Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers takes the classic blackjack game and turns it into a head-to-head battler, filled with unique cards that can drastically change the game. Some of the more random aspects of blackjack can be frustrating. The lack of unlockable cards means the feeling of finding a new powerful card to use fades quicker than other games like it, but the fundamentals of the card game more than make up for some of its other shortcomings.
Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers
Developer: Purple Moss Collectors
Price: $15
Platforms: PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was provided a PC code for review
Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is another entry in the popular deck-building roguelike genre, designed around blackjack. While most of the blackjack rules still apply to this version, there are tons of special cards, and the game is played in a head-to-head setup, instead of against the dealer. While Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers does succeed with its unique gameplay and loop, a few small issues do hold it back.
Each run of Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers follows a similar flow. You pick a starting deck, with your options initially limited to four decks made up of the four different suit types, but expands to more chaotic and specific decks once you win a few runs. Each run is made up of a series of head-to-head blackjack matches and miscellaneous events, typically tied to adding or removing cards from your deck.
Where it shines mechanically is the actual blackjack matches you play. Your goal for each hand is to get 21, or as close as possible, without going over. Instead of betting on each hand though, you are instead trying to deplete the enemy’s health bar, with the amount of damage dealt tied to how many points you win a hand. You are provided with a ton of information, so while blackjack is fundamentally a game of chance, Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is more strategic.
You are provided with a few key pieces of information about your opponent. First, you are told what number they will stand on, so you know if they will hit or not on the next round. You can see what cards are left in your deck as well, so you can plan around what potential cards you might draw. All of this comes together to make for a more strategic game, even if it takes a few runs to really understand how to play.
As you advance, you can add new cards to your deck. Some of these cards are regular playing cards, while others are special variants. Some variants are different types of face cards and number cards. One particularly powerful face card I found added a Queen with the value of 11 to my hand, which I could choose to play at any time, making it very easy to achieve a blackjack if the first card was a face card or a 10.
Other cards have completely different and really powerful abilities. For example, one special card called “Gerald from Riviera,” clearly spoofs The Witcher, which lets you remove one card your opponent has played from the rest of the match before the card removes itself as well. Many of the special cards have references to other games, like Pokemon and Hearthstone. These powerful cards can be used to synergize together, letting you create decks with a unique flow each run.
Like other roguelikes, each run of Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers becomes an exercise in making do with whatever cards you find along the way, but you can still strategize each run. While you do eventually unlock higher difficulties that change things up a bit, in each run you will find yourself playing the same series of gamblers in blackjack. These gamblers all use the same decks and strategies, so you can play ahead for some of the more powerful opponents. You also get to choose your path in many cases, so this knowledge will let you dodge certain gamblers if you feel like you don’t currently have the right cards to counter them.
While you do have a ton of influence over how each of your runs go, blackjack is still fundamentally a game of chance, and sometimes luck isn’t on your side. Plenty of good runs were defeated by an opponent who couldn’t stop hitting blackjacks while I was unable to get a good hand together myself. While it’s important for the game to still have some luck involved, there were a few cases where a great run was stopped short, and it does feel a bit frustrating.
While the game itself is quite fun, it is lacking a bit in two places. First is unlockables, which there aren’t outside of new decks. You do unlock new difficulties as well, but there aren’t new special cards to unlock. Instead, every card is in the pool to start with, so you will quickly stop seeing new cards, taking away some of the discovery that can happen each run.
The second place is the presentation. Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers takes place entirely on a blackjack table inspired menu, with the game played on that same table. Events also occur on the same looking menu, which changes slightly depending on which floor of the casino you are on. All of your opponents are shown in a small portrait as well. The simplistic design of both the gamblers and each floor of the casino means that advancing to a new area or finding a new opponent to battle doesn’t feel like much of a discovery, even with some of the more out there characters you will play blackjack with. The single card table background certainly captures the feeling of being at the same blackjack table for too long, but I’m not sure that feeling adds to the enjoyment of the game.
Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers has many of the characteristics of an excellent deckbuilder roguelike. It has a large variety of cards, which vary wildly in power and impact of each round, that you can assemble as you move through the casino. The game makes plenty of smart changes to blackjack and offers tons of information to add more strategy to the game. It does lack unlockable cards however, causing the game to quickly lose the magic of finding new cards, but it’s still a fun experience overall.
The Final Word
Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers is a fun take on blackjack and roguelike deck builders, using unique cards and rules to make blackjack a slightly more strategic game. It doesn’t have the most engaging visual style and doesn’t have the same extended sense of discovery other games in the genre have, but each run is unique enough to make you say “one more run” a few times.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
