Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers

If you enjoy independent indie game coverage, consider supporting Indie-Games.eu on Patreon. It helps keep the site independent.

• DEVELOPER: Purple Moss Collectors
• PUBLISHER: Yogscast Games
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Roguelike / Deckbuilder
• RELEASE DATE: August 8, 2024
• LAUNCH PRICE: 14.79€
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is a fun game with a unique blackjack twist. It offers various events, interesting cards, quirky characters, and diverse locations to explore. At its core, this is a pure roguelike deckbuilder in which each card suit has a specific purpose: hearts for healing, spades for protection, diamonds for earning money to spend in shops, and clubs for dealing extra damage. As you progress, you add and remove cards from your deck, unlocking special cards along the way, tarot cards, business cards, birthday cards, hall passes, and even Yu-Gi-Oh cards. There’s plenty to discover and master.

Before you dive into the game, it’s important to understand how it’s played. At first, it’s simple: you start with a basic deck, like a set of hearts, and as you move through stages, you build and strengthen your deck. The main goal is to stay under 21 points from all combined cards, as the game revolves around dealing and taking damage. Ties are possible, but the ultimate objective is to reach a perfect 21, which activates bonuses from various cards and makes winning easier.

The game has a great concept, but it’s not fair to compare it to Balatro. This is a different experience with its own strengths and weaknesses. With further development, it has the potential to become more polished and balanced, as you’ll see below. However, the limited options for removing cards from your deck give it more of a gambling feel rather than a strategic challenge.

After a few hours of playing, you’ll notice that the cards contain a lot of text, making the gameplay less intuitive compared to other games like Balatro. It’s hard to understand which cards to pick or what each one does. With roughly 14 pages of card descriptions to go through, the game can feel overwhelming and unwelcoming to beginners. However, after progressing through several stages, things start to become clearer.

Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers relies heavily on RNG (random number generation), with luck playing a significant role. Sometimes you’ll breeze through battles, while in other situations you’ll struggle to draw a useful card. This is where the deck-building elements become crucial—choosing your cards carefully is essential. For example, cards that lower your opponent’s maximum points, steal their cards, or add extra obstacles to their deck can significantly help you.

However, this reliance on RNG can be frustrating. You may often find yourself losing, especially because some opponents are noticeably unbalanced. You can choose which opponent you want to face, and as you climb the ladder toward the final “boss” of each stage, defeating that opponent gives you the chance to choose another stage to explore. Opponents and events, such as destroying a card or choosing a psychic card, tend to repeat in future runs, though there are also some fun and unpredictable situations you can encounter.

Unfortunately, the game lacks enough healing options for decks that don’t use hearts and offers limited ways to remove unwanted cards, making it difficult to refine your strategy. It also rarely happens that you draw the exact cards you need for your strategy to succeed, often leading to a frustrating experience. I often managed to make it through the first act with a deck that was nearly fully functional, only to end up with 30 or 40 HP, which simply isn’t enough. This gave me a looming sense of doom, knowing my deck probably wouldn’t survive the next stage.

The main issue lies in the core gameplay itself. Unlike other games in the genre, you’re not really building a synergistic deck here. Most cards provide only minor improvements, and there’s little synergy because your control over card draws is limited. While Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers doesn’t make losing exactly pleasant, it does make it tolerable. Additionally, repeating the early stages can become repetitive unless you stumble upon a strong combination early on.

So, is this game worth playing? Absolutely. With plenty of replayability, you’ll be intrigued by the new cards you constantly discover, and there’s a real sense of satisfaction when you finally defeat your opponents. The game has an addictive quality that will keep you coming back again and again. It’s a true test of luck, and if you enjoy risk and high-reward challenges, this game is definitely for you—though only if you can tolerate the frustrating elements.

Review copy provided by the publisher