Dungeons of Kong (Turn-based RPG)

Dungeons of Kong

After a long hiatus, nerdook is back (for details, read the 'Dev Notes' in the game) with a new game. Dungeons of Kong is a short turn-based RPG where a party of adventurers explore a randomly-generated dungeon to take down an Ancient Evil somewhere at the bottom of that dungeon.

I wonder if 'Nerdook' has any relation to 'nerdook'.

At the start, the player creates a party of adventurers. The first adventurer may be customized while the other two slots have to be filled with preset characters named after certain familiar people. After that, the party is sent into the dungeon.

Exploring a level.

In the dungeon, exploration is conducted by clicking on blank tiles to uncover new areas. New areas may contain an encounter, which will be marked with a monstrous skull. An encounter will block further exploration in that direction.

An event.

While exploring, random events may also be uncovered. These events generally come with two or three actions that the party may choose. The consequence of the chosen action may help or inflict damage on the party. And damage received is a great deal in the game since, depending on the setup of the party, healing may not be easy to come by.

Level introduction.

Each level has a special boss encounter. At the start of the level, there will be an introduction to explain the encounter so the player knows roughly what to expect. Conveniently, the title of the level is shown at the bottom of the screen.

Battle.

Battles are turn-based, where each character takes turns to act. Each character may take two actions each turn. However, most baddies may only attack once per turn (party members may use both actions for attacks).

The party members are developed with gold. When the party uses the exit of each level, there will be an opportunity to spend gold to level characters or purchase equipment. Gold is accumulated through events and by defeating enemies. Sometimes, during battles, there may be treasure chests containing gold. These chests have to be looted before the battle ends. The player has to decide whether it is worth the risk to prolong the battle and receive more damage in order to loot those chest.

The weapon the character uses determines the weapons available for purchase. For example, there is an expensive mace, which may heal all characters once per battle, but is only available to mace-wielding characters.

The player has also to consider the Threat level. The longer the party adventures, the higher the Threat level grows. When it reaches the maximum, the Ancient Evil will awaken and will come pay the party a visit. Each of these visits presumably strengthens the Ancient Evil in the final battle. Thus the player has to decide whether to go straight for the exit to get to the Ancient Evil or search around the level for more gold to develop the party.

There is an option at the start to enable tutorial, which will explain clearly all the game mechanics. What the tutorial does not tell is that the Easy Difficulty level should be completed first. The other Difficulty levels do not matter as much but the Easy Difficulty should be completed at least once.

Dungeons of Kong is a simple turn-based RPG. The dungeons are randomly generated so there is some replayability there. Random events and different level boss encounters help keep the game interesting. The game is short, which is good since it is not possible to save during an adventure.