With apologies to Jonathan Swift.
Desktop Dungeons is a (currently) freeware "adventure" game that essentially combines the brutality of nethack with the casual fun of minesweeper. Give it a shot. There's a lot of math involved, so you've been warned.
To win one must simply kill the level 10 monster on the map. The map is always a 25x25 grid randomly generated and populated with various monsters. The easiest monsters to kill are the character's level or below. However, the lower the monster level the fewer experience points the kill is worth. Killing high-level monsters will advance a character quicker, allowing them to keep more low-level critters around for power-leveling later.
Here's the math: the grid is largely hidden at the start of any game, and the character only regenerates health and mana (magic points, whatever. . .) when exploring. So the player must balance exploration to find low-enough level monsters to level up, while only revealing as much is necessary to win. Sometimes a game is lost because there isn't anywhere left to explore, ending regeneration before the player is ready to solo the "boss".
It's easier the first time. The game keeps the math in the player's favor until they win a game. Then things get more difficult.
The game has at first four basic character classes, the iconic fighter, thief, priest, and wizard. Winning the game with any of the classes will unlock a "tier 2" class related to the primary class. For instance, winning the game with a fighter unlocks the berserker. Similarly, winning with the berserker unlocks the warlord, a "tier 3" related class. There are also several extra classes to unlock through advanced play.
There are five races available at the start of the game, with two more available for unlock. The various races can consume spell runes (or glyphs as the game calls them) for bonuses. Humans consume runes for attack power, dwarves for health, elves for mana points, halflings for health potions, and gnomes for mana potions. The hidden races for player are the goblin, who eats spells for cashmonies, and the orc, who eats spells for experience points.
The races are pretty well balanced, but the various classes play better with certain races, and sometimes in certain challenge dungeons.
I really just want to talk about the 18 available classes today.
Fighter: The basic warrior class. The fighter's special benefits include an extra experience point per kill, a monster-sense which shows all monsters of the character's level and lower, and protection from the first killing blow. So the fighter gets the most mileage out of the lower-level monsters because of his extra experience, and his protection from killing blow gives him essentially one free attack on a monster who would kill him. I often use it on the final boss, saving it for the last. I like playing as the fighter, but it can be a little frustrating at times. Sometimes I try to ignore my monster sense and kill higher-level monsters, but I often find myself exploring toward weaker prey. The great thing about the fighter is that there's no reason not to use magic, it's just that he doesn't use it especially well. He can still toss fireballs around providing he can find the fireball spell in the dungeon early enough (more on that later). For all the good stuff here, the fighter is still ultimately boring to play.
Best races: Orcs combo with bonus experience, but I prefer dwarves and halflings for either bonus health or bonus health potions, which always seem to come in handy.
Overall rating: 2.5
Thief: The thief is awesome. His benefits include a 30% bonus to his first time attacking any given beastie, bonus gold and shops in the dungeon, and the mother of all benefits: when the thief uses a mana or health potion, he gets some regeneration to both health and mana. So his potions do double-duty. This is absolutely huge. To maximize the bonus, make sure to use spells and physical attacks both before drinking them potions, so that the double-regen effects help. In a world with limited regeneration, the thief rocks the house.
Best races: Gnomes and halflings both get extra potions, which are dope in this scenario. Goblins thieves have some serious cashmonies to play with.
Overall rating: 4.0
Priest: The priest kind of rocks the house. He gets some sweet benefits in the form of a 100% heal rate from health potions (most classes get 40% back from either potion), double damage to undead, and a bonus 2 health per level. The priest is a healthy, jolly fat monster. His bonus undead damage can really help when leveling: seek out the zombies and such, and crush them when two levels below them for an experience boost. Save the health potions for full regeneration during the final confrontation, and whoop ass.
Best races: Halflings and their bonus health potions are just goddamn huge here.
Overall rating: 3.5
Wizard: The wizard, as usual, gets kicked in the balls. Repeatedly. Spells are generated in random locations of the dungeon, and the player (with some exceptions) starts with no spells. The wizard can sense the presence of spell runes, so he knows where all of them are, though they are represented by ? symbols and therefore he has to guess at which one is which. This wouldn't be a huge deal, but the wizard, more than any other class, needs him some fireballs. He can carry an extra spell (most classes have 3 spell slots for runes, the wizard has 4), he has rune-sense, and his spells all cost a mana less than other classes' spells do. The problem? The wizard's basic attack is nerfed 25%, meaning he has trouble killing monsters of his own damn level sometimes without magical assistance. Not cool.
Best races: Elf for mana, gnome for mana potions.
Overall rating: 1.0
Berserker: The tier two fighter character. This guy is a blast to play. He's a brute who just wants to smash. He does bonus damage to higher-level monsters, has 50% magic resistance (warlock-type monsters and whatnot have a "magical attack"), has a 30% damage bonus to begin with, and has a hard time reading spell runes (+2 mana cost to any spell cast). There's something awesome about blasting through the dungeon with the berserker after carefully managing both mana and health to win the game as a fighter or thief. Sure, he can still cast some spells, but not many, and he's great at just laying into the bad guys with his hammer. Nice 'n' simple.
Best races: Human for even more damage (smash!), halfling for more health potions.
Overall rating: 3.5
Rogue: The rogue is an interesting dude. He has first strike all the time, which means he gets a slap in before the bad guys know what's what. He has a 20% chance to dodge, which is alright. But here's the kicker: he's got a 50% damage bonus and half health. So managing your fights as the rogue is that much more difficult. The level 10 boss monster can almost always kill the rogue in a single strike (the average level 10 critter damage is 75), so some kind of backup plan needs to be in place to survive. Although, truth be told, I've won with the rogue by dodging the killing blow on that 1/5 chance, and there's something great about that.
Best races:Dwarf for health bonus, human for even more damage (smash again!).
Overall rating: 2.5
Monk: The monk is another crazy character type. He starts with a bigger fisticuffs nerf than the wizard, only inflicting 50% damage, but he's also got 50% resistance to both magic and physical attacks to compensate. He also regenerates health much more rapidly than other characters. The monk is a lot of fun to play. He's a challenge, forcing me to rethink the math that I've got worked out already. However, I find the challenge often rewarding, though I often play human monks, possibly the best of all.
Best races: Human to negate the damage penalties, elf to go for a more magical route.
Overall rating: 3.5
Sorcerer: The sorcerer is a weirdo. He needs to use both physical and magical attacks to the fullest to use all of his benefits: He has an additional 5 mana (a bonus 50% on normal starting mana), he regains 2 health every time he spends a mana, and every time he physically attacks a critter, the critter takes a magic damage per level of the sorcerer. That's a lot of goos stuff, but as I said, it requires a balanced approach to the game. Going with a purely magical or brute-force style of game (several of the gods in the game support these approaches) is difficult with the sorcerer. Still, he's a lot of fun to play, though he's a bit lame if he can't find a useful magic rune early. A lot of his benes don't truly activate until he finds BURNDEYRAZ (fireball) or BYCEPS (the attack bonus spell).
Best races: Any do pretty well, but Humans combine well with the magic attack bonus, and elves give the sorcerer a huge mana boost on his already huge mana boost.
Overall rating: 3.0
Warlord: The third-tier classes all begin the game sitting on a special spell-rune. Each of them interact on the main with their rune to change gameplay. After winning the game with any of these classes, the spell-rune becomes available for random generation in any game. The warlord's special rune is CYDSTEPP, which is incredibly expensive to cast, but grants the character death protection (protection from the next killing strike). Using this rune, the warlord is able to fight and kill many monsters above his level. He's a powerful class. His other benefits interact with this bonus: +30% damage when his health is below half and +30% damage (stacking w/ previous) after drinking a mana potion. When death-protection kicks in, the character is left with 1 health, so the warlord, while CYDSTEPP is in place, usually has at least the first damage bonus, and since it can be pre-cast, the character gets the equivalent of two extra attacks on critters which would otherwise kill the warlord. He's super strong, really.
Best races: Any, though the human is great for the damage bonus, and the gnome is good for more mana potions.
Overall rating: 4.0
Assassin: The third-tier thief is a poisoner. The assassin starts with the APHEELSIK spell-rune, which when cast prevents the affected monster from regenerating until the character attacks any monster. So the assassin can stab a critter, then poison it when death is immanent, then go explore to regenerate, then go finish the job. On top of that, if the assassin has explored all around a creature he gets first strike against it, and he instantly kills all creatures below his level in one strike. He's awesome. He sucks against undead, however, because they're immune to poison. So watch out for zombies.
Best races: Orc for the experience bonus (higher level assassins kill things easier), human for the damage bonus.
Overall rating: 3.5
Paladin: The third-tier classes all sort of break the game in a way. I find the paladin to be an extremely strong class. He starts with HALPMEH, the healing spell-rune. This will cure a portion of his health and cure poison for a paltry sum of mana, allowing the paladin to take on higher-level monsters with relative ease. But he gets more! He's got 25% physical resistance so he takes three-quarters damage from most beasties (awesome) and he gets a health boost from killing undead (cornercase). Starting with the spell is everything, though. He can even beat the standard regeneration math of many standard critters 2 levels higher than he is, because he's getting hit for less, and he regenerates mana (which = health for him) at the same time as health, so he's double-dipping. Strong.
Best races: For even stronger regen-breakage, the humans for damage bonuses or elves for extra mana (and therefore extra healing) are where it's at. Elf paladins?
Overall rating: 4.0
Bloodmage: The bloodmage, or Santa as I like to call him because his little sprite/icon looks like St. Nick, is the least awesome of the third-tier classes. He's still pretty cool. He begins with a glyph that converts health regeneration to mana regeneration, called BLUDTUPOWA. That's pretty strong if he can find BURNDAYRAZ early. If not it can be a waste. He also gets 100% mana regen from mana potions, but they also harm him to the tune of 6 health per level, which is a lot. So he can't even drink a mana potion if he's too badly hurt. That's a pain. However, to mitigate this somewhat, he regains some health from the blood pools left behind by slain monsters, so a tricksy blood mage player will explore as much as possible without stepping on dead critter squares to maximize late game regen-without-exploration. That way the player is regaining health but his prey is not (monsters only regen during player exploration). So he's an interesting class to play, but he can also be really frustrating.
Best races: If he can find a useful spell early, elf and gnome bloodmages are pretty awesome. Humans are a good choice as well, because bonus physical attack never seems to be bad to me.
Overall rating: 2.5
Transmuter: There are three "weird" classes and three "racial" classes in addition to the tiered classes. The three "racial" classes can't be chosen with a race, they are a class and a race at once. The transmuter is the first of the "weird" classes, which means the player still gets to choose a race. The transmuter is whack as hell, however.
All of the "weird" and "racial" classes once again turn the math of the game on the ear. The transmuter, I find, is actually incredibly strong. He begins the game with a spell rune called ENDISWALL, which allows him to destroy a section of wall. Normally this is an expensive spell in mana to cast, but the transmuter gets it for a single mana point. Further, he regenerates 2 health per level whenever he eats a section of wall. However, the price he pays is that he doesn't regenerate health during exploration as normal.
In theory this is difficult. In practice it's actually awesome. Since the transmuter doesn't regenrate health during exploration, he can instead explore enough map to expose a higher-level beastie who can't kill him in one hit, then crush it while carefully casting his spell to regenerate health while never actually exploring (so never allowing the beast to regenerate). Careful play yields serious results here, and I've found the transmuter to be an absolute badass. The downside is that it's actually really onerus to play this way.
Best races: Humans for that kung fu bonus. Gnomes or elves for mana potion or mana bonuses.
Overall rating: 3.0
Crusader: The crusader is truly whack. He gets a cumulative 10% damage bonus each time he kills a monster, so if he can chain killing strikes he gets more and more deadly. Any time he strikes without killing the bonus resets to zero. He also is immune to poison and mana burn (both conditions that prevent regeneration of whichever), which is huge. And last but not least, if he is killed, he does a triple-damage death blow to whatever kills him, so he is the only class that can win while dying.
That's alright.
I find the crusader boring to play. He's pretty strong overall, and moreso if he can get himself some death protection via CYDSTEPP or whatnot, and if he can get a nice level up and keep a bunch of low-level beasties around to kill-chain into a monster smash on the final boss he's awesome. But that doesn't always pan outt. Still good.
Best races: Humans are great all around for the attack bonus. Orcs can get a crusader a level up early on for kill-chaining later.
Overall rating: 3.0
Tinker: The tinker is all about items. Tinkers get gold for killing foes, they get a discount at shops, and they get bonus shops in the dungeon. Given that items can make or break a game (the fine sword item is shit hot) sometimes, this is a big plus. But then, it's random. sometimes there just won't be an awesome item at hand when the tinker needs it, and that can be a pain. The class is a bit of a toss-up, but ultimately fun to play.
Best races: Goblins for yet more gold, any other grants some decent bonuses on an otherwise "blank" class.
Overall rating: 2.5
Gorgon: The first "racial" class, the Gorgon is a petrification machine. She starts with the ENDISWAL spell-rune, and she needs it, because her kill strikes replace monsters with stone blocks of impenetrable wall. She does half damage at start, she has 50% physical resist (see the monk), she has a poison attack, she's immune to death gaze (which other Gorgons have), she regens mana on monster kill, and she has a 10% chance to instantly kill any foe at start. This can be increased by converting/eating spell runes. That's a lot of nonsense.
The gorgon is difficult to play. The ENDISWAL spell-rune costs a whopping 8 mana of the character's starting 10, so casting it in quick succession without regeneration requires potion use. The player must balance regeneration of mana with the gorgon's slaying of enemies and the subsequent wall-destruction that must often occur. For this reason, if I'm not careful, I sometimes find myself trapped without a way to regenerate mana in a stone corridor. That sucks. The whole half damage thing is also a pain in the ass, and since the gorgon only has 50% physical resist and not both physical and magical resist like the monk, magical creatures like dragons really hurt the gorgon. If the final boss is the dragon or warlock (or worse, both, as in the library challenge dungeon), the gorgon has a tough climb ahead of her.
Overall rating: 1.5
Half-Dragon: The half dragon is a strange class, but it can be a lot of fun. It's got double health, has a magical attack that gets through physical resistance (watch out for magical resistance, though), has increased scouting capacity, can't cast fireball at all, and starts with +20 knockback damage. The last is cool: when the half-dragon hits an enemy, the enemy is blasted back a square directly behind the assault (including diagonally). If the enemy hits a wall or another enemy, it takes the knockback damage. If it hits a wall, the wall is destroyed while the enemy gets blasted back. If it hits an enemy, both foes take the knockback damage. The half-dragon can eat spells for bonus knockback damage (20% per).
This can be a bitch to get right at first. If the dragon blasts an enemy into unexplored territory without killing it, the creature will regenerate (as will the dragon) as the dragon approaches to finish it, lengthening the process. The player has to carefully circumscribe the foe to make sure the baddie isn't just going to get healthy again before the next blow falls. Better yet, the player should blast beasties into their friends. It takes some practice, but when it all works it's a lot of good times.
Overall rating: 3.0
Vampire: Ah, the finale. The vampire completely revamps the game. He's got 30 health at the start, begins with 3 health potions instead of one, gets extra damage per level, and LOSES health while exploring instead of regenerating. He's got first strike, poison immunity, he can sense monsters/juice bags, he has ZERO mana and can cast spells with his health, and he regenerates health from blood pools left by kills. he starts with a 25% life steal, and can get more by eating spells at 5% per glyph eaten.
That's nuts. The vampire is great because while completely changing the game, he also makes it quicker. The player generally knows whether a game is winnable with the vampire in the first few minutes. Either the vampire has found enough easy prey nearby to cull, or he's going to die from exhaustion too early. Of special note is the vampire who find the BURNDAYRAZ spell early on: since he casts spells with health instead of mana, and his health is immense, the vampire actually makes the best spellcaster in the game. He can cast five fireballs at level 1 and full health, which is 3 more than a level 1 wizard who starts close to the fireball glpyh. At high levels the vampire can cast absurd amounts of fire, and since he loses little physical brawn while doing so this is a lot of fun to do.
The downside is that he feels like an all-or-nothing coin toss at the beginning of a game. Never tell me the odds.
Overall rating: 4.0
No comments:
Post a Comment