From Match-3 to Cathulhu: Roland Kie’s Vision for Roguematch

Hello, Readers of the Friendly Necromancer blog! I have a special treat for you today. I've asked Game Designer Roland Kie from Starstruck Games, makers of Roguematch: The Extraplaner Invasion, if he'd be willing to sit down and answer a few questions for us in an interview format. 

I've talked about Roguematch a few times here on the blog and after making it into the credits for the game with a special thank-you, it's only fair that I return the favor. Roland highly deserves a spot here on the sidebar of the blog as a VIP! 

Read on for more insights into Roland's special kind of awesomeness. 

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Q: So Roland, why don't you take a second to introduce yourself to those who may not know you! Let us know how you found yourself in this state of life and why you're doing what you're doing. 

A: Hi! I'm Roland Kie, born and bred in Singapore! Games have always been a major part of my life, and when I got a chance to work at EA as localisation QA 20 years ago, I joined the games industry and never looked back! I eventually made my way to become a game designer, co-founded Inzen Studios, focusing on mobile games, and then subsequently left and found Starstruck Games.

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Q: Let's talk for a moment about Starstruck Games. Where is Starstruck Games based, and how do you feel that location has or hasn't influenced your approach to development and marketing?

A: We are based in sunny Singapore! For us, I think it's been a fairly good spot for development. For example, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo do make it fairly straightforward to get Devkits here, so that was a blessing! Marketing wise, it's been a challenge, as always, because we don't use a publisher, so we have to look for marketing companies in the different regions, or try to approach social media influencers ourselves!

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Q: What inspired you to take the leap into indie game development, especially with the risks involved? 

A: There's this deep...yearning? Want? To create something that somebody would love to consume and appreciate, the way I've appreciated the games I've played throughout my life. 

I don't think the freedom to do so would be easily available in a bigger company. Games have been such a deep part of my journey that making them feels like the natural direction of my life. The risks are 100% definitely (Still) there, but this is really one of those things where, if I don't try the darndest for it, it would be something I would regret later on.

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Q: Could you walk us through your team’s workflow—are roles more defined, or do you collaborate on multiple aspects of the game? Are there certain fingerprints in Roguematch that you could identify as yours or Jesmond's or Yi Chuin's?

A: Chuinny is our Artist, Jesmond is the Coder and I'm the Game Designer. That's the very basics of it. We discuss and bounce ideas off each other all the time though. 

The character design is definitely in Chuinny's style, that's the most visual 'fingerprint' we can see. She really does the cutest stuff. UI/UX is a good mix of the three of us, but eventually Chuinny finds the best look. I come up with the narrative and features but always bounce them off Jesmond and Chuinny. I also did the music, but also with their input on whether it sounds appropriate. We balance each other out quite a lot!

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Q: As a fellow game designer, I’m curious: what design principles do you hold closest, especially when blending genres like match-3 and roguelike?

A: This is a tough one! Personally, I feel like I need to have a narrative to the games we make. 

For Roguematch though... In some ways, I have to adhere to the limits that Match 3 and Roguelikes bring to the table. I kept shifting focus between many principles, but ultimately kept going back to, and having difficulty in, designing the best tutorial because these are two disparate genres merged into one. We still don't feel it's good enough! It's too long, it's too short, we should break it up into different stages, there's so many mechanics because it's two genres, etc.

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Q: Do you or your team have a particular fondness for both roguelike and match-3 games, or did Roguematch come together more organically from different ideas?

A: I have a reasonable fondness for Match 3. It started with Bejewelled, and it went on to the many iterations of games like Candy Crush and Puzzle Quest and Gardenscapes and so many in between I forget them. Oh Angry Birds, Harry Potter, and Stranger Things just rushed through my mind. 

I do not play Roguelikes like Angband and Dwarf Fortress, but I did play the Mystery Dungeons like Torneko's Quest, and a bit of Chocobo Dungeon, I can't remember if I've played Shiren it was so long ago, and a few years back, Dragonfangz and Crown Trick. 

Roguematch did not come from just appreciating both genres. Roguematch came together from the years noticing that out there, games are tagged as 'Match 3 Roguelikes' or 'Match 3 RPGs', and they were in a sense, but not truly combined in the way I imagined it. I always felt that the next step for a Match 3 RPG is...what Roguematch is. Where Match 3 is real to the characters in the game. Where Match3 players can put their skills to test in a more 'real' situation. Where Roguelike players are playing a turn-based, grid-based RPG with Match 3 for real.

We also want to push Match 3 further into a space where the mechanics of it aren't viewed as 'casual'. There have been other Match 3 RPGs that have managed to do it in some ways, like the Puzzle Quests 1, 2, 3 and Marvel Puzzle Quest, which is more of a Match 3 deckbuilder, and many of the games that you've covered and talked about a few years back. What we wanted was for the Match 3 aspect of it to be way more involved within the game itself.

Our serendipitous discovery of your hunt for Match 3 Dungeon games also gave us a super boost in motivation during early development :D

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Q: What design or gameplay element of Roguematch are you the proudest of, and why?

A: We're proud that we even managed to find a playable balance between Match 3 and Turn-based Dungeon Crawling! 

We didn't have any references so it was a lot of trying to see how it could work. We had so many iterations of it. We ended up with this one because we realised that if we wanted to introduce this sub-genre, we had to make it more palatable for players, so it's the simpler version of what we thought it could be.

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Q: How do you incorporate player feedback into Roguematch's development, and were there specific changes you made based on that feedback? Where does most of your feedback come from? 

A: We have friends playtesting the game, which is useful for deeper-level game design issues. We went to some cons, like Tokyo Gameshow, Busan Indie Connect, and Gamescom Asia SG, and observed players playing, which is useful for silently observing beginner player issues. We listen to everyone and then we sit down and discuss what makes sense and what doesn't. 

Specific changes from player feedback? Quite a lot, some were additions, like multiple ways of shifting the pieces when using controls. We added a different color scheme for the color blind. We shortened the number of rooms to reach each level's boss. We shortened, then lengthened, then shortened the tutorial based on player feedback (or frustration).

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Q: How did the team approach the fusion of match-3 mechanics with turn-based gameplay? Was it challenging to keep it balanced and accessible for different types of players?

A: It was extremely challenging. We were facing two demographics of players that did not necessarily have any skill overlap, or skill transfer from one genre to the other. What we did attempt to figure out were the common motivations for playing these types of games. One of them was the 'tactics' aspect of both games. In both genres, you try to be efficient with your turns to get the optimal outcome. 

For the short version of this, In match 3, this could be solving one of the parts of the board, in a roguelike, it would be, defeating one enemy. The next step from that would be how to find ways to clear more of the board, or how to clear more enemies at one go. So the (not exactly) parallel tools for this are the special pieces in Match 3 and Magic/Skills in Mystery Dungeons.

Match 3 players are usually presented with one board to 'solve' in a number of turns. Dungeon crawlers, however, are often one large level with interconnecting rooms that you can freely travel around, and where monsters can chase you from one room to the next.

We decided to stick to one room at a time for Roguematch so that it would be easier to learn and play. We tried to find ways to reward players for clearing a room, and that came in the form of getting items, and later on, gaining Exp to level up.

During player testing, we would find an experienced match 3 player doing really well, defeating enemies further away...until one enemy reached them, and then they'd be just running away. Experienced Roguelike players with no Match 3 experience maybe could kite a bit, but without relying more on available matches, they would miss opportunities to defeat enemies and get overwhelmed. Fortunately we came across a few players who played both genres, and they were quite good and played it so naturally, and liked it. We also had players who were better at one genre than the other, but halfway through playtesting, had an 'Aha' moment, and then played through all the way to the boss. So on that end, we knew on average that the game was balanced and generally well received as long players stuck around to learn a bit of both genres.

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Q: Tell me more about the dynamic music in Roguematch—how each stage’s soundtrack shifts with elemental themes. What inspired this feature?

A: We started out that way because in each level, you could have rooms associated with one elemental plane, and a different one the next, so the music just faded in and out according to the room you were in. Also, the combining of music in the mixed elemental planes just 'made sense'. If you listen to the Cryo-Volcanic rooms, they're a mix of the music from the Ice rooms and from the Lava rooms, which in themselves are a mix of music from the four main planes. For example, the Elemental plane of Lava is associated with the elemental planes of Fire (Where we use more heavy Brass Instruments) and Earth (Where we use more percussions). Ice would have music from Water + Air. 

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Q: Sonya the “nekomancer” is such a unique character! Can you share more about her creation and the idea of her quest for the Nekonomicon?

A: We knew we had to have a Cat, Dog and Rabbit BFF adventuring party. So if there was a Cat, it absolutely (100000%) had to be a Nekomancer. If there was a Nekomancer, the Nekonomicon had to be involved. If the Nekonomicon was involved, Cathulhu had to be involved. If Cathulhu was involved, the other Meowter Gods, Elder Nyans/Elder Wans also had to be involved. If they were antagonists or protagonists, who would be their counterparts? And so on and so forth!

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Q: What were some of the most challenging technical aspects of Roguematch’s development? How did you approach them?

A: The Match 3 system was challenging. Characters interact with it in so many ways, walk into it and you switch places with it. Or maybe you have the item that makes you consume it. Or maybe you're the same color and you match with it! Then, matching them makes them disappear, or turn into new pieces, or explode, or stop time. Put in a new feature on the Roguelike side and something on the Match 3 side goes haywire. Honestly we could only approach it with hard work and time. Aka Brute Force. (Thank you Jesmond).

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Q: Is there a dream project you’d love to work on with unlimited resources, or are there aspects of Roguematch you’d expand on?

A: Yes. It's Zelda related. And now that BOTW and TOTK have come out it made me think that it is even more possible now. But we're not Nintendo! So that's a pipe dream. (Wait, unlimited resources means we can buy Nintendo, yes?). There are others! But it has to do with past games we've worked on before.

Jesmond and I often have fun thinking of working on a fighting game. As for Roguematch, yes for sure. Though that largely depends on how the gaming community as a whole accepts diegetic Match 3 Roguelikes as something that they could learn to play.

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Q: What lessons from Roguematch’s development do you plan to apply to future games? 

A: Don't try to create new sub-genres unless you have plenty of resources. Especially one where half of it looks casual, and the other half looks hardcore. 

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Q: What’s next for you and Starstruck Games? Any exciting plans for new projects or updates to Roguematch? 

A: Roguematch is our Final Fantasy. We won't have the resources to carry on if we cannot get the world to see and try Roguematch. 

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Thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions for my readers. As someone who loves this style of gameplay and mashup, I'm extremely excited to see it happen and executed in such a fantastic way. You've done an amazing job and made a game you can be proud of! 

In a way you might say I am star-struck by Starstruck! Keep up the excellent work and thank you for your passion with Game Design, Match 3, and just being a downright great person. I wish you nothing but the best and success in all your endeavors. 

Happy Dueling!

Roguematch: A Nekomancer's Match-3 Love Letter

 A year ago, a dev from the Starstruck Games team reached out to me over Twitter and sent me one of the sweetest messages I'd ever heard. I wrote about it at the end of this post titled "Thank you, Readers."

To sum it up, they had read through my series of blog posts where I went on a quest for a good match-3 dungeon game and felt a sense of camaraderie. They too were in search of something amazing and kept falling short with what the world was offering. My blog was there for them at the right time, cheering them on.  Because of this, they gave me a free copy of the game with no demands for review or anything other than to say thank you. I got you.

That said, a review of Roguematch: The Extraplaner Invasion is overdue. As of today, I've put about 22 hours into the game, and it's pretty great. Now, is it without bugs? No, I mean, even with a larger team, we still had our fair share of bugs in Animal Cove. But I have to say that for a three-person indie team, Roguematch is pretty freaking clean, and it's a fantastic game worthy of a best-in-class study for a dungeon-based match-3 game.

Time to delve into the dungeon of many matches!

At its core, Roguematch feels like the answer to the question, what if you combined Binding of Issac's storytelling, dungeon crawling, and item building with the classic match-3 mechanics akin to those found in Candy Crush?  Bam, that's Roguematch!

Feya is all about moving fast and jumping out of danger

Each room you enter in Roguematch is a match-3 board where you not only move your character around on the board, shifting pieces as you move, but also you can make color matches to damage enemies that are definitely out to get you.

You have a health bar and each character you play has a different set of skills they can use. If you spend too long on a board, chaos pieces drop and increase the difficulty of the game, bringing a five-color matching system to a six-color matching system.

Sonya the nekomancer vs. the evil snail boss and his mini snail minions!

In addition, there are boss and mini-boss fights that have special conditions surrounding them. These are challenging fights. Some have really tight boards and rely on you pulling out all the stops with the items you've collected around the dungeon.

When you defeat a boss, you'll be presented with a stairway leading down further into the dungeon where the stakes are higher and the puzzles are meaner . . . where the questions remain: How good is your gear? How good are your matching skills? How lucky are you feeling, punk?

Each dungeon features all the dangers a harsh, extraplaner environment can dust you with

When you lose all your life, you're thrown out of the dungeon and graded on your performance. How many turns did you take, which bosses did you fight, what new items did you discover, and what stage did you make it to?

Sad Sonya is sad at her defeat

Of special note to me is the fact that one of the characters, Sonya, is a friendly "nekomancer," who went dungeon-delving in search of the "Nekonomicon." Any friendly nekomancer can be a friend to the Friendly Necromancer!

As originally posted on Twitter a year ago

The art style is extremely cute, very much in the style of anthropomorphized chibis, which I understand is a turn-off to some, but to others . . . well, it's just warm and inviting. Don't let that art look fool you though, cute does not equal easy by any means.  It's legitimately a hard game. In all of my 22 hours playing, I've never made it past the second dungeon. I've only ever unlocked the first two characters.  I got close once, but I failed on the final boss fight.

I have to say that since the beta that I played a year ago, Roguematch has really streamlined the story beats at the beginning of the game. Where once I was a little confused as to what was going on, now I fully understand why I'm heading into the extraplanar match-3 dungeon. Props to them for clarifying the story and getting the tutorial shaped up.

If you're up for a complex, but fun match-3 experience that meshes Roguelike and the matching of gems, I can confidently say this is a great game that belongs in your library . . . and that's coming from a guy who's reviewed a lot of match-3 games in my day.

Happy Dueling!

Jenga Meets VR Match-3 in Jentrix!

Ahhh, so you're up to your old tricks, eh?  But are you up to your old, Jentrix though!? No? Don't even know what the heck I'm talking about!? Well, I can't blame you!

I'm here writing what is possibly my last review (at least for now) in a series of Match-3 VR game reviews.  Yeah, there's one or two more games I could write about that technically fall in the Match-3 genre, and who knows what's yet to come in this crazy subgenre . . . but I've reached the end of my original list of Match-3 VR games I wanted to check out. 

And how do I end this series of reviews? With a crazy game that's a mad mixup of Jenga and Match-3 in a VR game that has some good ol' goofy physics fun! It's Jentrix! Check it out:

Jentrix is an $8 game on Steam with a "coming soon" store front message on Oculus. Unfortunately at the time of writing, it doesn't appear this game is included with Steam's Puzzlefest going on right now. I'd say the price is still right on the money for the experience. Even better, apparently they just added multiplayer to the game?  I've yet to try it out! I bet you it's a lot of fun.

Time to get your Berries, Bananas, and Peas in a row

So in Jentrix you slide elongated fruits out from a Jenga-like stack of elongated fruits and try to match up three of a kind. You gotta be careful though since the slightest upward or downward pull can send your whole stack of fruits tumbling. To make matters more frantic, you have pieces that are actually mini-crocodiles, birds that somehow freeze your pieces in blocks of ice (don't ask me, I can't explain it), and a timer that spits out pieces to the top of the stack every few seconds. If your fruits fall on the floor, you have a limited time to pick it up. Let too many fruits fall on the floor and it's game over.

Still lots of progress to make on the Jentrix campaign map!

The game has 20 achievements, and a good majority of them have to do with progression along the campaign map or with achieving high scores in arcade mode. So far in campaign mode, it seems like it's all about reaching point goals. When you achieve a certain score for the level, you win and progress to the next node of the map. It feels like I'm about 1/4th of the way in currently and I'm not sure what new mechanics they'll throw at me as I progress or if it will be just turning up of the five difficulty knobs they seem to have:

1- pieces fall in a faster cadence

2- new and different pieces

3- more and faster freezing birds

4- increased point goal markers

5- fewer allowed mistakes

I'm kind of excited to see what else they've got!

Giving a frozen strawberry smackdown to a red bird

This game isn't really meant to be played sitting down. You've gotta stand up to get all these angles. You'll also be doing a lot of toe touches as you bend down to pick up fallen pieces. So for a puzzle game, there's actually a lot of physical movement you need to do to play Jentrix.

I think my favorite part of this game isn't necessarily its gameplay, but rather its colorful skin and humorous physics fun. It's fun to grab these fruits and slot them in to the puzzle.  It's also pretty funny when you just spill the whole tower and wait to start over. That said, they've somehow allowed for a certain amount of leniency with the game's physics and made a pretty great system in what seems an impossible scenario of stacking.

Happy Dueling!

Rainbow Reactor Fusion, A Futuristic Match-3 VR Game

Back over to the Quest 2 today, and I think I've discovered a pretty cool VR Match-3 game that might just be my favorite of the bunch yet! 

Rainbow Reactor Fusion comes in at a little bit of a higher price point at $15, but I'm finding it absolutely worth it. At first I thought this game was only available through the Sidequest, but their Sidequest link led right to the Oculus store. Unfortunately this game isn't yet available on Steam, but it says it's coming soon. Check it out!

At its heart, Rainbow Reactor Fusion is basically a VR version of a carnival ball toss game. Balls of paint roll down at you from ramps that are to the right and left of you, and you have to grab them and toss them on to the game field. When you toss a ball in a spot where it touches 3 or more colors, all those colors are removed and you score points. Throw a ball out of bounds, and you'll earn a strike. Three strikes and it's game over.

To make the game more interesting, they've also made it where you can fuse colored balls together to create one ball of a different color. The fusion doesn't really work in true color wheel fashion, but once you start fusing colors, you start to get the hang of it.

Red and Green make Yellow, Yellow and Teal make Green, Green and Blue make Teal, etc.

Now, if this game was just what was stated above, it probably wouldn't be worth $15.  What makes this game worth more is the factory-wide restoration/puzzle-solving story game you undertake while playing the above game . . . and its charm. Yup, this game is also oozing with fun Portal 2-esque character charm while solving the factory's mystery.

At the start of the game you find yourself standing in an elevator, watching a black and white video of one Alfred Luzan von Hoffenhasselbrock as he breaks down the history of the Rainbow Reactor Factory and how it all works.  Once the tutorial video is over, you're introduced to a little robot buddy named Dottie. Dottie guides you in restoration efforts from this point forward.

Dottie welcoming me back to the Rainbow Reactor Factory

Over time you'll purchase an axe, a wrench, a brush, and other tools from an in-game shop. These all help unravel the mystery of the factory. All the while you'll be playing the Rainbow Reactor Fusion Match-3 game as part of it all.

I haven't yet made it to the end of the game, but it is getting more challenging the further up the factory I go. Multiple colors on the board make the game interesting and the speed at which the color fusion paint balls start coming toward you also raise the challenge. 

The game itself makes really good use of VR as a medium for the match-3 game and it is a very physical experience. The UIs bend around transparent screens and look like they are a part of the world.

Notice how the game UI makes sense in the world and doesn't look slapped on the screen?

Overall, this is just a really well put together game. I'm happy to have discovered it in my hunt of VR Match-3 games.

Happy Dueling!

Button Bombers, a creative match-3 VR mashup

For anyone that owns a Quest 2 headset (affordable VR woot), I'm not sure how many know they can unlock the immense library of Sidequest games that you can play from little known developers. Just think of Sidequest as the Roblox of VR development.

To actually make your way on to the Oculus Store as a legit game, you have to undergo a certification QA process that seems to stop many in their tracks. That's where Sidequest comes in. People can load their un-QA'd games up to a third-party download site like itch.io, make a trailer, set a price, and BAM . . . you're a VR developer.

On the other end, as a player you have to configure your Quest 2 in a certain way to play these games, but it's not rocket science, just follow the tutorial.

The reason why this review has all this padding is because I'm starting to exhaust the library of VR Match-3 games that are out there and today's game comes from Sidequest.

Button bombers!  It's a VR Match-3 Demo from a fella named Andrew Stout. He's actually put quite a bit of work into this demo and it plays really well. Check it out:

The style of match 3 found in Button Bombers is the upward elevating style. The game that instantly comes to mind for me was Wizard101's Wizardblox since I played so much of that game. (Wizardblox wasn't the only match 3 that used this technique -- just the first that came to mind). Basically, you start with a board that is 2/3rds full and new matching pieces come from the bottom of the board as they slowly rise upward.  If an object on the gameboard hits the top, then it's game over.

Besides the basics, what Button Bombers has going for it is creative flair. On the "Button" side of the "Button bombers" equation are a ton of sewing puns and head nods.  Your match pieces are buttons, your training grounds are a "sewing dojo" (although I think he should have just gone with "Sewjo") that's decorated with needles and scissors. 

Even the volume controls are on zippers in the options menu

The game pieces have sewing themed mechanics to them. Your buttons can get "pinned," and you have to make matches with them to unpin them. Your buttons can be stitched together, and you have to make a match underneath them to break the stitching. Your buttons can instead be "snaps" that act as bombs. It's a sewing themed match 3.  

there's a lot of mechanics going on here . . .

ON the "Bombers" side of the "Button bombers" equation are a ton of warfare puns and head nods. Your match 3 games are 1v1 battles against AI. When you or the AI make large matches, you throw bombs, bricks, and torpedoes on to the other player's game board. You travel a war map defeating opponent after opponent. Your opponents are on a sewn together ship that you're trying to sink with cannon fire from your ship.

On a ship, looking at a battle map, ready to bomb some buttons!

So not only are you creatively meshing VR and match-3, but you're also meshing sewing with warfare. It's a combination that makes absolutely no sense, but somehow works at the same time.

In addition there's a strange dialog system mechanic that probably has some future meaning to it where you can earn +1 scores to traits that don't currently do anything. Add a +1 to my confusion! Where was he going with this system? Will we ever know?!

At the end of the day here. Yeah. I don't really want to offer criticism of this project. It's a free demo. It's a single dev. It's something where you can tell a lot of heart and thought was put into the project -- probably a lot more than some of the other VR Match-3 games I've been playing. 

I hope he finishes it because I had fun playing it. If he ever happens to read this post, here's me wishing you the best of luck! Thanks for adding to the VR Match-3 genre.

Happy Dueling!

Match it! A Simple and Surprising VR Matching Game

Not going to lie, I'm kind of excited to show off today's matching game. The past few days I've been doing a few reviews on match-3 VR games, and in my search for games I stumbled upon "Match It!", which is a colors and numbers matching game.  The best part of Match It! is that it's absolutely free, so there's absolutely no buyers remorse at all.

Now, just to be fair to the Match-3 VR genre, this isn't a match-3, but it is a match 2. I had "match 3" so firmly embedded in my mind that as I started to play this game I was grabbing hexes and trying to drop them on top of other hexes. It didn't work. You need to use both hands to play . . . like so:

There's zero instructions on this game, but after experimenting a bit, I quickly came to find out that you can do this one of two ways, either by simultaneously clicking on matching hexes or by grabbing one hex and holding it with one hand and clicking on the matching hex with another hand . . . the latter being more effective with larger boards, but the former being more of a mental workout and faster on smaller boards.

What's genius about this game is the tension they're able to bring into it by making the leaderboards an active part in gameplay.

As you begin clicking and playing, you're elevated up between a cube of skyscrapers. You have this feeling of being ON TOP of the world as you start clicking and begin your game.  Then you begin your descent as you slowly drop a step each time a faster past leaderboard entry is reached. For some reason, feeling your descent in VR while simultaneously hearing a descension note as you drop a place on the leaderboard is absolutely genius. It gives this really nice competitive tension to the game and makes it an experience I hadn't yet felt in VR. 

I need more copycat games that use this tension, please!

There's actually a leaderboard for each variation of match it game. These leaderboards certainly don't feel faked if they are.  If you happen to download it and see "It Stings" with a time of 8.64 seconds or better on the default numbers, 4-color, 32 blocks game . . . let me know!

Top Ten!  I CAN DO BETTER!

I found the REAL fun of this game was the numbers, 8-color, 128 blocks game. Awesome and such a workout as you spin around trying to find a random number between 1 and 64.

So there's not much to this game and it's very simple. It's all it needs to be, and it's 100 percent free. No complaints from me.  If you're looking for a great intro to VR matching game experience, Match It! appears to be a great starter game.

Happy Dueling!

Cutting the Cubes in Quest for Runia, Match-3 VR

Yup, it’s that time! Time to match another group of colored things together in a VR Match 3 game. Who doesn’t love matching things together? Who cares if they’re cubes, not gems?! Quest for Runia doesn’t care!

Quest for Runia is actually a pretty good bargain for the size of game it is at $5 on Steam. It has an astounding 27 achievements, at least 7 environments (maybe more?!), and some zen-like play that’s only moderately difficult at times. 

Ok, here’s the whole shtick with Quest for Runia. Basically, you have a big staff in one hand. You use this staff to shoot out a colored cube that snaps to other colored cubes in a color cube puzzle. If you match at least 3 colors together, then all the matching colors that are touching sides will be stripped away.  The object, remove ALL the colored cubes on the playing field. If you are super efficient, you’ll 3 star that puzzle. If you’re mildly efficient, you’ll 2 star it. If you are just kinda clicking things, you’ll either 1 star or fail the level. Fail the level, and you have to try again.

A beginner intro puzzle in Quest for Runia

While this is 3D space in VR, the puzzle stays in front of your field of view for the most part, and you don’t need to move around much at all. Save for the boss levels, where the big bad of the story, Karos the magician, puts you in a color cube prison, and you have to make matches to get out.

Don't let the evil Karos fool you, He is way more diabolical than Orco from He-man!

Environments are set up as kind of floating islands, and as you beat one puzzle, you progress to a different location on the island until you beat all the puzzles in the environment. As any level designer for match 3 games can tell you, one of the best moments in crafting a level is when you get to shape it like something.  The most common being “the heart” shape, for example. You can tell the level designer in Quest for Runia had a lot of fun making these tear-away matching puzzles. Sometimes the puzzle would look like a cauldron or a ship or what-have-you. Kind of cool! Most of the time it was just a mess of colors in big cube shapes with plenty of holes in the middle. 

Check it out!

Now it’s time for all my complaints. I’m sorry! Yeesh, me and my complaints! Only a couple here:

The big complaint – there is nothing more frustrating than when you want to place a cube somewhere in this game, and the slightest movement of your hand while you click your trigger button to place it, somehow makes a cube end up somewhere else besides where you intended it. 

It’s hard to explain it, but here’s the scenario: say you wanted to put a blue cube on the top of another blue cube to connect two rows of blue cubes together, thus removing both rows of blue cubes with one click. BUT, if you ever so slightly move your hand down a touch when you’re clicking to place your cube, then BAM . . . aww crap, I placed the blue cube on the FRONT of a cube instead of the TOP and then only end up removing one of the two rows. (You can actually see something like that happen at the 1:41 mark in the video above)

For a zen-like game, having any moments of frustration is a big turn off. I’ve been kind of wracking my brain thinking, hmmm, if this was my game how would I do that differently.  I think it comes down to the controls they give you.  The only method for alleviating this is to “spin” the 3D structure of cubes around by pressing a button and hoping for a good angle as the puzzle shifts in 90 degree increments. In a perfect world, I’d change this so that I could grow or shrink a puzzle through pinch and pull movements and allow the player to drag themselves around the puzzle instead of always having it stuck in front of me. If I could get INTO the puzzle’s nooks and crannies, I’d be a match-happy friendly necromancer. I suppose that could be considered just part of the challenge, but . . . really? I don't think so.

Next big complaint – VR is a tricky medium to work in when it comes to UI. A player’s immersion gets really killed by floating UI elements. It’s like, you have this low-poly charming world around you in Quest for Runia, but it’s kind of ruined by this slapped on UI that floats at the bottom of the puzzle area. It’s a real challenge to incorporate UI into the environment so it feels more natural. I don’t know how I would have done it differently, but just know there’s kind of a UX no-no going on here. Not to mention the UI icons look like temp art, but then again, the game is $5, so you get what you pay for, right?

Anyway, those things aside, this isn’t a bad game. You progress through worlds filled with puzzles getting some light story with a little zen-like match 3 that has an occasional point of frustration because of controls. Ok. It’s better than a lot of these other Match 3 VR games I’ve played, so there you go!

Happy Dueling

Fatal Gem, A Match-3 VR Game Where, Um, You Die

You know, when you strap on a VR headset for the first time, you’re going to want to play one of the classics: Beatsaber, Space Pirate Trainer, Astrobot, Gorilla Tag, Lucky’s Tale, Half-Life Alyx (which I still need to play btw . . . it’s in my backlog), etc. The last thing you think of playing is a match 3 game in VR, but here we are . . . reading all about them on The Friendly Necromancer blog of all places. Yup.

And I have to say . . . you know that feeling when you’re playing a game and you feel like . . . so this is what we’ve come to.  Well thankfully, Fatal Gem won’t be the last game I ever play. We’re just gonna put that $3 price tag down to a fun experiment.  You know, like buying a six-pack of RC Cola because you forgot what it tasted like.

Nice run-on sentence, Fatal Gem!

That’s right! Fatal Gem is a VR Match 3 game on Steam for the low price of $3 and a little bit of your dignity. Right off the bat when you find yourself in darkness trying to grab a pickaxe reading some hacked together English, you know things are gonna be a bit dicey.

Fatal Gem is traditional match 3, but since it’s in VR, the playing field wraps all the way around you, and I gotta give it up to this game for that mere fact.  If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to be completely surrounded by match 3 gems, this is your game.  You get 3 levels of timed-point-gathering play, and that’s it. The crazy thing is, either way, you’re going to blow up.  Victory or Defeat . . . it’s all the same in Fatal Gem, the only thing that really matters is your score at the very end of the game.

Surrounded in Gems!

Do I have complaints about this game, yeah, I mean besides the obvious lack of content and re-playability, um, of course I do.

My main complaint is this: I don’t like that the game makes me wait to make matches until the cascades of gems have finished, especially when the game is pitting you against a timer. This is especially bad in a 3D space because while the game is cascading in front of you, you should be able to be making matches behind you or to the sides of you. It’s a match 3 philosophy that every match 3 developer has to make.  Do I lock the board during cascading, or do I come up with a tech solution to allow players to make matches during cascading? It’s not a bad thing that boards are locked, if it makes sense for the game you’re building. For instance, I absolutely loved the match 3 gameplay in Gems of War. Gems of War, locked the board during cascading, and that was fine for that game.  On Animal Cove, we didn’t lock the board, and it made timed levels play a whole heck of a lot better. Fatal Gem is a timed level experience . . . you see what I’m throwing down here?

Next complaint, the controls are a little weird. Sometimes gems would just shift on their own if I was clicking the trigger button too much during a gem cascade. I had to slow down and wait for the gems to settle before trying to make a match, otherwise gems would just seem to shift on their own after the cascade.

There was really only one power up, an AOE explosion gem, and I have to say it was super disappointing that there wasn’t a horizontal line clear ability. It would have been so cool in a board that wraps all the way around you to have a line clear shift all the gems.

My final complaint is just polish notes. If I win the game, let me be dragged up into the UFO as a victory sequence. Don’t blow me up.  If I do blow up, just polish what that looks like so it doesn’t feel so unfinished.  That’s all.  Just put a little extra love into your craft and art.  It would be appreciated.

I won your game! Take me with you!

So, while Fatal Gem may not be the best VR Match 3 experience out there, I have to hand it to them for surrounding me in gems. It’s a fun use of Virtual space. Outside of that, man, polish the game a bit and you could have some potential.  As it is now, this feels like buying a six-pack of RC Cola and remembering why you didn’t like it. 

Happy Dueling!

Gem Jam, Pirate-themed Match 3 meets Tetris in VR

I’m continuing a play through of the most bizarre mashup out there, VR and Match 3, and I’m here to break it all down for you. It’s the play-by-play that no one asked for that I’m freely giving!

Next up is a game called “Gem Jam.” What does Gem Jam have going for it? I’ll tell ya! A skeleton NPC with bad voice over and some fantastic alliteration in its name! Let’s take a closer look at what we’ve got here:

It's a cursed pirate skeleton and his match 3 booty!

This game is technically match 3 because, sure enough, you match same colored gems, but in actuality this game is more of a combination of Tetris and Match 3 than perhaps a Match 3 purist might be looking for. There are five game modes, but it’s pretty much the same game with only slightly different rulesets.

What I mean by that is “Skeleton Square” is the base game, where a pattern of gems in a 3x3 pattern fall slowly down to the top of a treasure chest full of gold. As you match 3 or more gems, those gems are removed from the playing field. Over time, the game board gets smaller, so while your game field starts out as 9x9, eventually it can tighten down to a 6x6 and things get really hairy. Each level of the game you must lay down around 20 patterns of gems to progress to the next level. When you try to put down gems on top of existing gems, the treasure chest begins to close. When the treasure chest fully closes, it’s game over.

What treasure chest is complete without some gems on top of the gold?

Compare that to the “Big Booty” mode (LOL pirate humor) where all the base game rules apply, but there’s now a timer visible for when the game board shrinks, and making larger matches of gems buys you a bit more time before said game board shrinks . . . or to the “Pirate’s Zen” mode where it’s just free play with no shrinking game field or descending gems.

It’s . . . probably not worth $10.  That said, it’s pirate themed!  When something is pirate themed, it already gets a plus one in my book! Now, despite it not being worth the price tag, it is playable, and there is fun to be found here!  That said, I'm sorry, but I’ve got several complaints.

My number one complaint about this game is the game board that you make matches on is at a downward looking angle. In VR, where you have a headset on, already putting weight on your neck, looking down for an extended period of time can be super painful. If you’re going to put your game board in that position, you absolutely need to implement “The Demeo solution.” 

What I mean by that is, Demeo is currently the number one strategy board game experience in VR. It’s an absolutely amazing game. However, the game board is looking down. To counteract that, they implemented a way to tilt the entire game board upward so you can pull your head up and look straight forward with a downward view of the game. It’s a comfort feature that’s 100 percent necessary. It would help with making Gem Jam a better game experience.

Next complaint, the leaderboards are faked. Unfortunately in Gem Jam, my name doesn’t show up on the leaderboards, and my scores get reset. If the leaderboards were real and used my oculus handle, then I’d give this game a few extra bucks in my value rating.

Uh, I guess I'm 4th place on the fake leaderboards?

Next complaint, it’s really too bad about this voice over quality of the skeleton NPC . . . because it’s one of the most entertaining parts of this experience. He talks about how he’s cursed to live in this cave forever because of a sea witch's curse. He committed suicide from playing the game to a point of frustration and now he’s counting on you to beat the game so he can be free. I wish the creator (or whomever did the VO for him) would have invested in a quality mic and some nice sound mixing. Our skeleton doesn’t sound like he’s in a cave, and the spooky factor of the skeleton's voice is a zero.  Ahh well.

Fourth major complaint, why is the back of this cave environment so lame!

I really wish this game could have used the VR space better. It feels like the same gameplay could have happened in a different medium, like mobile? If you're going to make a VR Match-3 game, use the VR space as much as you can. Then again, Congrats to Captain Booty for capitalizing on a competitive market space where there isn’t much competition to be had.  You got my $10.

Happy Dueling!

Magical Journey, An Absolutely Charming VR Match 3 Game

Hello readers! I’m continuing my look at the strangest genre out there, VR Match 3 games! Hope you enjoyed learning about Gem Monster the other day as much as I enjoyed writing about it.

Today I’m going to take you on a magical journey through a VR Match 3 game known as Magical Journey!

Yup, we got it.  Swap gems, make matches, win stars

This game comes in as one of the more expensive entries at $15, which when you think about it, really isn't all that expensive . . . on the other hand, mobile gamers who are inundated with match 3 games for free might find that a bit spendy, I guess?

This one is also a very traditional match 3 game and requires almost zero movement in a 3D space to play. I suppose if you have trouble with motion sickness, this is the VR game for you!  The most you'll be doing for movement is turning around in a circle to view the environment around you.

Controls are also incredibly simple. Just grab a gem and move it up, down, left, or right to make a match of 3 runes or more. 

At first I was a little nervous that I had just overpaid for a really lame match 3 VR game, but after working past the initial tutorial levels, what I found was all the interesting mechanics one would want from a match 3 game: special pieces you match next to, special board mechanics that make the game slightly different, and varied objectives to keep the game interesting.

Nice! A board split in two with different objectives for each side!

I would be remiss to not give the music in this game a special mention. It has absolutely no business being as awesome as it is. After I'm done playing the 48 levels found in this game, I would want to come replay a few of them just to hear the music.  Please understand that the higher price point on this game is worth it for the music alone. In the words of Larry David, “It’s pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty great.”

To sum up this game, it would be to say that there are four main environments with 12 levels each:

• The Magical Night environment
• The Halloween environment
• The Christmas environment
• The Volcano environment

I suppose you could call the Halloween environment a "spooky" environment, but the jack o lanterns and wandering tree stump character make it feel more Halloween. In the same breath, you could also call the Christmas environment the "winter" environment, but that would do no justice to the final Christmas Tree levels and snowman inside the winter environment.

Speaking of the Christmas Tree levels . . . the final board of each environment features a special, unique "boss" type mechanic that's the star of the show. The Halloween level has a spider that jumps up off of the board and slams back down in various locations and you need to make matches next to it to defeat it. The Christmas Tree levels has an actual Christmas tree in the environment that you decorate by making matches with ornaments that a snowman throws on to the board. When you make a match, the ornament floats over to the tree to decorate it.  It's genius!

Decorate the tree with ornaments from the match 3 board! Fantastic!

I want a VR Match 3 game where the philosophy of those two boss levels is carried throughout the ENTIRE game, not just the penultimate and final levels.  Traditional match 3 is fine, but if you're in a VR space, USE the space like the Christmas Tree level.

Just a couple side notes:

1- Not necessarily game related, but what's up with the developer for this game? The name of the developer is, get this, "Techservice Center, LLC." Which I think is actually an IT recycling company? I don't know who I gave my $15 to, but it was well spent. I really wish I knew who it was that composed the music, because they did a great job with it.

2- Game related, I have no idea what 3-staring a level does for me . . . what I really hope is that there's an easter egg that unlocks more content if I 3-star all the levels, but I kind of doubt that is the case. Because of that, the 3-star mechanic makes no sense. There's no purpose to having this star rating system if it doesn't do anything.

All in all, if you like match 3 and VR, this is a great option . . . probably the best option out there, but I can't say that quite yet since I have several more VR Match 3 games to review!  

Happy Dueling!

Defeating the Gem Monster!

Hello readers of the Friendly Necromancer blog. I have embraced my truth this week, and that is the truth found in the-matching-of-the-gems. Ye’ old match 3, but with a fantastically weird new twist . . .

So after receiving a most kind letter of a very fine developer with a very fine match 3 dungeon game, I thought to myself, "Self, you know what, let’s do some more good in the world today. FOR NO ONE IS REVIEWING THE WEIRDEST OF GENRE MASH UPS! Match 3 and VR." 

You heard me, match 3 VR games! Can you believe such a genre exists?  Who-woulda-thunk-it?  Well let me tell you, kind reader, it’s a wide open field out there currently as far as competition goes.  Until Candy Crush decides to take over the metaverse, it’s left up to the little guys to make match 3 games in VR! Over the next few posts, I'm going to see how they’ve done so far. 

Up first is this little beast known as Gem Monster.

Coming in at $3 on the Oculus Rift store and Steam, Gem Monster is a panic-driven matching game that marries a health bar, power ups, mecha-monsters covered in undulating gems in a 3D space, and tearing said monsters apart in pairs of 2. Check it out!

So, to explain it fully. You, the hero, are standing on a giant gem/teleport pad floating in 3D space. This giant gem has a color.  Other giant and different colored gems are scattered around the 3D space. You can teleport between these giant gems freely. This is important for two reasons: 

1. You can escape the gem monster’s attacks by teleporting to another gem
2. If you match two gems on the monster that match the color of the gem you’re standing on, it powers up your selected skill. 

Of course, you can stand on any color of gem, and matching two gems of the same color will still work, it’s just more efficient if, when you match two gems, you’re standing on a gem of the same color.

Sound confusing? Well, try doing all that while a giant gem monster is shooting guided missiles and laser beams at you!  That’s right, this isn’t your grandma’s match 3, this is your crazy uncle’s match 3 . . . in VR!

 Matching is done through point and click with a targeting reticle at the point where you are looking directly at. Not much movement is required in this game aside from slight head movements and a lot of turning around in 360.  If you use a link cable to connect to your PC like I do, spinning around in a chair just doesn’t work well because your cord will continually wrap around your chair until you’re a tangled mess.  I prefer standing up while playing Gem Monster.

The game’s UI is a little glued to your field of view, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me much while playing.   

It's a 3-star win every time! By the way "restart" means, return to the game selection screen.

Gem Monster is an older VR game from all the way back in the days of 2016, but I’ll be darned if these “keg game” developers didn’t deliver a great, action packed match 3 VR mash up! I'd link you to a company page, but it looks like keggame dot com doesn't exist anymore. 

There’s 20+ levels with 3 grades of difficulty each. It’s a little more exhausting than your traditional Match 3, so I had to take the game in spurts of about 4-5 levels at a time before needing a break.

Beat levels to unlock more levels! You got this!

As far as cons of this game, I'm going to give you a few opinions:

1. This was a bit of nightmare fuel -- literally. I spent a couple hours last night matching gems in my head over and over. It was awful.
2. The UI for this game is so ugly. It really lacked polish.
3. This really isn't a traditional Match 3 . . . very creative, but not what I'd expect your average Match 3 player to enjoy
4. Slightly confusing controls for using power ups, but I honestly don't know how I'd suggest it be done differently.
5. It had a 3-star rating system for each level and you earned 3 stars no matter what . . . every time.  I don't get it.
6. You know what would make this game better?  Multiplayer. Now, actually finding another person in the world to play this with you would be next to impossible and mitigating server costs with a $3 price point would be insane. So, let's forget I mentioned multiplayer as a con.

So there you go. I’ll be doing more match 3 VR game reviews over the coming weeks. Why? Who else is going to review this stuff if not for the Friendly Necromancer?!

You got a crazy match 3 VR game? Send it my way! I’d love to give it a shot.

 Happy Dueling

Gems of War: Diamond in the Match-3 Rough

While on my quest for a dungeon-based Match 3 game, I found a little treasure of a game that's actually been around since 2014. Gems of War is BY FAR one of the best Match 3 fantasy games I've ever played. I'm totally in love with it right now.

Does it have dungeons? Yes, but they aren't at the core of the game.

"Delves" are dungeon runs for treasure where you move along a map to a boss room.

 Does it have Match-3. Yup, at it's core, it's a match-3 battler game.

Does it have Necromancers? Yes it has to that too! In fact, just this weekend I unlocked the Necromancer class.

The Necromancer is just one of 20+ classes you can level up. Each with their own perks.

Is it available on PC and mobile? YES! This is a huge selling point for me. It's on Steam and it's on mobile, and even better I can connect my account to play the game on both platforms. (It's also on other platforms like the Nintendo Switch, but you can't connect Mobile and PC to the Switch version if I remember correctly.)

So let's back up a step and talk about what Gems of War is . . .

Gems of War takes place in a world called Krystara where you engage in battle for various kingdoms scattered throughout the map.

Krystara is huge, the shown image is only about 1/4 of the entire map

Those kingdoms eventually give you tribute daily based on your interactions with them.  You choose one of these kingdoms as your home base and gain extra benefits for doing so.

After you've conquered the main world, don't forget to plunge into the depths of the underworld, where dungeon delves and more questing await you.

Yes! Bring on the dungeons!

The real name of the game in Gems of War, however, is collecting troops, ascending those troops, leveling up, gearing up, and participating in weekly Guild Events. After spending about 3-4 months playing, let's see how I'm doing with that:

• Troops: I've collected 466 of the 685 troops available in game. I have a nice team of Undead creatures that I run with, all ascended to "mythic" levels.
• Level and gear: I'm currently level 208 (it appears to go on infinitely as I see level 1000+ people talking in the global chat).  I've also collected a huge array of weapons and pets to choose from, which give you bonuses and benefits in battle as well.
• Guild: My guild is a casual guild called Den of Wolves that does ok for our size. I think our highest level player is in the 700 range and I consistently place in the top 5 for our guild during guild events, like taking on other guilds or downing giant raid bosses.

So I'd say I'm . . . the fast one of the slow bunch, which is where I like to be anyway. ;)

My team is on the left . . . and we're about to completely destroy the team on the right. sorry. gg.

As for PvP in Gems of War, I actually like it a lot! In Gems of War PvP you pit 4 troops of your choosing (1 of which is most likely your player character, but it doesn't have to be) against another player's 4 troops. The computer controls the other player's 4 troops, so really you're just seeing how you fare against your competitor's team composition, which is pretty standard fare in the mobile space. Each week you can work your way up through 15 tiers of PvP ranks earning rewards along the way for doing so, but it's totally optional.

It's just such a huge and beautifully put together game. THIS is what a mobile game can become if it's successful across multiple years. It feels more like an MMO than a mobile game, and I love that about it.

I'm just happy to have stumbled upon it while on my quest to find THE ONE TRUE DUNGEON BASED MATCH 3 GAME TO RULE THEM ALL!  This is close and probably the game Puzzle Quest 2, which I haven't tried yet but is made by the same company, is really the game I'm looking for, but . . . now that I think about it . . . perhaps what I've been looking for all along isn't that game, but this one.

Gems of War has it all.

Ok, there are a few downsides . . . being that it's from 2014 some of the graphics seem a bit dated, but from what I can tell, they've already been working hard to update the look over the past 5 years. If you don't like Match 3's, this won't be your cup of tea. If you don't like grinding levels and building power slowly like you do in an MMO, you won't like this. I mean . . . It is what it is. I can't help that.

But did I mention that Gems of War has it all?

Happy Dueling!

My Hunt for Match-3 Dungeon Games Part 3 -- The deeper dive

Ok, all the standard searches have been expended, and now I'm going DEEP into the bowels of the Google Play store (and beyond) to see what I can dig up that's a match-3 and also in some way related to a dungeon. It's been a fun journey that's unveiled a lot of "match-3" and not a lot of "dungeon," but in my never-ending quest . . . I have MORE to share. MORE! MUHAHAHAHA!
~~

War of Heroes
Not to be confused with the now defunct MMO Marvel War of Heroes . . . this is War of Heroes the "Match 3 Puzzle RPG - War of Hero - Dungeon Battle" with 5,000 downloads. Yup, it was the "Dungeon Battle" part of the title that click-baited me into downloading this game. Unfortunately I've yet to run into anything resembling a Dungeon Battle . . . I think it may happen around level 30 or so? Getting there looks to be hard to do for the common Tom like me.

So the basic gist of the game is that you make matches to strike out at your enemy, and you're not really going to damage your opponent much unless you make 4-in-a-row or 5-in-a row matches or a cascade of "combo" matches. Speaking of enemies, you face the exact same enemy model for 10 encounters in a row until you reach that 11th encounter when you get to fight this blue-looking guy.

The difference here is that the combat is turned based between the "boss's turn" as it says and "your's turn" -- quote unquote. This game really needs the loving touch of a copy editor.

The only thing that makes me want to keep going is the leaderboard . . . I really want to rise above rank 0 and get in that Top 50! Why? Just imagine the clout I could throw around by saying, "I'm a Top 50 Player in the game Match 3 Puzzle RPG - War of Hero - Dungeon Battle." Good news is that I'm Level 8 and the lowest level 50 player is Level 9. I GOT THIS!

Unfortunately . . . the dungeon battle part of the game seems to be non-existent and there are strange grammar errors all over this thing.  It feels like it just exists to spit out Legendary Game of Heroes ads. In fact, if you watch 20 ads in a row, you can unlock Hercules as a playable hero. Too bad I can't actually take him into a dungeon, which is what I really want to do.

Dragon Strike Puzzle RPG
Honestly I don't know how this particular game got on my radar as a potential Dungeon Match-3 game. It's not, it's an Empires and Puzzles clone game with a more cartoony art style, which is great . . . don't get me wrong.

I haven't yet talked about Empires and Puzzles, and that's because it's not really a Dungeon Match-3.  An RPG-based Match-3 with guilds, evolvers, and a builder aspect, yes, a "Dungeon Match-3," no.

And that's why I'm going to stop the discussion of this game here and . . . uninstall. Doesn't mean it's a bad game (probably just the opposite), just not what I'm looking for.

Match 3 Dungeon
HOLY WOW . . . a game named exactly what I'm looking for?!  I sense a great lack of naming imagination and with an astounding 5+ installs . . . you read that right . . . this game has only been installed five plus times . . . could this be some strange diamond in the rough??

Well, I played it!  And, I'm now Number one on the leaderboards for this game. WOOT!

Basically, the board is made up of five colors and you make simple matches. Because the board is simple, you can get some pretty insane chain reactions. Unfortunately there is no real depth here.  It's basically the Flappy Bird of match-3 dungeon games. How long can you survive the onslaught of monotonous match 3?! Your fingers and eyes are so busy clicking around that you don't even notice the high-fantasy 2D art striking out in fury at you, but LOOK . . . YOU'RE IN A DUNGEON!

Eventually you just get to a point where you can't take it anymore, or reach a level where they start to do more damage to you than you can keep up with healing and BAM . . . game over, level up, try again?  That's basically all there is to this game.

Can you beat my high score?  Lemme know!

Dungeon Adventure Demo
It's another deep dig!  I downloaded the "demo" version in the app store for free, but you can also buy the full version on Steam for this game. This is another game with really small install counts . . . we're talking like 10+ on the app store it looks like.

Up front the concept doesn't seem horrible. Basically it's like Hearthstone meets Match 3, but without all the complexity and depth of Hearthstone. This game ends up being a lot like the game I reviewed above (Match 3 Dungeon) only . . . not as good, and there definitely aren't really any "dungeon" aspects other than the look of the game.

To sum up how combat works, you have control of a knight and a wolf. You make matches to power up their attacks.  Both the knight and the wolf have two attacks each. When you power up an attack, you drag that power in the direction of the enemy you want it to strike. It took a bit to discover how to do this since there really isn't a tutorial on playing.

After winning you're granted loot from the monsters you defeated.  The three types of loot I found were gems (no idea what these are used for), healing potions (use those out of combat to heal your knight and wolf), and a mortar and pestle (seems to be some kind of crafting component?).

I had the game lock up on me once and eventually lost my wolf and reached an unbeatable point in the game. In the options you could trash your data and start again, so I did that and started up again.

I don't know if I could recommend buying the game off of steam since the demo lacked so much, but there's something here that if developed correctly might have some legs?  Best of luck to the developer! Hope to see this improve in the future.

Dungeon Cleaning Crew: The Puzzle Game
We now leave our comfortable home of the Google Play Store and Steam and travel to the lands of the iOS app store.

Here's a free game for all ages that really isn't much of a match 3. It's more of just a "match" game. Basically you click on a matching item, around the edges of the pile of items, to that shown on the top right corner of the screen. The object is to clear at least half of the items from the pile.

As you progress, the board gains more items that you can "find," in the "dungeon," like a backpack or a helm.

So while dungeon themed, this is basically a puzzle game that isn't really what I'm looking for, but it's headed in the right direction. I like the idea of a cleaning crew going through a dungeon! I just wish there was more to it.

~~

I'm not sure if I'll find more dungeon match-3 games out there, but for now I'm thinking the dungeon-based match-3 game I'm hunting for has yet to be developed! Again, if you hear wind of any games that haven't been mentioned yet, let me know, and I'll give it a shot.

Happy Dueling!