Pop Up Dungeon is a parody to board game style RPG games. The game creators went a great way to cover all aspects of this board game genre and ridicule it like crazy.

First of the game artists did really go for it to give the player the feeling they're sitting at a table, hence the wooden underground of the shot above. The walls are "paper thin"... LITERALLY! This to parody how the walls in the real board games are just like that. This also comes with a die box in which you occasionally have to cast a d20 in order to win or lose certain challenges offered in the game. The player objects are really looking like they are made of cardboxes, and the enemies are just a plastic foodpiece with a card depicting the enemy on it, and to make it (deliberately) ultra-bad, those are onto printed on one side.

Now I also like the game's main menu

It looks like an (expensive luxury) chest and it it are the cubes depicting the heroes you can pick. Now I must add that since this game is a parody you won't only find the classic clases in the box but also a modern GI, a guy who minds me of Morphius (The Matrix) and there's even a computer guy. I haven't yet tried them all, though.

Now in the real board games you play with 3 players or more against one player called the Dungeon Master, since you play alone now, the computer takes the role of the Dungeon Master (often called the "DM"). The scenarios take place on a kind of "reel" in which you move on, and when the scenario leads to a fight you'll be lead into the board game were it all takes place. The idea is to be as close to the board games as possible. The scenarios are all kind of short games which you play on their own, and for RPG standards all pretty short, but basically you have a big set of many mini-games.

Just to match the real counter part of these kinds of games you must imagine that each campaign is a game on its own, so bonuses of earlier campaigns do basically not carry over to the next.

Now as most DMs you may meet at the real board games do normally not really take great effort to come up with a great story, you shouldn't expect that here either. As a result the game is full of jokes and references that really don't match the theme, but you gotta imagine, real life DMs are mostly not that much better.

This "Untombed Raider", which is a clear parody to Lara Croft (from the game "Tomb Raider") is just one of the many references you'll find in the game. The game is also not above anachronisms (which was already clear in the box where the hero cubes are stored).

Now what I also like are the remarks by the heroes. For example if you have Claire (the cleric) in your group and you found a bonus that suits her best she may say: "Let's honor the dead, by using their gear". Very nice excuse looting dead bodies, eh? Or the necromancer saying "Welcome to the first day of your DEATH!" or "I've got a bone to pick" and so on. I also like who the computer character doesn't like to play TicTacToe (in older days a kind of game played a lot against the computer).

When it comes to the d20 challenges (that's how we role players call a 20 sided die), I like how the box is given form, and yes, just like in the real games it is possible to throw the die too hard making it roll out of the box (it will still count, though). Why a d20? Well because the d20 is a very traditional die in the real role play games used for most kind of die rolls, that's why.

Now let's discuss combat, shall we? Whenever you see "Start Level" under a scenario you know you gotta fight.

Since this game has to resemble board games it MUST be 100% turn based and that it is, and also based on many squares between you can move (although some board games use hexagons for this... details). Now since this is based on board games, the combat rules are also based on how board games work, and since board games have some limitations (due to the lack of complicated algorithms that take care of a lot of math) this game had therefore to come with a minimalistic kind of combat rules. And yes, just like a REAL board games, all you can do is decided by cards. Now it may take awhile to actually get used to the controls, but luckily there is an entire tutorial campaign in which all battles are very very easy, this to make you get the hang of how the rules work. The only way to learn to play a game like this is by playing the easiest campaigns imaginable. The tutorials just fit the bill.

Now you can look into all the character sheets of the enemy, as well as the cards they have to make your life miserable. Now I must note, and this is a real downside in the game. I consider myself a very experienced RPG player, so me being able to beat the game without too much trouble can be seen a nice measurement point if the difficulty is up to par, also for beginners, and here I found big differences. Some fights are really too easy, but can easily lead to fights that are impossible to win. Since this is based on board games, you don't really have "grinding" possibilities like in regular RPGs so that can really suck, and sometimes make me wonder if they had the beginner, the average player or the no life game in mind when setting up certain difficulty settings. Now I must note that you can add modes at the start of a campaign, and some of these modes can make the game much easier or harder, and this can really make the game adjustable to the kind of player you are... The player just wanting to enjoy the humor or a player who really seeks to be challenged.

When it comes to after combat bonus, well, here you also have limitations just like in a real board game. Although there are many board games that allow collecting stuff, this game has a limitation to equipment only, and you must sell all that is not equipped. The game does show exactly what will happen when somebody equips an item, and gives pretty good advice. You can just double click to follow the advice, or drag the card to the character if you have a different opinion.

The difficulty of some fights compared to other fights in the same campaign, that's the downside of this game, although some campaigns suffer less than others from this phenomenon. Other than that the game does what it's set out to do. If you like RPG board games and if you have a good sense of humor, this might be the game for you.

One thing must also be made clear. Pop-Up dungeon comes with a complete editor that allows you set set up your own Pop-Up Dungeon games. This comes with a complete node-link-style kind of programming language.

Please note, Pop-Up Dungeon's game editor is NOT a full-featured game development tool and should also NOT be viewed as such. I need to stress this point out as I read some reviews on Steam by some misguided souls about this who seemed to be expecting this. Pop-Up Dungeon is only a digital version of RPG board games, and like the real physical counterpart you are therefore bound by the rules and limitations a boxed game has. And then I must say that Pop-Up dungeon already allows more than a real board game allows you to do, to be frank. I did try to set up a "game" with this, and within a short while you can set something simple up, and if you are really good, you can still come up with something enjoyable.

One more note the "games" you create will become 'property' of the PUD crew. Since this is only a simple development system (like a level editor for a puzzle game for example) this was to be expected. Also access to the game can be revoked and I did read some complaints about that, but in the defense of the crew behind this game, I can only say, they HAD to do this, because of the development tool. It's quite easy to add content to your own games and thus also violate existing copyrights in the process, and as a result they had to put in these safeguards in order from the game itself being banned by copyright holders.

The obligation github recently had to remove the tool youtube-dl shows that the copyright abusers are serious about their quest to purge the internet from upcoming talent and have unfortunately the law at their side. This way Pop-Up Dungeon could protect itself against these (unfortunately legal) criminal offenses.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/349730/Popup_Dungeon/

Brought to you by: Humble Games

NOTE! There is no free version of this game. I got a licensed copy as this game interested me from the start. 😒

OFF-TOPIC NOTE! By the way! Merry Christmas everybody!