Dungeon Scroll Review

I believe most people have heard of and/or played the classic word game puzzles, like Chictionary, Text Twist and Scrabble. Both of which give you a set of letters that have been jumbled, and your goal is to create as many words with those letters as you can within the time limit. Dungeon Scrolls is based upon this same concept, except you create "magic words" in order to defeat monsters in dungeons.

However, it's not as simple as that. The game throws at you various monsters, and each "magic word" you cast deals damage to your opponent. Once you defeat enough monsters, you go on to the next dungeon. If you do not cast "magic spells" on your foes fast enough, they drain your hitpoints.

Sounds pretty average and simpistic, right? It is...

The game attempts to "fuses the challenge of a word game with the excitement of treasure-seeking in the murky depths," but it is really nothing special. Every so often, you uncover a book of lore to increase your stats, or a magic tile to heal your health, but these few creative additions cannot make the game worthwile, plus the poor, pixelated graphics and repetitive sounds. (I seriously think they used 5 sound effects throughout the course of the game.)

If you are looking for an RPG in this game, you have come to the wrong place. The game does start to get repetitive and at times boring, which makes for a bad experience. All the monsters are basically the same, with the occasional boss that is impervious to 3 letter words, and are all shown in a 3 by 3 inch square in the top corner, motionless, with the same crimson door behind them. In every dungeon. When you do clear the dungeon after battling six or seven dull monsters, you usually find some object of some sort. I'm not sure if these relate to the story, for I did not finish the game, but could use some serious rethinking. I managed to find an honest accountant, a wet ghost, and a tiny, flying hamster, to name a few. I even managed to cure cancer. I felt these detracted from the whole "murky-depths" they were aiming for.

Despite these shortcomings, the game still captures the fast and even frantic paced action of games like Chictionary or Text Twist. The biggest positive aspect of Dungeon Scrolls is this addictive gameplay, and the difficulty of the game itself. I felt the game was rather challenging to beat on Hard (Wizard) difficulty, without ever guessing a word. I, an avid word puzzle gamer, could not do it in the 30 minute trial.