Hey everyone, welcome to the Back Cover - your source for game news, reviews, and more! In today’s review, we’ll be looking at a new indie title – Dungeon Inn. But before we dive into the game, let’s discuss how the review works.

The Back Cover Honeycomb

There are 6 factors that we at Velvet Games look at when giving you our rating for each game.

The first is Graphics and Visuals: looking at the overall appearance, graphical performance, and artistic aesthetic of the game, or for tabletop games, the artwork of the box and components.

Second, we have the Story and Narrative: Story is important for any game in attempting to immerse you in it, so we’ll be rating how well that is accomplished, whether through subtle lore details or outright pacing, construction, and complexity.

Third is Gameplay Mechanics: How well does the game actually play? Some games are made for older audiences or have, to say the least, a steep learning curve in order to play the game as intended, and we’ll be breaking down how well the game teaches it’s players how to do so!

Next is Sound and Music: Only applicable to games that actually have sound, we’ll be looking at sound quality, foley work, composition, and application of music and sound effects that are available in the game.

Then comes the Replay Factor: Any good game should be enjoyable at LEAST more than once, and while few master the art of addictive gaming, we’ll be diving in to find out just how addictive each game is!

And finally is the Personal Score: This is purely subjective, and can add to or take away from each score, so that while each game can certainly be well-made, it doesn’t necessarily make it likeable. Don’t worry – we’ll try to be as unbiased as we can, but we feel it’s only fair to let you know just how much fun WE had playing the game!

Together, this makes up the Back Cover Honey Comb, averaged for a final Velvet Games Score, to be listed together with other games on our website, myvelvetgames.com/game-reviews.

Summary

Dungeon Inn is an early-access indie clicker game made by Korean game studio Cat Society – a team of only three people! While small and new, it’s clear that a lot of time and effort went into this game, as even in Early Access, I didn’t encounter any bugs, even on launch day!

Initial Thoughts

Synopsis

What can only be described as “Fantasy Capitalism Simulator”, Dungeon Inn is a game of turn-based strategy and management, attempting to lure in travelers from two factional cities who do NOT get along. The game gives goals and milestones to achieve, carefully planning and balancing the desire for gold with the understanding that the opposed factions will do battle if they should encounter each other at the entrance to the Inn!

Graphics & Design

Dungeon Inn gets a 7/10 in this category for it’s use of pleasant, stable graphics and artwork in the game!

Dungeon Inn uses a simplistic art style that feels very cozy, and almost somewhat reminiscent of some mobile and flash games of the past. It makes use of basic cutscenes and dialogue similar to visual novels, which can interrupt gameplay at times. While it may not have the most beautiful or highly-detailed graphics, it makes good use of the simplistic styles available to small studios, and overall gives off a very “Indie” vibe just from the graphics alone. As I didn’t encounter any major graphical bugs sometimes found in Early Access games, apart from some skipping frames or occasional sluggishness, I would say that the visuals were very well-implemented overall.

Story & Narrative

Dungeon Inn gets a 7/10 in this category for interesting, brief cutscenes to develop an interesting world.

The story of a small team making a deal with a dragon to run an inn in a fantasy world may not be the most unique premise, but it certainly has a charm about it, and feels very much like what certain players might get up to in a session of D&D given the opportunity. At times, the story felt like more of a backdrop for the gameplay, which is more centric to Dungeon Inn’s identity as a whole. The cutscenes felt well-placed, as they never interrupted the main gameplay, but served to provide background and more depth to what the player was actively engaged in, and rarely stretched for longer than would be considered desirable. The dialogue pop-ups did feel a bit awkward at times, specifically as they tend to appear just before a new action was available to the player, but as they often served to teach the mechanics, this can be forgiven.

Gameplay Mechanics

Dungeon Inn gets an 7/10 in this category for solid structure and well-flowing gameplay that felt rather seamless and refined, despite it being in Early Access.

Point and click games may not appeal to everyone, especially our more hardcore gamers among the group, but for a point and click game, it didn’t feel overly repetitive, as the way that powerups and actions were utilized had to be carefully thought out. For strategy game players, this will feel much more familiar, and as a whole, it didn’t feel too complicated or difficult to access. The user interface was well laid-out, with pop-up tutorials that teach the user how to execute new actions and best plan for what the game intends to throw at the user next. I did notice some stuttering of gameplay, but this is likely due to poor engine optimization. After all, I played it on launch day, so for an Early Access game, this is to be expected. As for something that seemed a bit overbearing was that certain actions, especially during the tutorial for those actions, required resources and had to be completed to progress in the game. For a tutorial, this is pretty normal, but it was still a bit aggravating to worry about.

Sound & Music

Dungeon Inn gets an 8/10 in this category for being exactly the whimsical audio that this game needed. Well done!

Dungeon Inn certainly did their homework when it comes to audio. The soundtrack evokes feelings of a certain whimsy and adventurous nature that fits extremely well within the game, and quiets at moments for the player to concentrate or think. At no point was I overwhelmed by the music during the game, which felt well-placed and well-timed. The foley work was also extremely well-done, being very satisfying to hear as I clicked through each stage of the game. While I wouldn’t consider the soundtrack particularly timeless, it felt unique and charming enough to say that it was very well-made.

Replay Factor

Dungeon Inn gets an 8/10 in this category, as I just can’t seem to put it down. Way to go!

As any game should be, Dungeon Inn was addictive to the point that I just wanted to play a little bit longer when I finally shut it off. As it is not a hardcore title, this game can be mildly relaxing and enjoyable to the casual gamer, or just someone looking to kill some time. As the game gradually increases in complexity, it makes it desirable to continue playing, wondering exactly what we’ll see next in the level, and with Dungeon Inn being an Early Access title, it’s sure to come with some updates that add to the overall experience.

Personal Score

Dungeon Inn gets an 8/10 for this category for being a fairly unique title that I think deserves more attention than it’s receiving.

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed an indie game like I have with this one. It’s lighthearted nature and visually-appealing artwork make Dungeon Inn a game I find myself returning to, and I can’t help but enjoy myself when I play. And the fact that it’s only $13 makes this a title that I would recommend to just about anyone who has a computer and likes video games. While I understand that not all gamers will enjoy something this casual, I’m confident that this title will stand out in the future among indie titles. Does it stand up to the time-tested titles of the AAA variety or even other Indie games like Undertale and Stardew Valley? Perhaps not… at least, not yet.

Conclusion

To sum it up, Dungeon Inn is a strong title among the indie community that already shows great promise, and with three hotfix updates in just over a week of launch, I can tell that the developers of this game are already looking to address the issues mentioned in the previous categories. While it’s perhaps not for everyone, it’s certainly worth $13, especially in the world of overinflated AAA titles asking for $60 or $70 for a few hours of gameplay.

Final Score

Our summary of this game give it a total score of 7.5/10, making for an enjoyable experience if you decide to get it!