DREAM QUEST; why you should be obsessed with it like me

Dream Quest: itunes.apple.com/us/app/dream-quest/id870227884?mt=8

If you haven't heard of Dream Quest, it's an iOS roguelike deck-building game that's become quite the obsession for many, myself definitely included. After a long spell of not playing a whole lot of games on my iPhone or iPad and being totally okay with that, this has got me returning over and over, wanting to try one more run with one more strategy, and losing sleep. I may have to stop eating and bathing soon to have more time for this game.

So why is it so great? Well, for me, I really like Mage Knight, and I like deck-building games in general, and this gives me the feel of an involving solo boardgame experience with strategic decisions in the vein of Mage Knight, but of course much shorter playing than Mage Knight and fitting comfortably on my iPhone.

First of all, yes, there's the obviously bad artwork, but just get over it. Don't be a snobby esthete (like many on the mobile game forums are, apparently, sounding much like snooty Eurogamers at TOS in many respects). After a short time playing the game the art actually became endearing to me, and really the only things that are outright "bad" are the stick-figure cards. If those can be tweaked for a future update, that would be nice, but everything else is fine how it is, and the design and color schemes are very well chosen to be able to understand the cards you have and what they do. Artwork much more complex than what's there now would be too much, I think. I will say that the homemade look of the art is a better fit on iPhone than iPad. It's not that it's any different looking, but the aesthetic of it seems to fit nicer on the small screen, or is more forgivable, I suppose.

In Dream Quest, you're a character going through dungeon levels, trying to defeat a boss at the end of each level, ultimately winning if you beat the third boss. You move around, revealing monsters and treasures and fighting the monsters via your deck of cards, which is slowly shaped over time by cards you can pick up or remove. This falls somewhere between the instant deck-building of Dominion type games and the longer-term deck-building of Mage Knight, but as I'm discovering there is a lot of depth in the decision-making needed in order to be successful. As it is, after 100+ runs, I've fought Boss #3 several times now but have still yet to win, but even getting to that point is a learning curve.

So the deck-building aspect is well realized, but another interesting part of the game is the question of which monsters to attack and when (which is usually your choice, except for a few rare ambushes or times when you can't move past an area unless you kill a certain monster first). And though the battles themselves (a you go/I go thing similar in nature to M:tG) will at first seem to play themselves out, where you just throw your cards out each turn and hope for the best, after a while there will be important decisions to make within the battles, as far as which cards to play in what order, when to take chances on certain card combos, and when to favor a defensive play over an offensive play.

For being a game with a first time one-man developer, there is an insane amount of depth and replayability. It comes with four player classes to begin with (thief, warrior, wizard, monk), each of which plays differently with different starting cards and upgrades, and I think there are five more classes that can be unlocked via achievements (there are no IAP, btw). And the number of cards and monsters is also quite high and varied, and each monster functions differently, some very much so, and there are some decent thematic connections to what many of them do.

Randomness is a factor, no doubt. There will be some games where you never really had a chance against the particular monster or boss, even on the first level, or where the upgrade cards available at the "stores" aren't what you were hoping for with the deck strategy you were intending to build. And in early plays you will die early and often. But as you unlock some of the basic upgrades and start to get a knack for how the general system is run, you'll definitely improve and should appreciate the challenge. And by and large, good strategy will overcome the random factors and lead to success and improvement.

It's only $2.99. No IAP. An amazing, involving game. Just beware the time sink that it might become.

FUCCCCCKKK YOUUUUUUUUU dammitdammitdammit.

I was really hoping no one would follow up on the little blurbs this was getting in the iOS thread. Graphically, it looks crappy and I was able to tell myself this was enough to keep me away. But oh no, here's comes Grudunza with his MAGE KNIGHT comparison, and no IAP hassle, and now I am out $3 and a whole lotta hours I am sure.

Well, don't go in expecting it to be "Mage Knight: the iOS app." But after playing it numerous times it finally occurred to me that's what this game most reminds me of, in a broad sense of longer-term deck-building, designed in order to build yourself up against particular monsters and bosses (cities in MK), and with the different types of attacks and blocks and resistances and such. For me, it definitely scratches a similar kind of itch.

I bought this based on your comments...I dunno. The art, so what. But the interface is trash and I think the randomization is truly random with no kind of correction for things like, not being able to actually defeat a boss because there just aren't the right things on the level to do so.

There is a neat game here, and using the deckbuilding concept with a roguelike dungeoncrawl is a great idea. I hate to say it, but this is one of those kinds of things where a "one man band" development team isn't enough to bring this game to fruition.

You can really see where it STARTS to get good when you're paring out the starter cards and getting better at dealing damage. But then you run out of things you can possibly do on a level and all that's left is a boss, which completely destroys you.

Maybe a couple of updates will get this closer to where it needs to be.

Luckily, I hate deck building (except for Mage Knight) which knocks me out of most of the CCG and LCG circuit (except for LoTR which I like). I've avoided Pathfinder for this reason.

I really hate Ascension, Dominion and co.

This looks like something I would not enjoy (back to planning my Jap attack on Repo in Empire of the Sun).

I love this game.

I don't agree with Barnes, which is always true, because the game is so short I enjoy dying and trying another run. I think it's partly a function of there being only 3 levels; there's no space to slowly build up your character. OTOH, then the game wouldn't be so short. It might be nice if you could go back up levels and access those shops again.

I also haven't made it to the third level yet, so there is also truth in what Barnes says.

Michael Barnes wrote: I hate to say it, but this is one of those kinds of things where a "one man band" development team isn't enough to bring this game to fruition.

Yeah, I hear ya there. It's definitely a bit rough around the edges, even aside from the art. The interface works fine to me, though, and I've mostly been playing on an iPhone, where the buttons are tiny.

Apparently an update is coming soon which moves some of the first level bosses to the second level, and also updates the UI buttons and such.

That aside, I think there's a lot that's done quite brilliantly and with a lot of thought behind it. I've been following the thread for the game on one of the mobile sites and where people have balance concerns or question why something is how it is, the developer has been responding and explaining his reasoning, and by and large, I think he's been right and he's shown how a different approach can work. Yeah, it's clunky and rough in some respects, but also impressive in its scope and for all it offers. Perhaps he should have scaled down just a bit to begin with, to get all of that more polished, and then released more later as expansions.

I can get a sense where the game is too hard for its own good, especially when the random elements can line up in a way that hose you. There aren't a lot of people claiming victories, but a few that seem to be winning consistently. (Best I've done so far is fight Boss 3 a few times, but not successfully yet.) But I also appreciate how there is some real depth there, and that certain paths of strategy are going to be more successful, and that there seem to be multiple paths.

I think the movie was better.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0255963/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

Grudunza's pretty much said it all, so I'll just echo his comments. This is the best game released on iOS since last year's XCOM.

Barnes, you suck. You've spoiled the well for me on this one. I've still been playing it on and off, but I'm seeing more and more that there's just some stupid randomness at times where no matter what you do, you'll get killed, even on the first level. At this point, after probably 100 plays, I know what I'm doing to build a decent lean deck, and yet still, I can get killed, and often, on the first level, sometimes even before the boss, which is just dumb and a waste of time.

I posted some concerns about that on one of the mobile forums and people are like, dude, it's a roguelike, that's what it's supposed to be. Well, that's stupid, then. A game should reward you for repeated plays, where it becomes easier to advance successfully and the early level is just for building yourself up. This is just a crapshoot a lot of times. I still like the general concept a lot, and it can be very interesting and tense as you advance levels, if you advance. But you're right, it needs more development to be a better experience for the long-term.

Everything about it is like play testing some dude's "great idea for a board game". Nothing about it feels complete or fully realized. But it's got this DIY/underdog clout, which disaster criticism.

It is _not_ a good game. Not right now.

Sure, it's a roguelike. But GOOD roguelikes are rarely unfair, and with skill you learn to avoid certain situations and what risks are worth taking. You can almost always see where your mistakes were. In Dream Quest, IF the boss isn't behind a wall so that you can't get to it, you're more likely to die just because you've cleared the level and there just wasn't enough stuff for you to have a chance. Most of the time there's no way to afford most of what is at the shops because there's not enough money in the level.

This is not because of scrappy, garage design. It's because of unfinished development.