The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos

While I wouldn't call myself a fan exactly, I do own the first 9 volumes of Le Donjon de Naheulbeuk, a graphic novel based on a French audio podcast. It is a humoristic story about 7 very stereotypical adventurers in a dungeon, behaving as if they were played by a typical murder hobo pen & paper RPG group. The humor isn't for everybody, but if you play pen & paper RPGs in France or Belgium, you might come across frequent references to it. The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos is a computer RPG based on this, and as many of the jokes are directly lifted from the source material, the humor still isn't for everybody. But the game is surprisingly good!

Your party consists of the original 7 adventurers: Ranger, Elf, Dwarf, Thief, Barbarian, Ogre, and Wizardess, plus an 8th character, which you can choose between Paladin, Bard, and Priestess. As healing is quite important in this game, and the Paladin only tanks and doesn't heal, I took the Priestess. The adventurers are exploring the multi-level dungeon, frequently coming back to places they have already been, but now able to open doors that were previously closed.

The real highlight of the game is the turn-based tactical combat. There are no random encounters, only set piece fights, but they are all quite nicely balanced. You can set up your group in a deployment zone at the start, initiative is determined by your stats, and every character can do two actions every turn, like move and attack. Right from the start there is a nice variety between attacks, healing, and support abilities, and characters support each other when standing next to each other, making tactical placement quite important. There is an interesting system of critical failures, which power a bar you can use to trigger some divine intervention. Combat never feels trivial or unfair, which is quite an achievement. And as you level up, you get more active and passive skills, as well as stat boosts.

I also like the business model of this game: The base game costs a very reasonable €25. And if that isn't enough for you, you can get more of the same in the form of €10 DLCs. I don't think I'll need the season pass for 3 DLCs, as the 2nd and 3rd aren't out yet, and there is no apparent saving by buying them in advance. Fans can also get additional artwork and soundtrack.

The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos is not an epic game, and doesn't take itself too seriously. If you are okay with that, I would recommend it as a fun tactical RPG.