Sproggiwood

Hello!

 This game has been on my Steam wishlist for some time now and last week it was finally on proper sale. I bought it immediately and all I have to say is that I am not disappointed.

So Sproggiwood is a turn-based, rogue-like game. You go from dungeon to dungeon with your cute Cloghead companion and do quests for the Sproggi who has made you his minion. I like the humor in the game and overall the dialogue makes me smile. After finishing the tutorial you may enter your first dungeon or you could decorate your town as well. The decoration option doesn't let you be that creative but it does have its share of features from adding trees and rocks to adding buildings. So far I haven't found out if having your town decorated has an effect on anything, but I hardly think so.

 The game obviously has some Finnish spirit in it and one hint of it is the main setting. The game is supposedly based on Finnish mythology but let me say that so far I haven't had any hints of it... Perhaps I'm poorly educated on the matter but I don't see it. There are other hints of the Finnish subtlety as well which can be seen in item and location names. The first dungeon named Ickykolo, icky hole. The second location, Goaturku, basically combining two real life cities - one from India and *hehehe* my hometown in Finland. I also found an accessory in the dungeons names Tuuri - Luck. If I remember correctly the accessory allows you to reroll an item once each. Didn't try it out but could be useful. Anyways, to my surprise the game company isn't even Finnish but has a Finnish artist in the three-member team.

 Every dungeon has its own objectives which involve clearing the dungeon with different classes and harder difficulties. The first class you have is the farmer. To be honest this class is quite hopeless. By leveling up you get better skills but the only useful one (I think) is only unlocked once you reach level 3 of the Pitchfork skill, which takes around six times of leveling up. It allows you to poke enemies in every direction which is quite useful when you're all surrounded. I haven't been able to see the other skills yet, but hopefully they're a bit better. When you start playing the warrior class, you get a similar skill which allows you to attack in every direction the first time you level up which gives the class a clear advantage over the farmer class. The third class I recently unlocked is the archer and this class is sweet as hell. Your base attack is using the dagger but once you level up which is quite quickly, you get access to the crossbow. Now you can attack enemies without even letting them touch you. The other classes include the thief, vampire and wizard. It'll take some time before I unlock those since I feel like I'm shit at this game. I'm playing on normal but the game is quite challenging nevertheless.

Even though your level and skills restore after every dungeon you may use the store to enhance your gaming experience, for instance by speeding up the leveling process or increasing the hit points of your characters. On top of that all the loot you find in dungeons next appear in the store, so you may buy equipment and consumables for your character to have a better chance at survival. This is especially important considering your farmer since in the beginning of every dungeon the class is quite useless like I mentioned earlier.

 The game is turn-based so an important feature in the dungeons includes skipping turns. Your character stays put while everything else in your vision moves. I play on keyboard and I must say that I get a bit hasty at times and instead of moving or attacking an enemy I accidentally skip a turn, and that may put me in a tough situation at times. That's my problem in this game really - I'm too careless and end up dead because of a stupid mistake. At times I should clearly take the time to make a strategy but noooo, let's kill everything without stopping and checking our own hit points and poof, we're dead. I need to change my play style soon since the dungeons are getting more and more difficult.

If you like rogue-like games I strongly recommend this game. Even if you're new to the genre this might well be the game to get you hooked on rogue-like. On top of that, you simply can't ignore the cuteness that overflows from Sproggiwood!