MONOLISK (Free), if you haven’t read our previous articles on it, is a neat hybrid between a dungeon builder and a dungeon crawler. Players collect cards, gear a variety of adventurers, explore other players’ creations, and build dungeons of their own. It’s an interesting idea I haven’t seen implemented in quite this way before, and I rather like it. Unfortunately, a good idea does not always mean a good game. The progression system is flawed, and there are remarkably few tools to help players create the game’s lifeblood: Original content. While it looks promising, and I had high hopes going in, I left disappointed and hoping for major improvements.
Coming into the game for the first time, most players will likely choose to immediately go spelunking, pushing the urge to build a dungeon of their own off until later. That’s entirely understandable. I did it myself, in fact, and was sorely disappointed with what I found. The early adventures were small dungeons, dubiously designed. They were interesting to explore as a first foray into a new game, and borderline boring to play; although that’s not terribly surprising since most loot-based games aren’t particularly interesting early. The problem, though, is that MONOLISK takes quite a while to become interesting. Part of that is due to the player content itself, the other part is due to progression (which we’ll talk about later). Players creating dungeons is a wonderful idea...