Earlier today we took a look at the Dungeon Saga cover art, and how it informed the fantastic art style that is carried across all of the game components.

This painterly illustration really sets the tone for our heroes wading through the hordes of Undead, battling against Mortibris and the other villains in the halls of Dolgarth.

To facilitate this in game, we’ve really tried to think about we best help the player on their quest, whilst maintaining a fantasy house style.

For example, every character in Dungeon Saga has a quick reference hero card or boss card, detailing their stats, special rules and other abilities. These form a central reference point for players:

Similarly, each Overlord player (i.e. the Necromancer in The Dwarf King’s Quest) also get a reference panel, which lists all of the stats and abilities for their minions:

All of this is designed to make playing as intuitive as possible. One of the things we learnt with Deadzone was that the cards are great references, but having to look up rules and abilities is a pain  – so why not just write them down on the card!

That’s exactly what we’ve done with Dungeon Saga, just to make it simple to understand so that you can spend your time playing the game.

Becoming Legendary – Character Development

We knew from the off that this classic dungeon crawler wouldn’t be complete without character development, and Dungeon Saga has an intuitive way of handling progression.

Each hero card has their basic form on the front but, if you flip the card over when the Quest tells you too, you’ll find the Legendary version of the hero on the reverse side.

In this example, Legendary Danor has additional wounds, abilities and an extra feat that can be used once per game.

What this means is that each hero will have additional stats bumps, extra equipment or new abilities, all clearly labeled out for you, whilst progressing them to deal with the tougher opponents and bosses the Necromancer Overlord throws at you.

If you complete the story and want to take character progression further, the Adventurer’s Companion, an additional supplement to the game, includes an in-depth experience system of leveling characters as well as a host of other features, so that once you’ve played through the story you can start developing characters of your own creation!

House of Cards

To further enhance the gameplay experience, in Dungeon Saga: The Dwarf King’s Quest there are two card decks – basic and advanced.

For the first time we’ve hired an external professional to write us a simple step-by-step introductory guide to take you through the basic mechanics. This guide matches up to the first two simple scenarios, one where you learn how to move and fight as the Barbarian and the Dwarf Fighter. The second scenario is slightly more difficult, and teaches you shooting and magic with the Wizard and Rangers, before you gather your party and start the adventure proper. This makes the game easy to learn for people who have never gamed before, or if you’re playing with the kids.

You use the basic card deck in these sections, whilst the advanced cards are used in the rest of the story.

Here’s an example of the different backs of the cards:

And here are a few different examples of the fronts.

As you can see, cards are illustrated with bespoke pieces of art and a number of quick-reference symbols, making them instantly identifiable when you play with them. These symbols are grounded in the same style across the cards, whilst the art adds colour and life to the fantasy setting.

So far today we’ve taken a look behind the scenes at the new art for Dungeon Saga whilst also exploring character development and how the graphics in the game all build up to creating a strong, compelling fantasy world.

But this is by no-means the last of our Dungeon Saga reveals for today. Check back later for our third Dungeon Saga reveal.