First Impressions of Dungeon Inn

Dungeon Inn is an early-access strategy simulation game. You are the owner of an Inn near the entrance to a dungeon. Two rival guilds of adventurers are trying to explore the dungeon, and they stay at your Inn.

The goal is to separate the two guilds, so they don’t fight in front of the inn. It is a very cool idea! I love games like this, and I’m looking forward to what this game has to offer.

I heard about this game from a YouTuber I follow. I have an idea of what I’m getting into, and it sounds like a game I would enjoy. Let’s see what it has to offer.

TLDR: A Very Charming Game that can be Challenging at Times.

Narrative

I like the story, but it isn’t finished. Where I’m currently at, it ends on a cliffhanger. Once the game is finished, I think it will be pretty good.

I’m not sure the whole story is set up from the start. The opening cutscene explains that Sara, Bami, and Butter end up in a Dragon’s lair and sign a contract with him to run an inn that caters to the two rival guilds in this world. Every month, you have to pay the Dragon.

You will be joined by May after a month. She is working with a mysterious group that hasn’t been revealed yet. I like her.

Here is a quick list of the characters:

• Dragon – He is your landlord.
• Sara – She is our main character, and she is obsessed with money.
• Butter – He is a cat person who is very laid back and doesn’t seem worried about what is going on.
• Bami – Another cat person. He is high-strung and very worried about what is happening.
• May – She is a little mysterious but ultimately wants to help the rest of the group. She has a connection with some strange group that hasn’t been revealed yet.
• A detective shows up near the end of the game. He is suspicious of the inn, but the game ends before we discover what happens.

There are goals and challenges you’ll get for each week. They do sometimes impact the story, but I’ll get more into it when I go over the gameplay. The goals drive the story, but the challenges don’t always impact what is happening.

It will be interesting to see where the game goes from here. I like the story so far; it is set up to be very good going forward. When I hit the to be continued screen, I was a little disappointed even though I understood why it was there.

Gameplay

I found it a little difficult to describe the game. Dungeon Inn is like a tycoon game but has some strategy. It is a combination of a few genres, such as strategy, tycoon games, and simulation.

You’re not really managing the Inn, but you can improve it. You’re mostly controlling the flow of people coming to the Inn, and making sure the two rival guilds don’t fight outside. If they do fight, you can rig it so one side wins.

By not taking a side in the fight, you raise the suspicion of one of the guilds. I’m not sure what would happen if you let the meter max out, but I guess it would cause a reset. I was easily able to keep the two guilds from suspecting something was wrong.

There are two guilds and two cities in the game. We don’t know why they hate each other, and it isn’t all that important. Each guild has a road that leads past your inn. If they meet at your inn, then a fight breaks out.

To avoid a fight, your characters can use abilities, or you can use one of the temporary buildings to slow down or speed up the adventurers. Some fights are unavoidable, which is where taking sides comes in.

This is a turn-based game. You set yourself up to either delay or attract adventurers to your guild each turn. There are four turns in a day and five days in a week. At the end of a week, you can see how you did, or you can start over to complete the goals. At the end of four weeks, you meet with the Dragon, give him the money you made, and collect your rewards.

The inn can be upgraded at the end of the month. This is where you use the rewards you receive during the month. These come in the form of three tokens:

• Seaside – A blue token you get from the Seaside Guild
• Mountain – A green token you get from the Mountain Guild
• Dragon – A golden token you get from the Dragon

A combination of these tokens can buy more rooms in the inn or upgrade existing rooms. The inn is divided into two parts, so the guilds don’t know if the other is staying there. These rooms have different names but are the same for each side of the inn. Here is a list:

• Café
• Dormitory
• Pub
• Standing Room
• Premium Room
• Training Room
• Restaurant
• Snack Bar
• Noodle Shop
• General Store

These rooms will generate additional income for the inn. This is handy as you have a quote to meet each week. This is one of the parts of the game that doesn’t feel as rewarding as it could. I like the different rooms, but building and upgrading them doesn’t feel as fun. As I keep playing this game, I’m sure this will grow on me.

Overall, I like the gameplay a lot. It is relaxing and not too stressful, even when you have to manage a large number of adventurers. The number is kept to a minimum. At most, I only had to deal with a maximum of 8 adventurers on each side.

Visuals

Dungeon Inn is a bright and cheering game. The art style looks like a Saturday morning cartoon from the 2000s. The sprites are a little small but aren’t too hard to make out as they’re color-coded.

Your inn is at the bottom of the screen, and adventurers come down one of two roads from the towns. There are three types of adventures, but they can look different based on race and class. Here are the three adventurers:

• Novice – Grey
• Expert – Blue
• Master – Purple

You can easily see the path these adventures take. It is easy to see how far they travel each turn, and you can see how to avoid a battle. It works quite well.

The adventures are great looking. There is a wide variety of animal people as well as humans. I think there are also rock people, which is terrific. It makes the game look more like a cartoon, and I love it.

The battle scenes look good. There is no real gameplay in them, but they look very good. It also gives you a closer look at the world’s people.

The cutscenes look nice. They do a decent job of advancing the plot. I wish there were more of them.

I thought the art was a little generic when I first started playing. It looked like a bunch of indie games I’ve played before. As I kept playing, I found myself smiling at the characters. There is a charm to this game that makes me enjoy the art more as I play the game.

N/A. This game is still in early access, so I won’t be giving it a score now. It is a very fun game, and I’m looking forward to what the developers will do with it.

Pros

• Easy to Play
• Good Story so far
• Good Graphics

Cons

• It’s in early access

Conclusion

Dungeon Inn is a cozy and relaxing game. There is a charm to it that made me smile while I was playing. It can also be goofy when it needs to be. I mean, two of the main characters are cats; how can you be mad at it?

The story ends on a cliffhanger due to it being in early access. It isn’t finished yet, so I didn’t want to give the game a score. What I did play has been very good!

I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes. There are a lot of possibilities for the story we left off with and the shenanigans that take place each week. It would also be nice to know how long our main characters have to pay the Dragon.

If you like this post, please check out my other reviews, such as Scarlet Hollow and Varney Lake.