I find myself often scrolling through Steam games late at night to find that next hidden gem and in most cases, finding that treasure can be very difficult. However, the other night I might have stumbled upon something with major potential. Pop Up Dungeon is a turn-based, tactical RPG game where you walk through a diorama-style world where the map will build in front of you as you venture in. The characters all have a very cardboard, origami-esque look to them and feel like you are playing drawn book itself. The game is currently in beta but can be obtained simply by going to the paypal site linked on its Kickstarter page.
You run through a procedurally created dungeon that has a number of different environments from on a spaceship to a haunted mansion with enemies that match each area. The general concept is to explore the map and fight 3 battles throughout the level. Once you finished your third fight you may move on to the next level. Each battle will be fought a little different based on the characters you choose out of the 15+ roster, where you can choose to have a party made up of 1 to 5 at a time. Each character will have various roles such as support, summoner or tank and all actions made by a character will be taken via cards. As you play further you will be able to find new weapons, upgrades or cards that you can use in your arsenal.
Keep in mind, this game is very much in a pre-release phase. Many things are currently missing such as tooltips, co-op, or the creation mode. However, the base gameplay is pretty fun as is, which gives me hope that the inclusion of new features and polish can make this something to play for many hours. With so many different classes and what feels like an endless amount of levels, the groundwork for this game is in a good place. That being said, there are things that I hope do change or are added other than what has been initially promised to make this game feel more complete. Having the world built in front of you is awesome, but if there is not an enemy to battle, it can sometimes feel quite empty. I think the inclusion of events, traps or bosses after a certain amount of levels will make exploring feel much more exciting to find the various horrors around every corner.
The game is slated to release in 2019 but no official date is listed. Check out the
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