Welcome to the Drawngeon

Life went on as usual in the Inkland… until the Tower fell straight from the sky! Many heroes tried to solve its mystery, but none of them succeeded. It’s your turn to prove your worth. If you dare… You start Drawngeon off by picking a class. You can choose between the standard classes, like warrior, magician, or rogue – each with their strength and abilities. Loot and buy items, fight with various weapons, create and cast powerful spells. It offers all the ingredients of an excellent old role-playing game are there, but with a real-time combat based on grid movement – like on a piece of paper! Combine this with the hand-drawn graphics, and you will emerge into a dark and old-school heroic fantasy setting. Just like during one of your D&D nights with your friends, but now on the Nintendo Switch.

Shorts bursts of RPG madness

On the basis, Drawngeon is an RPG adventure that can also be played in short gameplay sessions, thanks to the procedural generation of dungeons, caves, forests, and items you will find as you progress and develop your character.  Note here is that the game features a permadeath system, so when your character dies during combat, it’s game over, back to the drawing board. Since Drawngeon does not offer a real tutorial of the sorts, it took some getting used to the mechanics of the game. I died a few times with the rogue and tried to switch it up to the magician. This was a much better fit for the beginning players since the magician can learn healing skills. These prove useful during the exploration of the more ‘bigger’ dungeons since there is not a quick way out of them.

D&D-feels

When you get the hang of the flow of the game, it’s still a challenge to stay alive. The combat system is basically like you expect in a D&D-type of game. You attack creature attacks. To avoid being damaged, move back, or sideways. Then it’s time to retaliate! Finish the character off to gain some experience points, a crazy item of sorts, and then level up in the center of the town. This way, the game takes you more in-depth than the standard ‘drawn-to-life’ game since it builds character (yes, your character). In a game of D&D, you can gain personally traits, equipment, etc.; in Drawngeon, you learn skills, have some fun conversations about cats and spiders, but I felt a connection with my hand-drawn wizard (which I named Voldie in my head). No, it does not offer the type of gameplay in Baldurs Gate or Knights of Pen & Paper – but for five bucks, it’s not a bad buy – on the contrary. I’ll add a trailer, so you get a feeling of what I’m talking about.

Conclusion

To conclude: Drawngeon is not a unique game, but it’s beautiful in its niche way. It’s beautifully drawn (for someone who sucks at drawing). No, it’s not Borderlands material – but the art style fits the genre and game. If you like roguelike dungeon crawlers with a D&D-twist, you are in for a treat. But like I said, if you want more character development – look for Baldurs Gate or Knights of Pen & Paper.

7/10

Tested on the Nintendo Switch.