Tartrazine ,

Do you like dice-ing your way around a board to victory? Then this will hook you, at least for the few hours it will take to beat it. Here's why it only gets 3 stars:

- There's no tutorial. Basic mechanics (re-rolls cost 100 gold, the first board is a hub world, poison, whether you lose progress when you leave an area, etc.) are not explained.



- The developer posted on a forum telling players to check the company's Facebook to find out how dangerous various areas are. Why not just TELL the player how dangerous the area is when you ask if he wants to enter it? (Start with the Mermaid area, NOT the Lake Town that you'll run across first)



- There are interesting story quests (with nice art), but character improvement is mostly limited to increasing your health and attack bonus. All the interesting, situational bonuses are character-specific. And most of the characters have to be purchased with real money.



- I've reached the penultimate area, and the game has become a real slog. The Dragon Cave's events can do up to 3 damage at once, and even some of the "good" results reduce your health. You can't choose to save your expensive swords for boss fights, so you have to spend extra money to fly straight to them. When you return to the main area to lick your wounds and grind gold, a super monster jumps around the board and damages your castle, requiring expensive repairs.