{"id":15268,"date":"2016-08-08T00:01:34","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T00:01:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=15268"},"modified":"2016-07-13T02:00:08","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T02:00:08","slug":"dungeonballs-ios-android","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2016\/08\/08\/dungeonballs-ios-android\/","title":{"rendered":"DungeonBalls (iOS, Android)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DUNGEON_BOX\"<\/a>So I\u2019ve played games that combine dungeon crawling with trivia games, Minesweeper, and lots of other crazy pairings.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve never played one that combines dungeons with\u2026pachinko?\u00a0 Pachinko is a kind of arcade machine where you drop balls that fall and bounce around pegs and you hope that they land in certain spots at the bottom.\u00a0 It\u2019s very popular in Japan.\u00a0 Anyway, so in Dungeonballs you play as a group of anime styled characters who must venture into dungeons to battle monsters and earn money to rebuild their house that got burned down for some reason.\u00a0 It\u2019s available to download on iOS and Android devices, but reviewed on iPad here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each level in the dungeon is a single screen room, and you can take up to four characters with you.\u00a0 You\u2019ll meet more characters as you progress.\u00a0 Tap anywhere on the screen, and balls will be tossed in that direction, and the balls with have pictures of whatever characters\u2019 face you\u2019ve choses.\u00a0 Use the balls to hit enemies and defeat them, open doors, flip switches, and open treasure chests.\u00a0 If you fall off at the bottom, or get hit by enemies or traps, you\u2019ll lose hit points.\u00a0 Lose them all and you\u2019ll have to start the level room over again.\u00a0 In MOST rooms, you must defeat all the enemies to pass it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Each character has his or her own special skills.\u00a0 Tap on the character at the bottom of the screen to change the balls to have their face on them.\u00a0 You can only take four characters, so choose wisely and look carefully at the room preview before you start the level.\u00a0 There is a carpenter character who can fill holes with wood when she rolls over them.\u00a0 Another character can freeze fire traps, and another can burn wooden obstacles.\u00a0 Others can open gates and treasures faster, defeat enemies quicker, or bypass spikes.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Every level has missions that will earn you a star when completed.\u00a0 Sometimes you may have to finish the level quickly, collect the stars in a room, finish without losing a certain amount of HP, and more.\u00a0 You\u2019ll want to gather as many stars as you can, because that\u2019s how you unlock new areas.\u00a0 Earn coins from defeating enemies and finding treasure.\u00a0 When you have enough coins, you can upgrade your house and level up your characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

While the game is unique, it does have a few problems.\u00a0 Since you don\u2019t have precise control over where your balls go, it can get a little frustrating sometimes.\u00a0 Also, you have to collect a lot of stars to unlock the next world, and may have to go back and replay older stages more often that you\u2019d like to get them.\u00a0 And while there is text that explains how to play, it\u2019s so poorly translated that some things can be a little hard to figure out.\u00a0 You just have to play a while to get the hang of it.\u00a0 But other than that, the game is pretty unique and has some cute character designs, so you may want to check it out anyway if you like those things.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"DUNGEON_SCREEN\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing too violent here.\u00a0 You just hit cartoony enemy monsters with balls and they disappear when defeated.\u00a0 Some of the characters\u2019 outfits are slightly revealing, but it\u2019s all done in that campy anime style.\u00a0 Reading skill is needed for the text, but may not be very helpful as it is poorly translated.\u00a0 Some younger gamers may get frustrated with the challenge and lack of precise play control.\u00a0 But it\u2019s still a fairly likable game once you figure things out.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I\u2019ve played games that combine dungeon crawling with trivia games, Minesweeper, and lots of other crazy pairings.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve never played one that combines dungeons with\u2026pachinko?\u00a0 Pachinko is a kind of arcade machine where you drop balls that fall and bounce around pegs and you hope that they land in certain spots at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15268"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15270,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15268\/revisions\/15270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}