Dungeon Village: Pixel fun in an epic RPG world!
We recently scanned through the Top New Paid Games on Google Play and saw one of Kairosoft’s new titles, Dungeon Village. They currently have over ten thousand downloads for their paid game… but how many of these purchases are just dedicated followers? Read more about this Trending app below…
Gameplay: You’ve got a town and the aim is to make it a 5 star city. The interface looks like World Cruise Story… or it looks like you’re building a town in SimCity (so isometric grid, and building placement etc). In classic Kairosoft style, the goal isn’t achieved just by erecting buildings, and you have to involve the special adventurers who come to visit. The little people who walk around are very important – this isn’t just building structures like in SimCity. Without this clear distinction you’d actually think this game is absolutely awful!
As with all of these Kairo story games, there’s a kind of symbiotic loop between different actions and events. This one has a particularly confusing loop which we’ll briefly touch upon now: You have a star rating, and different star grades are achieved by meeting town/city criteria. Generally, the star requirements are linked to popularity, income, number of houses, quests, and events. Adventurers are indirectly linked to all of these factors. I shan’t go into more now as it really is quite involved!
To sum it up, there’s a method and flow which the player needs to feel out and understand. It’s not entirely obvious and that’s why this game is fantastic for those people who like solving intricate puzzles.
Fantasy F
eeling: I love the game theming here and it’s hard to explain exactly why. Part of this sensation is probably because I haven’t played any fantasy games for a while. But the main reason is because the graphics, music and text all combine well to throw you into medieval settings. Kairosoft’s pixelly graphics style is very iconic and recognisable now, and as always I’m really excited by these cutsey dinky sprites. Hell, even the dragons and monsters are cute!
Some Cool Stuff: Dungeon Village has some special little details thrown in to keep you grinning. This time round they’ve added in some Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter characters as well as classical fantasy names. Obviously you can get hold of the KairoBot and Princess Prin who appear in all Kairosoft games.
The Low Down: Ok… All my bias has been thrown out the window… Hopefully by now you understand that there are monsters, dragons, warriors and knights… But will this game cast a positive spell on the average player who is perhaps considering buying this game? Will people buy because it sounds either like SimCity, or a full blown RPG? Well, if you thought it was either of those two then don’t buy the game yet. It really isn’t an RPG… it’s a Kairosoft specific town simulation (so not Simcity either!).
The complexity of this game is pretty darn high. Each record achievable loop of the game is 15 years, and it probably wasn’t until year 10 that I understood how to play the game, and even then I had scrawled across seven pieces of paper to decode the game! In short, one could get stuck quite easily, and so you need a fair amount of patience and determination to complete this game.
Rating: 3.5/5 If you’re a fan of Kairosoft, then this is a 5 star game since your strategy is really tested. Some hardcore fans say there’s no replay value, but there are quite a few little hidden characters and careers to uncover – so most people will be kept happy. But for the average player, Dungeon Village is probably quite abstract and it can be difficult to get a handle on it. It’s really unfortunate that the Lite version only has 2 years (… which is basically nothing), so do approach this game with caution. Having said all this, if you’re the kind of person who solves puzzles just because they’re there, then this should be right up your alley.
Dungeon Village Tips from Android Games Review:
We’ll probably create another post which will help you with tips and tricks on this game, but here are the main question and answers:
How do you get more income?
- Although the game sometimes hints that more adventurers need to be attracted to increase income… it’s not really necessary. You could have many adventurers who don’t have houses and don’t spend much in your town! Even housing several adventurers is an awfully effort intensive way of increasing income. The best way to increase income is to use your items on your buildings. By doing this you increase their price, quality and appeal. Once both the quality and appeal is at a decently high level, the adventurers naturally stroll in and spend money.
- Another way of increasing the quality and appeal of a building is to level them up. This can be done by increasing the foot fall. Do this by building multiple buildings of the same type. Naturally, if there’s so many of the same shop then the people will go in, and thus force the building to level up.
- A subtle and indirect way of increasing quality and appeal is to arrange buildings close together. Trees and plants can be added to boost quality and appeal… but their effects are only localised to the surrounding shops. (Whereas using items improves all the buildings of the same type at once).
- One source of income is from killing creeps outside the town, so if you send your adventurers into quests then they won’t be working on killing creeps. In fact, you might get less money from the quest than actually fighting random creeps around the town!
Which buildings should I erect?
- If in doubt, then just build one of each building. Just so you know what the buildings are for, when a traveller goes into a building, then their character stats increase. So technically if you knew all the building effects then you could encourage the improvement of particular adventurer attributes over others. Definitely build multiple inns though – they’re always used.
What should I do with my items (which aren’t weapons, clothing or accessories)?
- You can either give them as presents, use them on structures, or put them in the cauldron. The game descriptions imply that the items have stronger effects if used correctly. But after a while you can get any item easily so you won’t bother with the description and you would just focus on boosting either the structures or the cauldron. Don’t bother giving any of the items to the people – improve their attributes via events instead of directly focusing on one particular character.
- Only after you have a healthy income should you put items into the cauldron. The reason is because with good income you can buy more items to feed the cauldron. Whereas, feeding the cauldron doesn’t directly increase your income.
What are the best events to hold?
- Popularity naturally increases over time, and player satisfaction can be boosted individually. So we’ve found that it’s best to hold the events which boost player stats. Since you may have many buildings which impart health, we suggest focusing on holding events which give strength, dexterity, luck or magic.
My players are starting to get killed in one hit… what should I do?
I bet this is common scenario, and it takes a while to figure out how to overcome this correctly. So I’ll cover this in more detail in another post!
Dungeon Village QR Code
(Click on the image or scan the barcode with your Android phone to goto Google Play)
Developers: Kairosoft
