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Genre: Adventure, Indie, RPG, Strategy
Developer: Handelabra Games Inc.
Publisher: Handelabra Games Inc.
Release Date: May 19, 2018
Edited by KnightAvenger
It’s generally rare to find digital adaptations of board games, and some of the most well-known ones are Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Talisman, all published by Asmodee Digital. Yet, digital adaptations are excellent, simply for the fact that it cuts down a lot of the busywork required in setting up, or packing away, these games.
It’s also pretty remarkable how a rogue-like game marries well with a physical card game. By nature, card games are never the same every game, and this concept meshes well with the procedural generation of rogue-likes, where no two runs are the same.
This is the case here with One Deck Dungeon, a card game originally designed by Chris Cieslik of Asmadi Games, with the digital version made by Handelabra Games, known for Sentinels of the Multiverse, another digital adaptation of a card game. The game launched at the end of February into Early Access, spending about 3 months there before finally releasing as a full product mid-May. How does the digital version of One Deck Dungeon fare?
I’ll admit that I’ve never played the actual physical version before, so I jumped into this game pretty “blind,” so to speak. While there’s a detailed rulebook, it’s likely you won’t be able to remember anything at all just by reading it; it’s best to just start a new game because there will be a “hint fairy” to give you tips on what to do in each situation.
There’s a massive amount of dice rolling inherent in this game. Most of this is determined by your hero attributes; each hero (of which there are 5 total with their own strengths and weaknesses) has a unique Strength stat, Agility stat, and a Magic stat associated with them, along with a health total. You select one out of these 5 heroes, pick a dungeon (of which there are 3 floors which you need to descend), go down and attempt to slay the boss. There’s also 2-player mode, where you and a friend can select one each, and they are balanced appropriately. As befits its name, the number of cards is small enough and can comprise one deck.
The digital adaptation has some extra features not found in the normal version. Chief among them is a rich hero progression system. The more you play (and the further you get), the more checkmarks you earn to unlock more talents in various categories in order to (somewhat) mitigate the RNG-heavy nature of the game (more on that later). The progression system can be toggled off if you want a vanilla experience. There are a total of 4 various difficulty settings as well, with the normal board game setting being the 3rd most difficult, and two lower difficulty settings giving the player a slight boost. It also features a Gauntlet Mode, unlocked after beating all the bosses, where you try to defeat these bosses in as few runs as possible.
I won’t go much into the general rules here; that would likely take up the bulk of the review. Instead, I’ll focus more on the mechanics of the game. It’s glaringly obvious with the amount of dice rolling that this game is incredibly RNG-heavy but not in a good way. This is actually more a knock on the game mechanics itself, and the frustration of the bad rolls you will (more than often) get has carried itself over “nicely” from the physical to the digital edition. It doesn’t help that a lot of the cards have particularly high requirements that you need to roll successfully in order to pass them; else, you’ll suffer consequences like a loss of time (which is not that bad) or health (which is far worse). Sure, you could always choose to flee an encounter if you determine your hero unsuitable for the encounter with her (funnily enough, all the heroes in this game are female, but I’m not complaining) current character stats, but that would mean a lost opportunity to level up your character more for the boss of the dungeon.
One Deck Dungeon is a game that requires a solid modicum of patience. This is obvious in the global statistics alone; there are far more losses than wins due to the nature of the game. This might not be the game for you if you cannot stand losses and failures. As of writing, I am still actually unable to beat the first boss, the Dragon, on Novice difficulty, simply because the dice have not actually fallen my way. I know that, eventually, I should have a better build due to the fantastic rogue-lite character progression mentioned above; yet, I’m not sure if I want to continue playing to that point.
Even with all the inherent frustration in how the game is designed, the game itself is a technically wonderful and well-executed affair. Running smoothly without hiccups, it has options to speed up the game by disabling superfluous animations and increasing animation speed. Despite the encounter deck itself being quite small (22 unique encounters, of which each encounter has 2 iterations that vary slightly, making 44 in total), the rogue-like nature means that no 2 runs are ever the same. Save for the high dice roll requirements, the dungeon cards are also designed well for the most part, with unique characteristics for each boss and dungeon: a variety of conditions that are continually added to the dungeon’s encounters the lower you progress.
The best part is that the game also has room for future DLC expansions. There is currently one expansion called the Phoenix’s Den available, adding a new boss/dungeon card to the pool; there are also DLC characters and even a standalone expansion, Forest of Shadows, in the pipeline. The soundtrack (by Beatscribe) is passable, but limiting each dungeon to only one song in total can make things feel really repetitive on that front over time.
Pros:
- Technically excellent digital adaptation
- Potential for future expansion via DLC
- Rogue-like nature changes up runs each time
- Rogue-lite character progression assists future runs over time
Cons:
- Incredibly RNG-heavy
- Music loops can become too repetitive
K3W3L gives One Deck Dungeon a Drastik Measure 7.0 out of 10 (70).
For people looking for a solid digital version of this game, this is a steal at $9.99 (USD) on Steam. Keep an eye out for future DLC expansions as well; the Phoenix’s Den is only a mere dollar, and other DLC expansions will be priced competitively as well. If you desire portability, if you own an iPad or an Android tablet, the respective app-store versions are also priced at the same amount.
For people new to this board game in general, though, just don’t expect to win on your first try, or often, rather, and maybe you’ll be able to handle this game better mentally.