Despot’s Game: Dystopian Army Builder is a roguelite dungeon crawler/Real-Time Strategy game developed by Konfa Games and published by tinyBuild. The game revolves around a psychotic artificial intelligence funneling puny humans into a twisting, ever-changing labyrinth full of monsters, robots, zombies, and many other manner of creatures. Along the way, these humans will come across weaponry, experience genetic mutations that alter their abilities, as well as encounter many varied and downright wacky characters along the way. And if they don’t make it? There will be another group of puny humans to follow in their footsteps. But do all of these features qualify as enough substance to make a purchase worth it?
PROS:
First and foremost, the game is fun – this is probably the most important thing to get right about roguelites. A roguelite can have a wide range of variety and new experiences to offer when it comes to its randomly generated content, but if the gameplay itself isn’t fun at its core, then what’s the point? However, Despot’s Game doesn’t have that issue. The gameplay revolves around balancing resources and taking chances, which help to create an atmosphere of uncertainty. You can be in a fantastic situation in one moment, and then have it crash down around you the next. There isn’t any solid footing, and that’s a good thing, as it keeps you on your toes at all times.
Throughout the gameplay, you are responsible for buying puny humans to add to your party, which need to be fed using food found in the dungeons. You are also responsible for buying weapons and equipment, such as a sword, a shield, a spear, a chainsaw, boxing gloves, laser guns, medkits, machine guns, crossbows, a plague doctor’s mask, magic rings, a yellow superhero suit from a popular, bald-headed Shonen hero – the list goes on and seems to be infinite as you progress. The player also needs to manage mutations – gameplay alterations that the player either buys from a pre-selected store or finds after clearing specific rooms.
As for the fighting itself, it is all handled by the game itself. All the player needs to do is organize how the humans are aligned before battle, and they will take care of the enemies themselves. This adds a level of tension not known much in video games, with there being a possibility of defeat and resetting at every room.
And the game isn’t just fun on its own, but also contains a metric ton of late-game and post-game content. Done with the main game mode? Try some of the other modes, such as King Of The Hill, where you battle against other players’ teams, or try out some of the Challenges, utilizing specific team loadouts preset by the game. The list goes on and on, and it seems that this game has an almost unending amount of content.
CONS:
And while this game seems to offer everything and more, there are some issues with it that seem worth discussing. For starters, while the player being out of control, in terms of combat, adds a lot of tension to the game, it also takes away the key moment of action from the player, leaving them just watching and waiting. It can be exciting at first but can eventually turn a tad quiet once you get a hang of how the game is played. Usually, the player wants to be a part of the action and taking that option away from the player causes the game to turn from a roguelite dungeon crawler into a troop-manager simulator as the game progresses.
Not only this, but the game’s GUI can leave a lot more to be desired. The graphics aren’t the issue, but rather the implementation, as more often than not there are a lot of cases of accidental button presses leaving the player unable to go back to, say, a safe room or a shop. The GUI also doesn’t give a lot of prompts as to what certain things do until you do them, and the tutorial, when trying to be helpful, often blocks out tooltips and key information that would benefit the player.
CONCLUSION:
While there is the issue of the game separating input from the action, which drains away agency from the player, as well as the game’s clumsy GUI, Despot’s Game: Dystopian Army Builder makes all of that up in spades when regarding gameplay and the wide plethora of content it delivers in the form of secondary modes and even multiplayer. The art is a delightful indie-styled 2D pixel-art, and the music is out of the park. All in all, this game, despite its flaws, shines through as a fantastic example of how to do an indie game right.
SCORE: 9/10
Despot’s Game: Dystopian Army Builder is available for PC/Mac via Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox, App Store, and Google Play.
For more information, visit https://www.despotsgame.com/
Related: Reviews by Matthew White
An avid gamer, Matthew is also an aspiring game developer. Because of this, Matthew knows not only what makes a game great, but also the hard work and artistry required to craft such a phenomenal experience.
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