Desktop Dungeons by QCF Design is designed to be a quick ten to fifteen minute game to play over a coffee break but trust me, you can easily get sucked into it for a lot longer than that...

Written by Aaron McArthur.

The stream-lined gameplay in Desktop Dungeons makes it a supremely easy game to pick up and play but a very tricky game to master. You take control of your avatar whom is dictated by the choices you make before you enter the dungeon, there are five races to pick from at the beginning: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling and Gnome. With each race having a bonus for selecting that race. You can unlock an extra two races but I will not ruin the surprise for you as to what they are.

Along with the five races there are four classes you can go at the start, being Fighter, Thief, Priest and Wizard with an abundance of other classes to unlock.

The graphical style of the game is simplistic at best, easily being the games’ biggest downfall, blocky and unappealing art isn’t what you want  to be looking at when you are smacking monsters up-side the head though, the puddle of blood that is left after you dispatch a monster is rather rewarding. The sound is also rather simplistic also being very brief before cutting out. The audio and graphical style  just goes to show that the developers spent more time working on the gameplay over how it looked or sounded.

Every time you enter a new dungeon it is randomly generated which means you will never have the same experience in the game twice, which I find refreshing as spending a lot of time starting a game and being met by the same thing time and time again is not my idea of fun.

There are two goals in Desktop Dungeons the first is an 'achievements' like task known as Conducts. Achievements such as killing the boss in normal combat, petrifying a ton of monsters, never taking a health potion and never dropping below 50% health, doing these things are vital to getting a high score. The other aim of Desktop Dungeons is to kill the level ten boss in normal combat, you can kill him without ever physically attacking him but to get the conduct bonus for it, you have to physically hit him.

There is an option to pray to Gods throughout the game, each God granting you a specific bonus from a plus to strength or a one time resistance to death, but praying at these alters is not a prerequisite to completing the game.

When you first bump into the boss, he will scream all this disturbing stuff at you which is a banter and a half to read. Even when the boss is Frank the Zombie you still get a laugh from him wanting to pry your skull open. It’ all about delivery.

All in all, Desktop Dungeons is an easy game to get lost in and spend a lot of time playing if you like this sort of game, the replay value is immense as it is an ever changing world you will inhabit. I highly recommend Desktop Dungeons, even if it is just over your next coffee break.

Get Desktop Dungeons here: http://www.qcfdesign.com/?cat=20