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Dungeon Park Heroes review - A minesweeper mash-up that doesn't really work

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Dungeon Park Heroes review - A minesweeper mash-up that doesn't really work

Dungeon Park Heroes has an interesting idea at its heart. It's essentially a mix of a roguelike and minesweeper, with some light RPG elements thrown in for good measure as well.

But even though that core is solid, it doesn't do that much to build on it. There are a few niggles here and there, and even though the start of the game is entertaining, it loses its sharpness after a while.

There's fun to be had here, but it doesn't last quite as long as you might hope. And once you've taken your fourth beating in a row, you're likely to put the game down for good.

This loot is mine(d)

You play an adventurer making their way through the titular park. To begin with most of the squares in the grid-based dungeons are marked off by the fog of war.

The only information you have about them comes from numbers that are next to the squares. This tells you how many of the squares adjacent have got traps in them.

Traps deal you damage, as you might imagine. Sometimes they'll hurt your health, other times they'll hurt your energy. Run out of health and you'll die. Run out of energy and you'll die. There's a lot of dying.

During your exploration you'll find monsters. Tap on them and you'll start a fight. These are controlled with dice rolls. You'll roll for initiative, then scatter some dice to attack. Depending on the weapon you've got, you'll get better dice to roll.

They're not the most compelling battles, and sometimes you get stuck in a trudge where you're rolling low and your enemy is chipping at your health. It's frustrating, and it's not all that entertaining.

There's a rhythm to the play that gets stodgy after a while. And the game doesn't really give you anything more to enjoy. You can change your equipment, but it changes the stats and not much else.

Mines weeper

And in the end you'll just get a bit bored with it all. There's not a huge amount to do, even though there's a lot of levels to work your way through.

And you don't get new characters at nearly a quick enough rate. Since once all of your energy is gone you need to wait until it's regenerated or watch a video, it gets pretty tiresome.

There is a solid idea here, but it's just that - an idea. And by the time you've played through it a few times, there's not much else to see.

Dungeon Park Heroes review - A minesweeper mash-up that doesn't really work

There's just not enough going on in Dungeon Park Heroes to really recommend it
Score
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.