, it feels like I'm constantly being talked at instead of having conversations. Unfortunately, the monster design varies in quality a lot more, as some of their appearances are much less interesting. The theoretical lore you unlock from buying upgrades in the bestiary isn't terrible, but a quirky concept doesn't make up for a flat-looking critter. Plus, although larger, bosses didn't really strike me as noteworthy foes. [h1]Sound Design[/h1] The main theme sounds pretty melancholy, but considering the state of the village, it's fitting. I was reasonably impressed by the amount of songs I noticed when checking out some of the dungeon floors, but I don't know how many you'd want with 100+ to clear. When fighting and beating monsters, the combat sound effects are a little weak. It makes me think of a basic baddie falling in a carnival game or something, not like you're seriously fighting for peoples' lives. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006385914 [h1]Pros[/h1] 🌟 As you progress, more of the town opens up, giving variety to the gameplay. It won't change the core of it, but still changes things up. 🌟 If you were to get engaged with HDL, you'd get several hours out of it. 🌟 There's enough to combat for it not to be completely mindless. [h1]Cons[/h1] ❌ There's no auto-save feature, which seems an odd omission for a game you'd spend so much time playing. You could lose hours of progress if you aren't careful. ❌ The sheer number of dungeons and enemies makes clearing them feel insignificant. ❌ Fighting enemies feels monotonous. [h1]Tips[/h1] 🔍 The daily cycle doesn't seem to make too drastic a difference, except for resetting the missions in Adventures. It could impact fishing or conversations though. 🔍 It wouldn't hurt to save the game every time you clear a dungeon or have been playing for an hour, just so you don't forget. 🔍 Since you can reset your skill points, it might be worth trying different balances to see what works best for you. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] Something that I've discovered from having and playing so many games is that offering more content isn't always beneficial. It can be disappointing to come to the end of a fun game early, but putting a few hours into a title and realizing you've started a routine that'd take dozens of hours to complete isn't always enthusing either. That's the feeling I began having after beating some of the dungeons. I enjoy the gameplay loop to an extent, yet with so little gained after leveling up, I can tell it'd be a grind-heavy experience. Having so many dungeons to clear isn't really a benefit at that point, as I'm already getting weary so early into HDL. Whenever you think of an RPG that doesn't hook you, the reason likely has to do with the combat, as it can feel rote and unengaging. Effort was put into this title, yet this doesn't overcome the grinding you'd have to endure to beat it. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [table] [tr] [th]PC Specs[/th] [th]Performance[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Ryzen 2700 RTX 2070 16GB RAM ADATA SSD 1920x1080 [/td] [td]The game ran without incident on default settings. 💖 - HDL is healthy [/td] [/tr] [/table]

Simple and fun game. Very short, unless there is more stuff to do Im not aware of, but I found it enjoyable for how laid back the game is. The controls were hard to get used to, but once I did there wasn't really any issue. Definitely an early access game as certain things don't seem to be there or got weirdly cut off, but from what I see the dev updates the game often so Im sure it will be fun to keep up with. :)

Let me begin this review by admitting that I was a Kickstarter backer for this game (and at a content-making tier, too; I got to design an outfit for Riona that I based on sci-fi anime from the 80's). As such, I've been closely following how it's been improved since its most basic state, fine-tuning its gameplay and adding new features. I even had the opportunity to play before the official release, but I didn't want to, as beta testing and glitch-finding can easily sour my mood. Anyways! Hearts of the Dungeon List is a streamlined experience, with a focus on "efficiency" over "strategy". It can take a moment to adjust to using just WASD and the arrow keys for every action, but it certainly speeds up everything, from random battles to town navigation. The game doesn't penalise you for progressing too far too quickly; if you fall in a dungeon, you lose a bit of your spoils, but you can then hop right back in and try again from a checkpoint (or take on an Adventure scaled to your current level if you think the problem was a lack of raw power). Main story progress is not just made by beating dungeons, but also by beating them in one swift battle chain without using anything more than a few potions to recover between battles. And your protagonist's stats can be adjusted at basically any time, in case one particular encounter is giving you trouble and you'd rather just reallocate to target a weakness rather than spending more time and experience points to try and round yourself out. It's a system that works surprisingly well for both the casual and speed-focused players, and I'm certainly having fun with it, but it might be interpreted as "shallow" rather than "efficient" if you're more fond of things in more traditional RPGs like equipment management, elemental affinities, and, well, anything that involves maps or exploration. Now, the game isn't ENTIRELY about refining the regular RPG formula into a "dungeon list" and a few button presses; there's plenty of fun outside the dungeons as well. The three main NPCs in the town you're helping to rebuild each have unique and interesting personalities, initially appearing to be just a few tropes before they start trusting you and opening up about their insecurities and hopes for the future. There's a fun fishing minigame where the focus is on timing rather than speed, and doing well rewards you with the same spoils as battle, if making regular progress becomes too monotonous. Although not available for the 1.0 release, there's also plans to implement an in-game Casino as a fast way to earn money for skill upgrades (or potentially lose it all on some bad bets). And one of my favourite features is the Bestiary, which unlocks more information about each monster the more you slay them in the dungeons, and lets you take a good look at all the wonderful pixel art. In summation, I'm proud to have been a Kickstarter backer, as I feel it was money well-spent. It's not an RPG for everyone, particularly if exploration is the main reason you play, but there's still enough fun to be had with the game's mechanics that I'd definitely recommend adding Dungeon List to your Wish List.

Short and sweet, and also very fun. While the current price is a bit steep for the current content, I can confidently say it's a game I think is worth purchasing just for what I feel it might be in the future. Already a fantastic concept with lovable characters and relaxed but interesting gameplay. Really all it needs is to be fleshed out some more. I'm looking forward to keeping up with this game as it gets developed!

I think this is not a game you play a lot all at once, but a game that you play a little bit for a long while. There really is a lot of content between the girls and the dungeons. The girls are cute and well written and I like seeing what outfits they wear. Seeing the new monsters is interesting, they have nice designs and can be surprising. The gameplay can feel like a grind if you play too much at once, since it is one dungeon after another. Fishing is fun, but only lasts so long. I see a new fishing update is coming soon, but I have not tried it at this time. The developers update pretty often and responds a lot though, and it seems like more interesting stuff is coming. This is the perfect game for playing for 10-15 minutes as a break.

A nice simple turn-based rpg with a great gameplay loop presenting nice art and good writing. Just solid overall and I'm happy that it got finished, slots is hard as hell tho. I hope more people manage to find this game. P.S. It would be cool if there was an option to play the game using the UI that was shown in the original trailer, that simplified look is interesting to look at. Also if the dev's ever has time it would be cool to see a mobile port and if the they want to be weird this would be perfect on a 3ds.

incredible art and monster design, fun gameplay, and tumby. 10/10

Disclaimer: I know the person who made this game. That said, this game's great for RPG lovers with OCD. Lots of satisfying checklists to work through and bars to fill. That wouldn't mean anything if the content wasn't enjoyable, and luckily it is! Lots of different dungeons, monsters, abilities to mess with, like-able characters, and some really charming animations. Also fishing is fun. My one gripe is that the character specific story-lines aren't very long, but the dev has promised that more will be added with time, so hopefully we see that.

Charming game :> Took me a moment to get used to the controls and figure out how to not die, but not that long and then it's a pretty smooth experience. Everything's pretty streamlined so the whole game moves super fast. Makes it easy to pick up, easy to put-down, good for busy schedules and all that, plus there's a lot of material to go through. Art is charming in a very particular way, it's a lil simple, it's a lil goofy, the enemies feel like they're from a world of doodles. Plus there's still a handful of features that'll be added later, so we can look forward to that :>

"Well, I never expected to wind up here! Adding a cursed castle to an already cursed situation was not my idea of entertainment. Would you be kind enough to lend me a hand? I've a serious loose end for me to work through and I can't tend to it myself. I know you've quite a busy list already, so I'll settle somewhere along the end. Will 93 be sufficient? Good! I'll speak to your town leader."