Sokoban block puzzles combined with card game combat really lured me in with its description… Honestly, I’d say the game should stick with the puzzles, because the combat was pretty uninspired. But it might also be because I was expecting to build out my character with some deckbuildery goodness. I think when you boil down the dungeon abilities and figuring out what skills go where, that’s where the bulk of my fun was. There is an option to skip all battles, and I ended up just doing that seeing how there was very little reward given to it in the first place. I really wish this game got a little more time in the oven, because I think the level designs themselves are solid, with some pretty clever out of the box thinking in later levels. I think tiny details like a basic redo/rewind action function, maybe improving combat by showing several of the enemy intents in a row to make planning more meaningful, things like that could really make the game mechanics gel much more. As is, the game feels very unpolished with its minimalist animation and lack of of basic quality of life designs. Nonetheless, I do think buried underneath is a pretty good puzzle game, that could easily be worth recommending with a few patches to clean things up.

Levels are very simple to get into, with very few menus or options to navigate through. You just transition automatically from level to level, with the optional pick a stage if you ever want to revisit one. One critique I have is that the levels themselves are extremely dark for seemingly no reason outside of “dungeons are dark, what did you expect?.” There’s no torches or source of light, and I really don’t see any mechanical benefit or any skilltesting in terms of the player’s benefit, so it just feels like a poor aesthetic decision. And this is compounded with the fact that there is zero undo button, so if you misjudged a single extra push of a block, you gotta start the WHOLE level over. There are enemies dispersed throughout the map, that transition into a combat screen. Your character has a basic attack and defense card, but there are additional one-use cards you can collect throughout your journey. As I mentioned before, I found this portion of the game extremely mindnumbing with little to no skill outside of managing your health between battles. I just think the puzzles should be the main focus of the game, especially considering how unrewarding and unremarkable your character is. I never unlocked new weapons or armor, and there really isn’t any synergies or cool cards to mess around with. I found combat very cumbersome, so once I realized you can just skip it, I never bothered with fights.

The sokoban puzzles themselves become pretty engaging as you get access to moving through walls, or even using your enemies as pawns to set off a switch. There’s a lot of resource management in terms of figuring out exactly how many moves and special abilities you have access to from level to level. The only extremely frustrating aspect to figuring these puzzles out is the complete lack of a simple rewind action button. The fact that a single mistake leads to reset is extremely discouraging and singlehandedly keeps this game from getting the seal of approval, second to the utterly mediocre combat.

All in all, I was so excited to see this mashup of two of my favorite genres, but ultimately, I think the puzzle aspect is the only redeeming quality of this game. The card game aspect needs a heavy rework to be worth its addition to the game. The problem is that both genres of the game feel completely divorced from one another, and there’s zero sense of progression or flow. The puzzles themselves are good enough, but without some serious changes to benefit the accessibility and quality of life, this game is virtually unplayable. You’re better off looking up Sokoban in Newgrounds or some other ex-flash game website until things are cleaned up. I hope the developer can update the game, because I would happily revisit it, as I see a lot of potential in it. But as is, I cannot in good conscience recommend it in its current state.

The Dungeon Rules is developed by Ivan Moraleja

Available on Steam for $9.99

Free Steam review copy provided via dev

Hellfirebam has not awarded The Dungeon Rules the Indie Gamer Seal of Approval.