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Back in 2019, I wrote about how much potential Terry Cavanagh's then-fresh Dicey Dungeons had for mobile play. Fast forward a few years and it turns out I was 100% correct. Dicey Dungeons continues to be an incredible and charming dungeon-crawling roguelike that has aged well, works beautifully on touch screens, and feels novel once again thanks to new DLC baked into this mobile version.

Rolling through dungeons

Dicey Dungeons made enough of a splash when it released that it's possible you already know about this game and how it works. Just in case you don't, it's a spin on deck-based roguelikes where you build up your hero using specialized gear and abilities but have to plan around the very real element of chance that could ultimately lead to your death.

The twist to Dicey Dungeons is that it doesn't use cards but instead relies on traditional six-sided die to create its chance. Dice need to be plugged into pieces of gear you have equipped to use them, and by mixing and matching the right items you can turn yourself into a highly optimized killing machine. That might sound dark, but all of this death is packaged in a super bright and colorful world that just so happens to have a game show where contestants are turned into dice and forced to fight through dungeons filled with monsters.

The OG and then some

In its wake, Dicey Dungeons spawned some imitators, some of which have been available on the App Store for years now, but nothing has come close to topping the kind of depth, variety, and charm that this game has to offer. Even if you already played the heck out of Dicey Dungeons in 2019, the game is worth returning to now more than ever because of what has been added to the game since then.

On top of the base game, this version of Dicey Dungeons includes two special “Bonus Episodes” that include new items, enemies, and other modifiers. The first is a Halloween episode that re-themes the game with costumed enemies and fall foliage while also giving challenges like “defeat each enemy in one turn.” The second episode is a brand new one that released alongside this mobile version called “Reunion” that transforms how each of the original game's heroes work while adding hours of additional dungeon-crawling to do.

Nice dice port

Of course, you can enjoy all of this dice-based dungeon-crawling on your console or PC, but there's something about the simple turn-based gameplay of Dicey Dungeons that makes it feel particularly well suited to phones and tablets. The controls in this mobile version feel perfectly natural with simple tapping and dragging of dice to slot them into equipment. The game also checkpoints constantly and can juggle keeping track of single saves in each individual episode so you can pop in and out and switch up your progress on the game with extreme ease.

The only thing really missing from Dicey Dungeons on iOS is a cloud save functionality that preserves your saves if you remove the app or decide you want to play it on multiple devices. This isn't a huge deal as the game is built around starting from scratch over and over again, but it still would be nice to have.

The bottom line

Dicey Dungeons is a truly excellent roguelike that feels perfectly at home on mobile. Stop playing whatever derivative mobile equivalent you've been putting up with for however long and pick up this true classic.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/dicey-dungeons-review/

Have you ever wanted a chill city-builder that doubles as an exploration and optimization game? That's essentially the combination that comes together to make Paragon Pioneers work. It's a nice thing to have on your phone to chip away at building a huge empire, even though it has some issues with regard to concept and UI.

Island empire

Paragon Pioneers is a game about colonizing islands with settlers and eventually expanding and building up control over a landmass to create a self-sustaining and productive settlement. You may start with just a handful of pioneers and manually tapping on island trees to generate wood, but with some time you can have swaths of farmland, a military, quarries, ports with trading routes, and more, all of which can be set up to operate in an essentially automated way.

As you start to maximize the potential of an island settlement, you can send ships out to discover new landmasses to find new resources that let you continue advancing along through the 100+ buildings the game has to offer, but starting on those islands involves once again working your way up through conquering and taming the island to suit your needs.

Abstract exploitation

Before going any further, I'll say the colonization aspect of Paragon Pioneers is troublesome to say the least. The game is very clearly about taking land away from native inhabitants through force, as every island has a series of orc fortresses preoccupying most of the map as a way of gating progress in the game.

This isn't anything new when it comes to other management games like this, but it is worth noting that the city-building aspects of this game require players to engage in acts of exploitation, colonization, and military conquest. That said, one of the things that makes Paragon Pioneers tolerable in its design is its abstract nature. Everything you do in the game is neatly condensed into simple icons and menus that make your actions in the game feel more like figuring out and rearranging machinery as opposed to any sort of simulation.

Build it block by block

With its abstract look and mechanics, Paragon Pioneers is fairly easy to look at and manage even on the smallest of phone screens. The way the game divides land into a grid of squares with each building taking up one square allows for a lot of flexibility and complexity when it comes to how you lay out your empire. With everything being reduced to simple, cookie-cutter symbols, you also don't really run into issues that other mobile city-builders face when it comes to visual dissonance between optimal play and realism.

The trade-off of this simplicity though is that sometimes it can create confusion. Some of the UI and menu language and Paragon Pioneers can be a little too obtuse, leaving you having to guess how to solve certain problems or simply blow things up and rebuild them until they are working as intended. As a game built around experimentation and slow, steady progress, this all ends up feeling like a minor issue, especially since Paragon Pioneers's price tag comes with a guarantee that you'll never see ads or have to juggle premium currencies that can speed up or slow down your play.

The bottom line

There are definitely some not-so-appealing aspects of Paragon Pioneers, but that doesn't diminish what it manages to ultimately deliver all too much. There's a lot to explore and discover with this game, and the only thing standing in your way is your own ingenuity, reasonable amounts of time, and (unfortunately) some orcs.

Source link:https://www.148apps.com/reviews/paragon-pioneers-review/