"Once upon a Dungeon" is a mobile app that's been dumped on Steam as if it was a real PC game (it's not)... it's a cash grab from greedy mobile devs. The game is an unabashed ripoff of the open source Hack/Rogue games with a badly done retro pixel/MSPaint tileset. Gameplay is nearly identical to Hack/Rogue but with a dumbed down interface and shallower gameplay to accomodate the mobile phone gamer peasants this game was designed and intended for.
From a technical perspective, as a mobile app, this doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
The artwork here is terrible, it's a blend of old retro pixel "art" used as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics, and some of the most amateurish MS-Paint style drawings I've ever hurt my eyes on. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget to arrange someone who can do graphics properly, or lack of talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result of these decisions.
While there are options to change the resolution for the mobile app, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the mobile app, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals.
The mobile app features no proper level design or game/story flow/plot, as they opted to try to use samey repetitive procgen algorithms as a substitute for adding such content to the mobile app, to avoid doing the important job of level/map design. As a result, the mobile app doesn't actually have any content worth mentioning, just endless, boring, repetitive, soulless algorithmically generated sameyness. Developers must learn that procedural generation is not an acceptable substitute for content. I know the point is that it's a Hack/Rogue ripoff, but the industry moved on long ago when it became technically feasible for grand storytelling through video gaming.
Because this is a mobile app, it carries a number of deliberate design deficiencies. Compromises were made to cater to the iPhones that the mobile app was designed for. These are unfortunate handicaps and limitations that PC gamers shouldn't be forced to accept, but it's evident that PC was an afterthought for the iPhone developers who are to blame for this. The mobile app is deficient as a result of these choices, and would have been so much better without the handicaps that designing games for mobile phones forces upon a game. Once more, mobile devs have made gaming worse for everyone. I didn't spend thousands on building a gaming rig just so I could pretend it's an iPhone.
These technical defects push this mobile app below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this mobile app is reflected by how many people spent time with it. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the all-time peak player number was only 8 players. This is a remarkably low number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam and well over 50,000 games for gamers to choose from (over 9,000 completely free titles), the overwhelming lack of interest in this low quality mobile app is to be expected.
Once more we see greedy mobile devs trying to scam PC gamers. On Steam, this is $5 USD, on app stores, it's free. Mobile devs must learn PC gamers are not here to be gouged, and can't be expected to pay FIVE BUCKS FOR A FREE MOBILE APP just because it's been lazily dumped on Steam. This is unacceptable disrespect for PC gamers. Because this can be played free elsewhere, and because of the other defects, it's impossible to recommend. This costs more than you can get Dragon Age for. Who do they think we are?
