The Good: Streamlined gameplay, quick
matches, teleporters add uncertainty, level editor, $15
The Not So Good: Lacks a single player
training mode and AI opponents, only three schools, no tutorial, deficient
interface, significant reliance on luck
What say you? A multiplayer-only,
stripped-down, more randomized, accelerated adaptation of Blood Bowl:
4/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Games Workshop is
most famously known for the Warhammer series of tabletop wargames, which have
been licensed into several
successful computer games. The board game design company is also
responsible for Blood Bowl, a strategic American football-inspired game based
in the Warhammer universe, which was also adapted into a computer game in 2009
(which I played but did not review). Branching off of that game is Dungeonbowl,
which takes the turn-based/real-time sports action and adds treasure chests
that may contain the ball (or a trap) and teleporters, with a single touchdown
winning the game. The much quicker matches should result in wider appeal, so
does Dungeonbowl speed up the game while preserving the strategic depth?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The graphics of Dungeonbowl are essentially identical to
Blood Bowl, which is not surprising. The games take place in dark dungeons that
recycle the same elements over and over again: dark stone walls, fire, violent
decorations, and caged dancing nymphs (for some reason). Different maps are not
distinctive visually, but vary only according to the specific layout. The
character models cover a wide range of races, but you usually can’t tell the
difference from the far distance you’ll typically be playing from. The units
could have more detailed models and less jerky animations. The battle effects
are repetitive, with simple “falling over” animations when players get hurt:
none look painful enough. The interface is a hindrance: there is no list of
players on the main screen, displaying helpful information like who has moved.
It’s also very hard to tell who is on which team, as the red and blue
backgrounds are too vague; I routinely moved the camera to obscure the
characters, so I could view them through a wall and see the bright outline for
team identification. You can cycle through players using the page up and page
down keys, but there is nothing on the GUI that lets you perform that action.
There is also no prompt to remind you to teleport a new player into the game
each turn; I had to condition myself to call in reserves first thing. In addition,
the minimap is too small to be usable, with tiny dots showing the locations of
players and chests. The sound design is very basic, with sporadic effects for
in-game events. The occasionally humorous announcers from Blood Bowl have been
completely removed, and the music is generic for a fantasy setting. Clearly,
Dungeonbowl uses the same graphics and sound as Blood Bowl, with some features
taken out and the interface not improved.
ET AL.
Dungeonbowl is Blood Bowl with sudden death (the first score
wins), teleporters, and the ball hidden in one of six chests. The game features
twelve dungeon layouts that offer good strategic variety; all contain narrow
hallways (for easier blocking) and pits that opposing players can be pushed in
to. The editor also allows you to create you own maps, which can be shared
online once approved by the developer. Dungeonbowl provides online matchmaking,
LAN play, and hotseat modes, but no single player. It is very surprising that
you cannot practice against the AI, especially since there was an offline mode
in Blood Bowl that could be farmed for player experience. The hotseat mode
doesn’t even let you play with your online teams, restricting you to three
templates for each school in the game. As it stands, you are at the mercy of
the online population to play Dungeonbowl: sometimes finding an opponent takes
seconds, sometimes it takes minutes, and sometimes it takes much longer.
Dungeonbowl also lacks a tutorial, relying on a manual. Interestingly, there
are actually sound files in the game directory for a tutorial, probably copies
over from Blood Bowl but not used here. I am greatly disappointed by the lack
of single player content in Dungeonbowl.
The first step in dominating the dungeons of Dungeonbowl is
to create your team. Each team has between eleven and sixteen and can take its
player from one of the three colleges of magic featured in Dungeonbowl (Light,
Bright, and Rainbow). Of course, the board game features ten different schools,
so I suspect some future DLC is in order. You can supplement your team with an
apothecary (to decrease injury severity) or bribes (so the referees ignore
fouls). Each college has access to three races that essentially change the base
stats of your players (plus some visual differences): dwarfs, orcs, goblins,
high elves, norse, trolls, minotaurs, skaven, undead, and humans. The ratings
used in the game are movement, strength, agility, and armor. These players must
be bought (to prevent you from choosing all high-level players initially) and
divided into different roles that basically boil down to throwing, catching,
running, blocking, or all-around. Each player also has a number of different
skills based on their position, such as tackle, block, dodge, thick skill,
strong arm, strip ball, sure hands, and diving catch. New skills are added each
time a player levels up, as experience is earned by the best players in each
match. This adds a nice sense of attachment with your team (just like any good
sports management game) as you watch your players grow over time.
Dungeonbowl is sudden death: first score wins. The
turn-based game allows one team to make all of their moves during a two-minute
window, and then control passes to the opponent. Players must be moved in
succession (you must complete all the moves of a single player at one time),
and your turn ends immediately if you get tackled or lose possession of the
ball. The ball must be brought to your opponent’s spawn zone, and it is hidden
in one of six chests scattered around the map. If you open a chest and it does
not contain the ball, the player blows up and your turn ends. This is the first
or many interjections of luck into the game that significantly impact the
gameplay. The second is the teleported: there are six placed in the dungeon,
and you end up at a randomly chosen destination. There is also a 1:6 chance of
the player being completely removed from the game, so teleporter usage is not
without hazard. The random nature of the teleporters makes it really difficult
to keep your team together, and it leads to a lot of luck: you might end up
right near the ballcarrier, or on the opposite side of the map, or out of the
game. I like some element of randomness in strategy games to keep things
unpredictable, but too much luck negates good tactics.
Each team starts with six players in their zone, but an
additional player can be brought in each turn, appearing randomly at one of the
teleporters. Players can be injured when tackled, and you can also block
players into the lava/water/openings next to the pathways, although I found the
actual number of instances of this happening during games to be quite low. Each
player can move a number of squares according to their stats, and dice rolls
can be used to move two additional squares. If you move by an opponent, an
automatic dice roll is made to see if they tackle you (again, based on stats).
This means you should position defenders so that the enemy ballcarrier (and
other players) must move past you on the way to the goal; this is a large part
of the strategy in Dungeonbowl (and, by proxy, Blood Bowl), partially negated
by the use of teleporters. When players are attacked, dice are rolled to
determine the outcome: the attacker can get hurt, the defender can get hurt, both
could get hurt, or the defender might be pushed. Pushing someone into lava or a
teleporter is an intriguing tactic. Additional options that require dice rolls
include picking up the ball, passing the ball (and catching it), blitzing
(which is a move then an attack), and fouling someone who is knocked down. There
is a lot of luck in this game, much more so than regular Blood Bowl. For
example, my ballcarrier was sent to a teleporter (because the direct path was
blocked by enemies) and was killed (a 1/6 chance). The very next turn, the
enemy spawned a reinforcement at the very same teleporter (another 1/6 chance),
picked up the ball, and carried it into my goal. With that much luck in a
strategy game, I think most purists will be turned off by how much chance may
influence their tactics.
IN CLOSING
Dungeonbowl is a simplified, quicker version of Blood Bowl,
and the random teleporters, traps, obstacles, and sudden death scoring result
in a more hectic game. Some might not like this amount of unpredictability,
however, as the teleporters send your players to a random location (or vaporize
them completely) and five out of six of the ball-holding chests will explode in
your face and end the turn. As a result, Dungeonbowl games are chaotic and
unorganized, with team members spread around the expansive maps, and since a
single score means victory, a single mistake (or bad roll) can cost the entire
game. The teleporters make it exceedingly difficult to organize a plan, which
may be the point. Luck also plays a large part in the game, beyond the
randomness associated with attack roles: where will the teleporter send you?
The best strategy with all of this instability seems to be to keep defensive
players near your end zone and to move conventionally most of the time (unless
the ball carrier is far away and the risk is worth it). The turn-based
mechanics means you’ll have to wait for the opponent to complete their turn,
but the two-minute limit keeps things moving quickly. I might suggest
alternating control after every player, but that might result in an even more
chaotic game. The basics of the gameplay remain intact, and the narrow passageways
means blocking is even easier: just stick people in the middle of the hallway
and the opponent is required to roll to dodge past them. The team customization
options are typical, although only having three of the ten schools in
Dungeonbowl leads me to believe the developer is purposely withholding content
for a future date. The biggest disappointment is the lack of a single player
mode (I guess the AI from Blood Bowl could not be taught the new rules) and
removal of a tutorial. With no single player and no tutorial, I had to learn
the game by playing with myself (not that I don't enjoy playing with myself).
The interface could also use some additional work, as it was too difficult
identifying teams and finding players. While Dungeonbowl is a unique version of
the Blood Bowl system, the lack of single player content and high amount of
randomness negatively impacts the game’s appeal.
