Recent reviews by Jon

This game is an example of a perfect storm -- charming art that draws you in to the setting, gameplay that seems simple at first but the more you play and unlock episodes the more complex your decision-making needs to be, but lastly because of that catchy music you don't mind sitting for a few minutes mulling it over.

Dicey Dungeons surprised me for how much it offered (and with the recent Halloween free episodes, how much it still might) -- after playing past the first few runs of each character the game shows you new ways to mess with its really flexible system.

I really have to highlight the music though, which (whether an intentional decision or not) does something that really enhances a rogue-lite: the same track has relevance whether you as the player are doing well and storming a run, or on low health and in big trouble. It's difficult to describe but depending on which instruments I focused on I felt like it was always working with the game state? Either way along with the art, layout & writing the presentation of this game is all one tight-knit package that I've apparently spent over forty hours on? Wow.

I loved the look of this game after seeing it at E3, but it feels like it just tries to pass off unfairness as challenging/difficult design. Here's a few things I picked out that aren't to do with the main mechanic:
- The player's high movement speed mixed with very tight viewport scale and random/obscured enemy placement means unless you inch through the game too carefully, you're going to take a lot of cheap deaths. Why allow the player to move quickly if it can only end poorly? A few deaths were caused from moving from one room to the next and being dead before the camera had switched to where I was.
- If the game feels like you're cheesing the bosses, rather than giving them extra movement options to get even with the player, it will just teleport them somewhere else out of view, forcing you to reposition (if the whole theme of the game is the base enemies getting the bosses traits when you beat them, where does teleporting fit in other than to hide design holes?)
- If the map is the same each time, and on new lives you can spawn in at bosses you've already beaten, what was the reasoning for removing all the player's map progress each life?

Don't get me wrong, the movement is fun and the shooting/punch mechanic is very tight, but I refunded it as I was simply not having fun after several resets I felt weren't my fault, and could see more of them happening before I completed it.

They broke it for casual players. No more premade decks, no random deck choice in multiplayer, you need to head out of lobbies to change decks, no more scrolldown to zoom out of cards. New sounds are annoying and too much un-necessary animation slowing down the game.