[Game Review] Soda Dungeon (Steam Ver.)

A weak adventurer found that Soda can make people fight for him. And so the quest for Glory and Profit begins!!

Soda Dungeon

Soda Dungeon takes an interesting concept of adventurers gathering drinking at taverns, and make you attract them with "Soda" You have a business relationship with the tavern owner, you invest in his tavern and make it better, so more people (adventurers) come and you can hire them.

The game is available for free on steam, with in-game purchases:

Get The Game

The game is mobile first game.

Gameplay

The game is divided between managing teams and exploring the dungeon, With things in between (coliseum and pets). In the tavern you can invest in new flavors of soda, decorate the tavern to make it more comfortable, everything you do can make your party stronger.

Every team will fight for one way to the dungeon and make a new team afterwards.

The Battle System

Each day some people come and you'd be able to hire them. And they'll fight in the dungeon until their HP reaches zero, and they'll run away. (Wow, talk about chivalry) and leave their earnings behind.

The battle system is traditional RPGs but simplified, every turn you choose an action for character. The stats are also simplified, there's no defense in this game (defensive items increases HP) and it seems the prayer party turns are decided by their requirements order.

There's also Auto button that makes your characters play by themselves, which can make this game play like idle-game.

The layout seems designed to be mobile-friendly and it works great with PC mouse. I like how everything is organized neatly to work with touch screen, but still gives you retro feel of the 16-bit consoles.

Payment Scheme

While the game is totally free, it offer in-app purchases... Most of things (if not all of them) can be obtained through normal play. Like the three premium adventurers (the owner, the wizard and the gladiator) you can obtain them with an item called 'Essence' but it can't be obtainable in the first dimension...

This can make the game easier to win if money is used, But I don't consider it "pay-to-win" game. Especially since it's not a multiplayer game.

Huge Replayability

The game is a lot of fun in the first few hours, and it's exciting to see what would be in the next level... There are more than 100 levels in the first "world" alone, and depending on your play speed it can take you hours to complete them. This game can turn addictive and you can make you waste infinite amount of time & money which isn't really good for a single player game but can tell you how 'compelling' it is designed.

But for some people this game can get boring fast... After some time, it would feel repetitive. And while the monsters design s is so varied their actions aren't (which is typical RPG thing).

Once I completed level 100... Which I reached faster than I thought (less than 5 hours)... A new dimension opened and it seems there are many more of them. Once you travel to the next world, all your money and most of your items will reset, leaving you with only tavern upgrades and the permanent rewards that you'd get between the worlds.

The only criticism about the visual design of the game is that all the characters have the same base sprite... Even women seems like they're based on the male sprite in this game. It could've been a lot varied with some tweaking by the pixel artist.

Recommendation

I recommend it for people who like the concepts "People fighting monsters for cans of Soda."

I recommend this game to people who like games with retro-feel, or the simple RPG system. For people who like finding new foes and who carve for replayabilty. Another game I'd like to recommend for these people is Half-Minute Hero that I reviewed few months ago.

But I don't recommend it for people who want depth or twists, or those who hate grinding.

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Since the game is free I suggest you give it a try!!

By the time I wrote this review, I have not reached the end of dimension/world two. But I believe what I've seen that all the dimension offer more of the same things.

This is my take after playing the game for 6 hours, what do you think?

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Title is taken from google. All other images are screenshots from the game, taken by me.