I've played about 10 games of Dungeon Adventure. Although the game is designed to look like a Roguelike, there is very little to suggest it actually is one. For instance.
Creatures in most/all roguelikes I've played are generated like a D&D monster. Their HPs are rolled based on a format for each monster. This game seems to determine monster stats based on YOUR Str/Lvl/HPs. Whats worse is that the levels were not hashed out very well either, so for instance. A bat at first level is easy to beat. But if you gain strength and levels, you'll find a bat suddenly becomes much more difficult to beat. Thus its the first roguelike I've ever played that penalized you for experience.
There are 6 scrolls, 4 potions, 4 rings, 6-10 monsters, piles of food and GP, and mundane weapons/armor. Thats it. Period!
If you know the history of roguelikes, you know that the ASCII graphics were not used because ASCII is cool. They were a necessity because the data structures for player/monsters/items/dungeon level used up so much of the 16k or 32k array memory that you were left with virtually nothing for graphics. Well that and the fact that most of the mainframes the original roguelikes appeared on didn't really support graphics.
So basically the ascii graphics were used because the games for the time were too complex. This is definately not the case with this game. A half dozen monsters. Races, Sexes, and Character classes that are meaningless. No traps. No Doors. No Secret Doors. No special abilities, No special attacks, No special monster attacks or abilities. No ranged weapons. No wands, staffs, weapon modifiers, armor modifiers, shopkeeprs, special rooms. Although one of the scrolls does enchant armor. But that just puts the word enchanted next to your armor. It doesn't actually seem to improve your armor. Get the picture? This game is a roguelike in cosmetics only.
Infact. The character stats besides STR and HP seem to be completely meaningless. There is agility but it doesn't seem to affect combat noticeably. Then again it's hard to tell since as mentioned above raising your Str or HPs works against you.
So what are we left with? A game that attempts to exploit the roguelike genre for quick cash. At least at this point.
That being said I rated it a 4/5, and paid for it. Hopefully the writer will relize that the idea isn't just a quick way of jiving some cash out of roguelike fans, but a genuine underutilized genre that is in desperate need of a GOOD game.
