The Living Dungeon
Play a tactical dungeon tournament board game adventure, and not have to clean it up afterwards. There really is nothing quite like The Living Dungeon.
Up to 9 players can take part in a battle of wits, luck, and skulduggery. Survive other adventurers, monsters, and the dungeon itself through combat, agility or dungeon manipulation. Only the strongest, fastest and smartest survive.
Each player has only 5 actions per turn. They then have only 2 fretful minutes to decide what to do with those 5 actions. Panic will set in. The possibilities and threats will become overwhelming. Your mind will freeze up! Your time is running out for you to complete your objective, but one wrong move could be fatal! There are just so many ways to die in The Living Dungeon.
Features
- Lots to Do: a thirty hour story mode, 4 multiplayer modes including Assassination, Head Hunter, Random Assassination, and Escape mode. All of that and you only need one controller.
- Unique Gameplay: Mix Tactics, luck and wit to outplan and out manoeuvre your enemies. Kill them, or help them kill themselves.
- Replay Value: The board layouts are generated randomly, so with A.I. biases and dice involved, no two games will ever be the same.
- Drop In/Out Multiplayer: Oh no! Phone call in the middle of an epic game with 8 players! It’s ok. You can switch your character onto A.I. mode temporarily. You don’t have to stop the game.
- Double Style: Play the game in a nasty evil dungeon, or a friendlier board game in a tavern. Two visual stylings to suit your mood.
- Control The Dungeon: Your little sister came in and wants to join in right in the middle of an epic match. Why not let her take over the dungeon. That way you can bribe her to ensure your victory.
- That’s Enough: You don’t need any more bullet points because this is a totally different experience and great fun. It’s also quite pretty.
Steam User 16
This is actually a really well done board game. note i said board game.
if your not into board games you may want to pass on this as it may seem slow because each character and the dungeon go through turns.
STORY MODE most missions are more like a puzzle rather than actually playing against the dungeon but its more for teaching you how to play so i'll forgive this but there is no real replay value here once you complete it.
LOCAL CO-OP is what you'll want to play. if your not doing online. this lets X people all play on the same pc and don't worry there is nothing that needed to be hidden so no need to hide the monitor during turns.
EXIT mode if your doing single player. here you can have up to 9 human or AI. players, note the dungeon is one of these and you can have a human or ai controlling it also the other 8 players (1 character each) can all be on the same team if they wish.
GAME BASICS you start your turn rolling your dice and depending on what comes up is what you can do that turn. there are various dice that do different things based on what you pick at the start and based on your character. some of the things on the dice are sword (do 1 damage to an adjacent character), bow (do 1 damage to a line of sight character), foot (move 1 space), jump (move upto 2 spaces), dodge (switch places with a character in an adjacent space), circle (adds a reroll), card (gives you a new card) and ones that let you flip or rotate a dungeon tile. the dungeon also has its own dice that i wont get into.
most characters have 1 or 2 hp with only the darkness needing 3 hits+a reroll token to kill it but your rarely ever forced to kill one. your gives X rerolls per turn (you can set this) and there are cards that effect game play. there are also many setting for victory like get to X space, kill Y character, ect. to win any you need to be aware of your surroundings and dungeon layout.
the only complaints i can see are that its slow paced (being more board game like this is tolerable), the camera resting all the time, the spaces between the tavern boards (this is just my ocd and i'm not sure if they are this way doto the flip/rotate mechanic but it just bothers me they are not closer to each other), and game play it rather simple (characters having only 1-2hp, with no weapon, or ability upgrades though missions are over fast and there isn't much carry over from game to game).
i do like it but on that note i do admit its not for everyone and best if you can get friends to play with. watch videos and decide if its for you. this would actually be a great game if you play board games in real life and did this game instead of a real life board game as they could all gather round the pc.
p.s.let me say letting you put your character on AI as you walk away is a revaluation idea and more games of this like should use it.
Steam User 39
The Living Dungeon
The Living Dungeon is a very unique dice and dungeon game. You can play it like Dungeons and Dragons and play in a tavern on a table near a crackling fire place while you play against your oponents. But you may also immerse yourself into the game and have it come to life around you as you and your allys navigate the horror filled dungeon to escape with your lives. This game is filled with excitement and unexpected surprises at every turn. There is a single player story mode with atleast 30+ hours of gameplay, and multiplayer with up to 9 players.
Single Player
This game has a long story mode with up to 30 hours of mind baffling gameplay, there are lots of levels of gameplay to keep you busy for quite a while. The single player is very unique and unlike any kind of dice game I have ever played, there are hundreds of ways to solve each and every level, and as you progress through the game each level will become more challenging and longer to complete. There are multiple characters you can control and different abilities to guide you through the dungeon. Fight your way to the exit through different enemy heroes and skeletons and more. You can choose your preffered playing style from a tavern board game to an always changing, living dungeon. This game is sure to make you think outside the box to solve complicated problems with just a set of dice.
Multiplayer
I have not personally played the multiplayer section of this game because there is no online multiplayer at the time and only locally. You can play with up to 9 different friends and either play on 9 different computers or take turns on one. You have the choice of playing as a hero or the undead, dungeon creatures. Drop in or out at anytime during the game without having to restart the whole level. Even take breaks with a new A.I mode and let the A.I control your character briefly while you are afk. I can't wait to try out this heart wrenching multiplayer and go face to face in this dungeon dwelving chaos.
Pros
30+ Hours of single player.
Multiplayer with up to 9 players.
Constantly changing dungeon.
Lots of heroes.
Great animations.
Active and kind developers.
Intresting plot line.
Cool background animations.
Cons
Bugs
No Co-op (yet)
Note that my copy of this game was obtained for free for reviewing purposes. However, this did not affect the quality and objectivity of this review.If you liked this review or want to see more recommended games, be sure to follow our curator group: LL's Game Giveaways and Reviews
Steam User 12
This is the perfect Sunday afternoon game.
What at first seems a simple set of abilities, quickly proves to provide a wealth of tactical plays. Through well-designed situational tutorials, you quickly realise that there is a ton of very crafty and clever moves available to you each turn. There's a lot here for a strategist to take advantage of.
It's like a digital board game where everything is done for you. Some of the features could do with a little further refinement; it's very clearly an indie game. But that makes it more worth it in my opinion. You know you're supporting a small independant studio, and you'll have a lot of fun in the process.
Steam User 5
I recommend this game with reservations.
It has some very cool things going for it. First off, if you are a fan of board games (like me) then this definitely scratches that particular itch, most of the time. There are a handful of levels in the story mode that are distinctively puzzles - that is to say, you don't really roll the dice or draw cards but rather attempt to play the dice and cards that you are are prescribed in the correct (and only correct) order to succeed the only way possible. These levels, for me, are the weakest part of the game. Yes, there is satisfaction from figuring out the solution - and you will have to figure it out, the game isn't big enough to be able to find any walkthroughs for - but the frustration begins to set in quickly when you realize that you want to play a tabletop board game, not a puzzle.
Also, the RNG is often unfair. Now, let me clarify that I LOVE randomness in games. My favorite board games are Ameritrash style (Camp Grizzly, Fortune and Glory, Marvel Legendary, I could go on and on) and my favorite pen and paper RPGs are ones with random character generation (Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, well, anything old-school Palladium) so I am not at all one of those people who screams with rage every time he sees a game with RNG elements. However this game does sometimes take it a little far. Example: I was once tasked with killing two enemies who start out in the same room as each other on the opposite side of the map from me. After ten or so failed attempts I just happened to start the game with a Sentinel card in my hand. I placed a Sentinel in their room. Bam, two dead enemies in one round and I never had to leave my starting square. There were other times that the RNG had a similar sort of play against me. And as much as I love randomness, it is simply not fair to win or lose before you (or your opponent) even get to make a turn.
Finally, the voice acting is tolerable, but the voice casting is atrocious. And if you don't know the difference, imagine if Bobcat Goldthwait had been cast as Groot. Sure, he could have said the lines, but it would have sounded ridiculous. I have the same problem here - Sajotir in particular just sounds silly.
Now, I have bashed the game on three seperate criteria, but recognize that both the first and third issues only affect Single Player Story Mode, and frankly, board games like this are never as fun unless you're playing with friends. Also, both are small issues. I can overlook some bad voicing especially since you only hear the voices during the between-mission cutscenes. I can overlook some puzzle missions since they are not the majority. And while some will never get over the RNG issues, they were not enough to kill my entertainment completely.
So, if you are a fan of board games and tactical games that require you to rethink strategies on the fly to deal with random elements, then this game is definitely worth picking up.
Steam User 8
The Living Dungeon is a really impressive debut title from indie developers Radiation Burn. It uses the core elements of table-top gaming by being turn based, reliant on the outcome of a set of 6-sided dice, and has scenery you can flip or rotate in order to escape a dungeon or kill an enemy.
Pros
Single player over 25 hours
Steam Trading cards
Local multiplayer with up to 9 friends
Unique gameplay
Cons
A bit rough on the edges
Steam User 7
It's a quite interesting puzzle game. You need to think and try many times to find the solutions of the problems. You should find a rotate in order to escape a dungeon or kill an enemy. Although the tutorial game mechanics are not friendly. I think it's still a nice game.
Steam User 6
I had to change my review. First I wanted to say THIS DEV TEAM IS AWESOME!!!!.. I had some slight technical issues with the game and I felt the pricing was to high. I got a message from one of the devs by the name of zenorf, he explained to me a bit more on how the camera worked in the game.
The game is no longer over priced. It use to be 19.99 now it's only 12.99, I think that's a great price for this game.
When I play the game in Tavern mode there is some blur on the lower part of the screen which makes it hard to view your pieces and the game dice, I was told by zenorf he would look into a toggle for it, so we can turn it off or on. The camera controls gave me some problems at first, but that was do to my lack of understand all the controls for it, zenorf explained to me that a simple middle mouse click on my character zooms in on them, allowing me to move around the board much better. Zooming in on your character also makes the blur far less of a hassle.
I highly recommend this game for anyone who loves board games, table top rpgs, working with friends or screwing them over for some laughs. It's a lot of fun playing online or offline with friends. If you're a solo player you can play that way too, so no matter how you like to play your tabletop the devs have a way for you to do it.
The game itself is simple to learn but it can be a real test of strategy too. It's easily one of my favorite games right now.
P.S. some Gamers are upset that the game didn't originally have online multiplayer, but that was never an issue with me. I knew the game was going to be local multiplayer cause it said so in the game description. I prefer local multiplayer to be honest.
The devs added online multiplayer, so if you like that, that might be a reason for you to buy it.
This game is worth a buy. I'm very happy with it.