Today, we’ll be talking about Dungeon Twister. Dungeon Twister is a game based on the real-life tabletop game of the same name, created by Christophe Boeling. The game was developed by the now-defunct studio, Hydra Vision. This is a game where people that are fans of the old pen-and-paper do-it-yourself role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons will feel right at home. Card game fans of Magic and Yugioh may find some enjoyment from this game too. The game itself has no physical disc release. So the only way to buy this one is through psn on your Playstation 3 system.
This is a two-player strategy game where the idea is to get your characters through an ever-changing maze that the player(s) themselves control. The trick is you have to do this while simultaneously keeping your opponent from doing the same. This is done with actions such as fighting the opponent’s characters on the field and/or “twisting” the dungeon rooms (hence the reason for the game’s name). There’s a ton of strategy that goes into winning this game.
The rooms are set up with all sorts of items that are set within the dungeon to aid whoever obtains them. Rooms within the dungeon also have obstacles that the player has to navigate. The main object of the game is to have the most victory points at the end of the game. Victory points are earned by having your characters escape the dungeon or by killing your opponent’s characters. The characters come in 8 different classes, each having their own unique abilities. Warrior, Thief, Wizard, Troll, Cleric, Wall-Walker, Mekanork, and Goblin. Having an understanding of how the characters move and their unique functions is key to winning.
As I previously stated, each character has special abilities they can use. The Warrior, aside from having decent attack and defense, can also break open gates on the board known as Portcullis.
The Theif can open Portcullis, which means they can be opened and closed at any time, rather than breaking them which renders them open for good. The thief also has the greatest range of movement out of any of the characters. Not to mention she is only one of two characters that can move over traps without any assistance or a rope.
The Wizard has the ability to float over fire pit traps and pass by enemies regardless of whether they’re injured or not. But the real value of this character comes in the form of the magic staff. This is an item that you can find in the game that only the Wizard can use. It allows you to attack an opponent from great distances without putting yourself in harm’s way, killing the opponent instantly on contact.
The Troll is physically the strongest in both attack and defense. And can even regenerate after losing a battle. But the downside is that this character has the shortest range of movement by far. If any character can be considered a tank, this is the one. In most cases, the Troll will always have the advantage in a head-to-head fight with any other characters. Without any items, enemies will find it almost impossible to kill this character.
The Cleric, as with most role-playing and strategy games, has the power to heal. It’s really self-explanatory how useful that is. With that said, he clearly doesn’t do much in the way of attack or defense. The real value of this one is support. Moving this character behind others is typically the safest bet if you’re trying to actually fight instead of escape the dungeon.
The Wall Walker is probably the most difficult of the bunch to stop since she literally has the power to walk through walls. This character is by far the hardest to stop since not only does she have decent movement range, but her ability makes it so she can just walk through the wall if she’s cornered. Think Kitty Pride from the X-men; that’s literally the power the Wall Walker has.
The Mekanork doesn’t seem like much at first, but he has the ability to twist the gear of any room a full 360 degrees. Everyone else has a limit to how much they can twist any set room. Mekanork can make things so much easier for the rest of your team to move while doing the literal opposite to the opponent. There’s nothing more frustrating for an enemy in this game than having a section of the dungeon twisted as they’ve almost passed through it.
The Goblin doesn’t have any special ability of any kind. The perk of this character is that if you’re good enough to have him escape the dungeon, he awards two points rather than one as everyone else does. When games are getting close this character is pretty much a boon (assuming he makes it out of the dungeon) That may not seem like much in the beginning. But when the strategy is to get through the dungeon rather than fight, you’ll be thankful for the Goblin.
Using each character’s strengths, the dungeon twists, and the items on the board are all used in conjunction to win a match. The way the game plays will make table-top or pen/ paper gamers’ hearts proud.
In terms of game modes, single-player consists of four. Training, challenge, simplified game, and advanced game. The training is pretty much what you’d expect. Here is where you’re taught the basics of the game and how each individual character is played. You’re placed in a total of 20 different scenarios. The idea is after those are complete, you’ll come away with an understanding of the game.
Challenge mode is a mode where it’s you against the computer. There are a total of 10 levels you can play here. Winning these matches will get you placement on the leaderboard of the game.
Simplified mode is where a map is already preset for you. All the characters are set, all rooms are revealed, and all items are placed. This is totally randomized.
And last, there’s the Advanced game. This is where both you and the computer take turns setting up the match before it starts. This may seem tedious at first. But the placement of your set pieces is pretty much everything if you actually want to win the game here.
Finally, there’s the multiplayer mode of the game. You only have two options here, player match and ranked match. These are both self-explanatory. Player match is just you playing a friend or random person online outside of any rankings. Whereas ranking is literally a match where you get leaderboard placement.
All in all, this is a fun game for board game and tabletop game enthusiasts. It was always an underappreciated gem as a tabletop game. And it’s the same with the PSN version. If you’re into board games, I would highly suggest this game. But keep in mind, this game was never appreciated the way it should have been. So finding players will be hard unless you know people that have an interest in it with you. The tabletop game has more characters and expansions while the PSN version hasn’t received any of the additional parts mainly for lack of interest. It’s a very old game at this point, but you can still power on your PS3 and grab it right now from the store. And if you want a more expansive version, you can try various board game stores to grab it and its expansions (fair warning, it gets expensive). Or you can do the alternate thing and find online board game forums where people download virtual board games online and play against each other that way.
When I look at this game, I can only imagine what could have been if it got more recognition. Both the tabletop version and this psn version really deserve more love than what they received.
Dungeon Twister table top games
