Dungeon Tycoon

Imagine standing in front of one of those thousand flavor soda machines, trying to decide what to get. Strawberry-kiwi lemonade? Ginger ale & spiced plum? Cherry rootbeer? And then, out of the corner of your eye, you see a child dumping a little bit of every flavor syrup in a huge cup. "That's going to taste like cough medicine", you wince. That's where this game falls. "Dungeon Tycoon" is an unusual mix of builder and process optimizer. You are in charge of constructing a dungeon to recruit heroes, heroes which will destroy your monsters and loot your treasure chests. Letting heroes escape, full of treasure and experience, makes for better reviews, but slaughtering them for souls is the path for upgrades. It's an interesting balance that almost evokes "Evil Genius" from 2004 - make your base too evil and nobody will come to thwart you. The balance of adding new rooms and discovering compatible monster balances is a tight line to walk, and the first two-thirds of the game feel vibrant. That's the sense of wonder described with the hypothetical soda machine. To continue with the metaphor, the research tree is clunky (coconut), the boss pathing lets them wander outside of their established rooms (bubblegum), the unlockable items are disturbingly narrow in their use (freshly cut grass), certain room SIZES are restricted by research (jalapeno), the master spells are only marginally useful if you want to grind for certain goals (spiced tobacco), and the entire quest cycle is full of arbitrary X number goals with far-too-useless cosmetics as rewards (mint chocolate chip). Any of those "flavors" by themselves might be tolerable with a creative application, but put them together, and you get cough medicine. Steam needs a "Meh" button. I'm giving the game a thumbs up because the early part of the game IS an interesting builder puzzle on a foundation of good ideas. And that I got it on a deep discount during a Steam sale. Would I play it again? Maybe in the future; I still like the concept. Would I actively seek it out as a priority to buy, especially at full price? Heavens no.