While the first of each dungeon’s 3 levels will usually have an easier task (e.g eliminate 3 of X enemy or reach Y spot), the latter two will normally confront you with a boss encounter you’ll need to overcome, only you’ll be under-levelled. As such, it’s your job to get them from A to B, either beelining it to take your chances, or cross through routes H, Z and Y to gather everything first. If you place treasure, or an enemy within the dungeon, they’ll change their pathing towards them, always homing in on the highest value area. Our knuckle-headed dungeoneers are easily manipulated, you see. Yellow cards offer treasures you can place to be collected, while red cards plonk all manner of enemies where you select them to go. Blue cards help “draw in” the dungeon, connecting your little person to their objective. Instead, on each turn you’ll be presented with a handful of cards. The interesting twist with Guild of Dungeoneering however, is that you don’t control your selected character in a level. Hitting the “Go Exploring” tab takes you to game’s map, where you’ll slowly unveil the clouds over the land, leading to increasingly difficult – yet rewarding – dungeons to subject your hapless dungeoneer disciples to. Once you’re done marvelling at your sprawling, handcrafted metropolis of funny looking icon people, you’ll need to actually go out and, you know, whack some things. Venture Into The Unknown, That Is, Until It Becomes Known Despite that though, it has a cosy feel to it and helps the sense of progression as you watch it expand with each victory. I do wish there was a bit more to the home base system, as it’s completely static and lacking much of any interaction. As you build out your dungeoneer kingdom you’ll even get access to a graveyard to see fallen heroes who you’ve definitely failed by poor planning (and rough RNG…) and a trophy room with trinkets to reminisce on your successes. While it’s simplistic, it has a real charm about it. As you progress, completing various dungeon levels and conquering powerful boss figures, you’ll gain further access to more creative tactical options and new rooms to outfit your castle under the mud. There are some creative units to acquire, from the Theatre-loving Mime to the Ice Cloister, housing my personal favourite unit: the Ice Cream Monk. You’ll even get an icon of each dungeoneer in their room to help make it feel somewhat alive, even if they don’t actually do anything, like at all. There’s no strategy or composition you need to consider, but the pencil drawn and shaded art style gives it a homely feel. Purchasing new rooms allows you to bolt them onto the sides of already established rooms, giving you access to new classes of units you can then deploy on the battlefield. Starting with a single room, you’re able to slowly develop your cavern of miss-mash rooms into a hive for various adorable adventurers to set out from. Naturally then, it makes sense to start with the smaller chunk – your home base of dungeoneering operations. The other 85% will be consumed in the various pits you’ll venture off to in search of gold and foes to slay. Your time in Guild of Dungeoneering: Ultimate Edition will be split between establishing the various rooms of your ever-expanding lair, which equates to about 15%. So let’s delve in and see if this is a finished dungeon extravaganza or a half-baked, dead-end leading mess. Having not played the vanilla version, I’ll be mainly reviewing Ultimate Edition’s offering based on a new player’s perspective.

Not only that, it comes packed with two new content sections, improved customisation options for your tiny dungeoneers, re-balanced game mechanics and new sound effects, animations and writing.

Ultimate Edition, releasing on Switch a mere 7 years later, is an entirely rebuilt and remastered version of the original release. Guild of Dungeoneering was first released in 2015 on PC, being met with mostly positive feedback. I’m getting slightly ahead of myself, let’s start from the top. Guild of Dungeoneering: Ultimate Edition was right outside of my normal wheelhouse, to be sure, but it’s a light, fun little game for fans of D&D or board games like Munchkin. I’ve recently been enjoying my first forays into Switch gaming, what with its on-the-go style and swathe of indie titles. Playing like a classic D&D or Munchkin inspired board game, does Guild of Dungeoneering: Ultimate Edition deliver enough of a remaster? The Finger Guns Review:

Guild of dungeoneering gameplay