Dungeon Cities - My 1 month Opinion / Review
I have been playing Dungeon Cities for just over a month now. I wanted to write up a article about it but I also wanted to play it long enough that I could actually form a decent opinion of the game and not just write up a shit article to post a referral link. After a month playing it, I think now is a good time to write out my thoughts on the game and then also some things I really like, really hate and things I would change if I could!
Without further ado.. let's get into it!
What is Dungeon Cities?
Dungeon Cities is a PvE RPG Dungeon Crawler type web browser based game.
Obviously it is on the HIVE blockchain. From what I can tell, not every action is recorded on the blockchain. (I could be wrong though). You start out in the city of Aldorian and there is a Dungeon to start with. You start on Dungeon Floor 1 and as you gain items and 'Drubble' (the in-game currency) you can craft the keys for each subsequent floor.
Once you clear all the Aldorian Dungeon floors you move to the next city "BrightHollow" and repeat the process. So yes, this is a slow grind game and if that is your speed then you will like it!
You can read the Whitepaper here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yXOpL8QCAWhOXj8ocOhc1Lo1SCGh-kn6lXpuhMwqTYg/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.p4ktyu1jk56p
You can join the Discord here: https://discord.com/invite/8YYbuvMA3t
It is a Text-Based + Browser-Based + Web3 + Dungeon Crawler Game
Here is what it looks like inside a Dungeon!
My Progress/Strategy So Far!
So far I have made it all the way through Aldorian dungeon and am currently on Floor 15 in BrightHollow (the 2nd city).
There are 21 floors in BrightHollow and then the next progression is to go to Druantia....
But I cheated.. thanks to @artofkylin . I was starting to withdraw 500 $Drubble each day to my Hive-Engine account. I was going to stockpile my Drubble and sell it off so that I could then swap it for Hive and purchase the $DCD each week to get the better Login Rewards. Buttt I decided to just buy the 5k Drubble pass to Druantia and spend the 2k Drubble to move cities. So I did that and now I am stockpiling my Drubble in-game from selling off items.
So now I just progress through the 1st floor of Druantia and sell off all the items and make a few thousand $Drubble each day.
The best way to earn $$ is to collect the Chests and open them and sell the items within. They are C class items which sell for a decent amount of Drubble.
What I Love So Far
The game is simple. And I don't mean that in a bad way. It is easy to start playing without knowing much. The longer you play the better your strategy becomes. You collect ingredients and craft the next Dungeon Floor Key. Rinse and Repeat.
Every action in the Dungeon requires Stamina. You automatically progress Stamina every hour. But each day you also get a 'Ember Fruit" which recovers 50% of your Stamina!
Which also means the better equipment you have which raises your baseline Stamina means the more the Ember Fruit recovers as well. You get to play a decent amount each day "for free" to make it not seem like a total time suck, but not too little where it feels like a pointless game.
Each Dungeon Key requires 3 dungeon drops you get from exploring the dungeon, all of which are sellable and this buyable from the 2nd hand market. Each key also requires 1 special item that is dropped from that Floor's Boss. Those items are NOT sellable so you can't just purely buy your way through each dungeon. You will still need to battle mobs in each level to obtain those items to progress fully. So while you can "buy your way" to the best gear and ingredients from secondary market. You can't just purely buy your way to the very top (in theory at least).
I will say as well the economy seems to be very balanced. The amount of $Drubble you earn from selling items automatically corresponds pretty well to the amount of Drubble you need to craft each Dungeon Key. You can attempt to sell your items on the secondary market for more then the game will auto buy them for, but that requires you to have a buyer which could take some time.
What I HATE So Far
Inventory Management Sucks
I do like how the equipment you have equipped, is marked with a red star so it is easy to see. However I really wish there was a way to auto filter out equipped items and auto filter out your Dungeon Keys.
I mean just look at this....
However, while writing up this article I thought to myself...
You know what TPL/Cherokee4Life... there is no way a game that I see as this polished doesn't have a simple solution for this ridiculous minor thing. And so I took 30 seconds and actually clicked on the 'Filter' button and wouldn't you know it... The game already 'fixed' this problem I have hated about it since the day I started playing...
The Artwork
I could be wrong here.. but it appears to be all AI generated. WHICH I am not saying is a bad thing. I use AI all the time for Generative AI. And Dungeon Cities has a 'bajillion' assets in game that the devs needed to create. So I get it and I support it. I just wish there was a more robust overall look for the images and artwork.
This is just a personal preference but a lot of the images seem like they generated 1 specific item and then asked AI to replace it with another object in the forefront and keep the overall background aesthetic.
Don't get me wrong. I like the artwork, I just wish it was more range of artwork/background.
Beginner Info
If you are new to Dungeon Cities and just come across a post like this and start playing.. there isn't a good in-game portal to explain more of the game or the overall 'goal' of the game. Yes, there is a tutorial, but I would love to see a more detailed / in-depth "Guide" in the menu on the left where you can get more specifics about the game or what things do.
For example, if you go to the "GuildHall" button on the main screen.
It brings you here:
And you see a button called "Devil Eye" and you have zero idea what it does. But when you click on it, it gives 'some' info:
But what does "Revel your Complete Journey" even mean? What does it actually show you? I wish it gave you a visual template of what it looked like. Because for new players.. the 100 Drubble cost is a lot for a unknown. Does it actually help you on your journey or is is purely a 'cosmetic' fun thing?
Well I already know, but I paid the 100 Drubble again to show you today:
So is it worth the 100 Drubble for new players? NOPE, but it is fun to see every once in a while just cause. I like that it costs 100 Drubble EACH TIME you view it though. It requires some 'burning' of Drubble which is good for the ecosystem, but I wish the game gave more info for things like this.
Delegate To Earn
You can delegate HP to @dungeon.cities and earn Drubble passively each day.
However, I think delegating 100 HP and only getting 5 Drubble each day is super low. I think there are going to be a lot of lower HP players getting into this games and delegating 100 HP is a lot for a lot of people and only 5 Drubble is very tiny.
But also making it like 1 Drubble per 1 HP delegated I think would break the game. So it would be cool to see something like every 7 days you get a bonus of 100 Drubble or something like that. Some way to incentive people to delegate and keep the delegation going. Or maybe a thing where if you delegate 50 HP every week you earn some sort of monthly reward or something similar.
Conclusion
I really like Dungeon Cities. I think it's a very well thought out game and like I have said before, it's simple to play but you can really give deep down a rabbit hole if you want.
If you want to play a passive Person-versus-Environment type text based Dungeon game, then Dungeon Cities is perfect for you!
Also they made a change recently where it is now FREE to start playing. You can sign in with Google and start playing the game and levelling up and just test out if you like the game or not.
If you want to start withdrawing Drubble and take full advantage of the game though the Free players, will need to purchase a "Hunter License".
Which you can read more about it here: https://peakd.com/game/@dungeon.cities/dungeon-cities--hunter-license but the short version is that is costs $6.99 in Hive to purchase.
As you can see too, all my "What I Hate" about this game are not really major things. Just personal preferences to make it better. I really do think the game is polished and fun to play!
If you want to start playing you can head to the game's URL here:
https://play.dungeoncities.com
Or if you want you can use my Referral Link here:
https://play.dungeoncities.com/login?ref=cherokee4life
Using my referral link gives you nothing. It does give me a 5% kickback on any DCD you deposit. $DCD is the in game priority currency. It is basically $1 worth of $HIVE equals 1 $DCD. You deposit HIVE and get DCD. There are some things that can only be purchased with DCD which are the elite items but that is more for experienced players!
Safe Dungeon Hunting!
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It's a pretty good game so far i agree. I do think the current thing with brighthollow being a bottle is a problem.