I'm 70 this September, and this takes me back to the actual Good Old Days of the Ultima-like original CRPGs. It is a lot deeper than the strictly functional graphics and interface would indicate, like Dominions 5, and it is the work of a single programmer, and is one hell of an achievement.

Anyone who prefers depth of play to fancy eye candy (again, like Dominions 5) should grab this. You'll get as many hours from this as you're willing to put into it.

A really awesome game and truly an achievement for just one man. Hats off to you, Volker!

Steam does well enough with the game description so, here is a biased review.

DUNGEONS OF CHAOS

The pros:

Don`t let the primitive graphics fool you, the mood is quite well set and very efficient. There are some places where I literally stopped and just went Whoa...

The music, for the most part, delivers adequately. The chaos rift music is just epic.

You can build the party you want. Yes, you can be uber, yes you can gimp yourself. You can spend HOURS rolling your stats (I LOVE doing that), you can make a tree hugging barbarian, an electric monk, heck, your rogue can even be a presidential candidate. (Don't ask, just do it). Speaking of Rogues, there are NO necessary classes in the game, there are enough classes and skills to allow you to go around just any and every problem, providing you have enough craft and imagination.

The NPC dialogue is rich, varied and entertaining. The occasional humor is just perfect. The quests are fun. The goats give awesome advice. (No they don't, but one can wish...)

LEGIONS of equipment items to keep you busy outfitting your party. Lost of inventory slots by character. This is not your usual "One Weapon, One armor, One accessory" game. Be prepared to manage LOTS of AWESOME gear. From your Inferior Broken Warhammer of Sluggishness to your Infinitely Glorious Moonsword of Goblin Displacement, it's ALL there.

Interesting classes that have clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. Mages have tons of spells. Melees have fun skills to use. Rangers summon wolves, barbarians rage and druids all come with their secret stash of... well, we're not allowed to tell you if you don't have the game yet.

A Facebook community that is alive, helpful, thriving and generally fun to be around. Yes, with a game like this, this is a HUGE perk. We even have the occasional troll. (In the game, silly...)

A game dev that participates to this community, who talks to the players, who listens to them and who implements many good idea given. (And tell you if your idea sucks)

The achievement system offers some very interesting challenges and adds insane replay value. And by insane replay value, I mean people going "VOLKER WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS CHALLENGE GAWD DAMMIT IT'S JUST IMPOSSIBLE ARRRGH!!!" *Five days go by* "Well I did it, was fun! Can't wait for the next one!"

Lots of configuration options! 9 pages of choices that allow you to customize your game experience in just out any way you like. Like an auto run system that I discovered after 100 hours of play. Don't judge me.


The cons:

Though some areas are exciting to visit, exploration often means plodding through extremely vast and empty landscapes. No, caves don't have to be filled to the brim with vampire lords to be interesting, four or five of them are enough, but if I didn't need three different methods of mass transit to reach every one of them, it would be just as awesome.

The difficulty system can get confusing as it not only influences combat difficulty, it influences experience obtained from battles (which is fine, really), leveling bonuses (this gets annoying), item drop chances but not their quality (a confusing point but you get used to it). The fact is you can change the difficulty as much and as often as you like so it "makes sense" to take the lowest difficulty possible when you level your characters to get the best bonuses but you'll also want to crank it up when fighting a monster that has a chance to drop nice items. All in all, it quickly becomes an annoying process. You don't HAVE to do it, but let's face it, most people who play a game like Dungeons of Chaos love to play with their numbers. (It's not innuendo, GAWSH get your mind out of the gutter!)

The many easy battles VS the auto-battle system. In some old RPGS like say, Might and Magic 4-5-6 and up, You faced just as many monsters but they were in your face and just a few clicks was all you needed to get it done. One click = one mace to the face. Easy. In Dungeons of Chaos, EVERY battle plays out on a rather large combat screen and in EVERY battle, you have to manually move your melees all the way to the mobs unless you have enough offensive casting to do it remotely. Which you should. Because wizards are awesome and nothing says you mean business like A FIREBALL TO THE FACE. This is where the AUTO BATTLE shines. The auto-battle system is really well done for your typical trash mob encounter. Set it to max speed and see your warrior and your barbarian ZIP through ¾ of the distance between you and your enemies before your mage explodes them anyways. The auto-battle system is a blessing when dealing with the legions of easy things and in some of the dungeons, legions IS what you will encounter. But if you abuse it, your daily skills will never go up and you'll never understand how to really use your characters when manually playing them against a hard boss.


Conclusion: If you do not have this game, you are doing something wrong with your life.

My background: I have been playing RPGs and CRPGS since 1988 starting with Bard´s Tale. I run the site www.crpgrevisited.blogspot.com . Enough of that.

+ All ingredients like classes, skills and spells that makes it a true RPG
+ Fun to level up and assign upgrades
+ Quick combat
+ Some huge caves which boosts exploration
+ Fun to explore and find treausures and magical items.
+ Tactical combat screen reminds me of the SSI Goldbox games although it is harder to be tactical here
+ Flanking bonuses in combat

- Very simplistic quests
- Weak, clunky and short dialogue texts and interface to communicate with NPC
- The UI is this games weakest part although you get used to it.
- Tedious and too frequent combats altough mitigated by auto-combat options.
- Very sparse populated areas of interests in the world. You will run around on large empty areas (reminds me of Faery Tale Adventure in that respect but the with the memory limits at that time it was understandable)
- Hard to understand underlying game mechanics (i.e should I increase strength or proficiency in my choosen weapon to improve my combat skills ?)
- Although there is a wiki the UI is never explained anywhere.
- Weak on the sound and music department although it is not an important factor for me.

I played around on normal difficulty until I reached level 5. At first I thought I should increase the difficulty because fights wasn´t that hard. But then I noticed how frequent they are and I opted to auto-resolve all fights except the really special ones which also took out some of the fun from the game but was essential if I am not to play this game for ages doing the same kind of fight against the same number of enemies over and over again. So right now I am in a situation where I do auto-fights 99% of the time. Yet enemies both respawn and it gets harder to dwelve deeper into dungeons because you can almost never rest there uninterrupted and you have to reach the bosses to clear them out.

So overall. I give this game 3 out of 5. It wasn´t as fun as I had hoped it would be but still it has its charm. I believe a game like Antharion was much more enjoyable. I do think the requested price is a little too high especially when Exiled Kingdoms is cheaper. Get it at a sale.

UPDATED 2019-02-20

So I returned to the game a year after and seriously continued with my group again. My group was at level 4-5 when I left it. Now I am around level 25.

I really appreciate the game now. I have understood that quick combat is the way to go. Only micromanaging if there is tough fights. I have no problem with random encounters or resting anymore. I think I felt the party got stronger when they where close to level 10. I understand the game mechanics better now as well. So I will raise my rating to 4 out of 5. Really good game which is huge.

This game is a well-made homage to the old SSI gold box AD&D and Dragonlance computer games that us old foggies remember with such great fondness, but without the curse of those friggin' code wheels and adventurer journal copy protection.

But here it is almost 4am in the morning when I finally turned it off, so that curse is still there, and happily so. I am thoroughly enjoying this game and plan to spend many long hours with it.

There are some differences though. Everyone only moves one square at a time, the loot system is more Diablo-like, enemy AI is a bit smarter, enemies are a bit beefier, and opposing units can pass each other without penalty hits.

But all in all it's a solid, well-made, strategic turn-based title that fits in very well with those old classic look, style, and gameplay of the much-revered SSI gold-box adventures.

Did you love Ultima IV? Pool of Radiance, Curse of Azure Bonds? Might and Magic II? Do you sigh in nostalgia at the thought of endlessly rolling stats to make the perfect party, and do you get misty eyed at the thought of being unable to even hit an enemy unless you have certain magically enchanted weapons and spells? Do you remember playing Final Fantasy I and feeling like an ultimate badass when you could finally change classes, and have your fighter become a knight, and your thief become a ninja?

Dungeons of Chaos is for you.

Be warned...once you go down this tactical RPG rabbithole, it's hard to get out! You think your mages and clerics are safe in the back...until the minotaurs start throwing axes at them! You think your barbarian is all the roid rage...until he can't even get within striking distance of the enemy, as it teleports to a new location! You feel pretty good about yourself as you're killing that Elder Dragon...until it heals itself and summons its bigger, badder, momma...

As with any good RPG, there's too much gear, and too many options. Should your fighter wear a shield, or wield that claymore? Should your berzerker go for blunt force trauma with a chance to stun, or a wicked axe with a chance to bleed? Who needs that necklace of ac and resistance more...your tanks or your healers? And how am I going to spend all these talent points I get on my party of six characters? Does my fighter need strength or dex more? Should he become a warrior or a samurai? Does my wizard need this spell or does he need train more? Should my rogue focus on dodge, lockpicking, backstabbing, or flanking? Should my cleric level up divine intervention or his mana-free heal spell?

Refreshingly though, it's not all nostalgia, and there's enough here to be different to allow enjoyment and discovery. Oh, the Ent can summon wolves, that's interesting and I'm dead. Your wizard can cast a basic heal spell in a pinch, saving your bacon when your cleric dies. Surrounding the enemy gives flanking bonuses to combat...but don't let the same happen to your tanks! Spellcasters ignore your meatshields and target your spellcasters. And the most deadly enemy in the game is...a cute little bunny!?! (That's no ordinary rabbit! LOOK AT THE BONES!)

If there's negatives to this game, it can be pointed out the quests are forgettable and derivative, and the roguelike loot system leads to save-scumming rich treasure chests looking for a sword or armour that's actually useful to you. But that's easily brushed aside. Eventually, as you advance in levels and classes, you become legendary badasses, able to summon diamond golems, elder demons, and holy angels to fight by your side as your fighters start doing damage criticals in the thousands and your spellcasters can do almost any spell of the elements and rain unholy nukage on your enemies. Yep, you're feeling pretty cocky...until you run into the Dracolich, Ramath the Necromancer, and Nosos the Master of Poison.

Enjoy!

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DUNGEONS OF CHAOS is a retro-style pixelated RPG with turn-based battles. It is meant to be a tribute to the old school RPGs of the 80s. This game is developed by a single developer and the game is huge.

The story begins when an evil master summons his minions to take over the world. Parnosz is to Lord Aldrich as Merlin is to Arthur. Lord Aldrich helps to save the townsfolk by letting Parnosz open up a portal to take them to a faraway land, away from the currently brooding evil. Lord Aldrich decides to stay behind to face the incoming tides. He tells everyone he will follow soon, but after a week of being sent away, there is no news. Wortas is a former soldier who helps train new recruits, and 6 new individuals form a party to take missions from Parnosz and others.

The game starts with a fresh part of 6, you can either use the default party (recommended for first-time players) or you can create your own. You can also watch some linked playthrough videos to get an impression of the game works in general.

The battles are turn-based, and there are no random encounters. You come across enemies on the screen and then with contact, you go to a battle screen. Here you control individual characters of your party, and you can use one action per turn (move, attack, cast spell, wait, etc.). All battles give you experience points that will help you level up.

The battles themselves can be rather slow, because you command each character individually. Your characters start on the left side of the screen, and your enemies start on the right. Each character can move only one square per turn, and for the melee characters to engage in combat, you have to go through quite a few turns just moving before the fight starts there. Of course ranged weapons will reach farther, as will offensive spells. The battlefield may be too large for this game because the length to engagement for these melee characters.

Fortunately you can set the battle to automatic and this will speed things up. You can also choose to set any/all of your characters to automatic, so if there is mindless fighting you can almost skip everything.

As you level up, you will receive talent points along with some stat boosts. The talent points can be used to train new skills.

The game employs a day-night cycle, so your gameplay and movement strategies will change based on that as well.

There is a lot of loot, stashes, and equipment to be found. You must equip each item for each character individually. There is no way to automatically equip the best gear. You have to take each item in your inventory and compare to what you are currently wearing. This is a bit tedious and takes a lot of time.

Resting can be anywhere, any time. You can choose different options, such as rest until healed, rest until mana is restored, etc.

Each area has a map, with a much larger world map. You can look at the map of your explorations of the area you are in, so if you get lost in a large area, you can look at a map to regain your footing. You can also search around anywhere at anytime. You may be lucky and find something.

There are different people who give you quests, some are related to the storyline, some others are side quests.

Each game saves into a save-slot, there are multiple available.

One really big bonus for a game of this size is the slew of player options. You can almost customize settings to every little detail. I really like this that the developer has given the player the freedom to play as they wish.

The game can be played with a mouse and keyboard. I think keyboard only is also reasonable. The game cannot be played with a controller.

The graphics are in retro-style pixel art, and looks fairly nice. The font is variable in size, sometimes perhaps a little too big. This can be overwhelming. The music is very relaxing and nice. Some sound effects can get repetitive, but they can be turned off.

DUNGEONS OF CHAOS is a very large game with many hours of gameplay. It is an hommage to the old school RPG games and reminds me a bit of Ultima IV. It is unique game that has the buzz tag "roguelike" on the store page, but I wouldn't really call it one. It's more like a standard turn-based RPG. The fact that a single developer wrote this entire game is absolutely stunning. Some areas could use improvements, for sure, but overall this is a good game. The pricing is reasonable given the size of the game as well. I would give this game 7.5/10 and I would recommend it.

Please see below for a brief YouTube video from the beginning of a new game:
https://youtu.be/aweaJ7sZV5U

DoC harkens back to the classic era of gold box games. You create a six member party with a range of traditional fantasy professions--fighter, barbarian, ranger, archer, rogue, monk, cleric, druid, mage--and sally forth to fight the powers of darkness (and acquire phat loot).

Character generation and rules are simple; development of skills, powers, and talents is more complex. Character professions can be changed or upgraded deeper into the game. If you enjoy leveling toons, tweaking equipment, and obsessing over the perfect party composition, this is your jam.

Clean simple graphics
Turn-based combat
Deep customization
Handy automation feature
Servicable story
Servicable to good sound
Verdict: Excellent. You'll spend many an hour molding your latest party into the ultimate engine of destruction

Don't be fooled by the UI or other big buttons!
This game runs flawlesly and is totaly responsive. The game design decisions and the general way the game is going are just spot on.
Really seems like DUNGEONS OF CHAOS managed to achieve a mix of turn-based deep battle system and the rogue-like feel while exploring the large overworld maps along with the caves/dungeons/tunnels...
You have total control on many settings that are really impacting gameplay, major example:
You can set any/all/none of your 6 characters in auto-mode while in turn-based combat and fine tune it with specific orders that you can even change during battle.
The content is pretty sick! Here are a few things worth mentionning:
Hand made and procedural content/Crazy loot/many enemies with their own weaknesses and advantages/many different ways to build up your party/Character evolution on different layers/Crafting/Classes and birth trait unlocks for next playthroughs.

Overall a great retro turn-based, party-based RPG, well balanced and polished with the flavour of old without the rough edges!

To everyone: Buy this great game asap!

To everyone on my friendlist who do not own DUNGEONS OF CHAOS yet: Get it yesterday sisz n broz!

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND : 92% (Awesome Replayability, Deep RPG, Great Combat Mechanics)

Initially, I did not notice this game, because of the poor graphics. However, once I started playing the game, I am hooked on it and have been playing 120+ hours non stop. I have not even completed a single playthrough of the game, and I know I will be doing many playthrough to get all the achievements. Let me give a detail breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of this wonderful game.

The Strengths
1. Awesome Replayability - Although I have spent 120+ hours and have barely completed a single playthrough, I know that I will be playing this game a great many times to get all the achievements. You can select your team of 6 members, from a variety of starting classes. Each class can advance into a number of specialize classes as well, like a Fighter can advance into a Warrior, a Knight or a Samurai. Some classes can also advance multiple times, like a Mage can become a Wizard and then become an Archmage. Each of these advancement will unlock new skills and spells, and might require you to adopt different strategies to play them. In the end there are many class-specific achievements for many of the advance classes, which you can only get through multiple playthroughs.

2. Deep RPG - Each character can get a single, radically different BIRTH FEAT during creation time. This birth feat will make your character play differently because you will get some special abilities or advantages that you can use since level 1. There are also many birth feats that are unlock only when you accomplish a series of related achievements in the game. For example, you unlock a birth feat if you finish the game with 0 deaths, or if you finish Chapter 2 with 0 purchases. Some birth feats like the Dark Lord, is extremely difficult to get and you can only unlock it if you finish the game. Interestingly enough, there is also an achievement if you finish the game with a character that has a Dark Lord birth feat. This will mean that you have to unlock the Dark Lord birth feat first, by finishing the game with a whole string of achievements. After that you need to restart the game, and keep rolling for a starting character until you find one with the newly unlocked Dark Lord birth feat, which will grant you many advance super powers at level 1. Note that with super powers, you might also get super weaknesses for some birth feats, so you might still have to consider a totally different play style when you are engaged in fights.

3. Great Combat Mechanics -I simply love the combat mechanics of this game. There is so much to learn as the game has a highly complex skills and spells system. It took me many hours of steep learning to understand how to successfully do combat in this game. Furthermore, there is also a highly complex AUTO-COMBAT system, which allow you to customize and control what type of skills, spells and strategies each of your team member need to do. Once you fine-tune the strategy for each fight, you can just run auto-combat for several hundred moves. This is because monsters are INTELLIGENT and can also heal, or summon allies, or develop a strategy for the fight as well. Since monsters have different weakness, you might have to change gears, skills and spells whenever you go to a different area of the dungeon with different type of monsters. However, the auto combat does make it much easier to execute several hundred moves and make it a must for grinding and farming.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1173190413

The Weakness
1, No Fancy Graphics - Unlike expensive PC games like the Witcher series which have awesome graphics, this game only have very simple, tile-based graphics.
2. Simple Layout for iPhone - There are also no complex, high resolution layouts that are made for PCs because this game was originally made for iPhone.

For the extremely low price, I HIGHLY recommend this game to any old school RPG games out there who love to immerse themselves into many hours of interesting game play. Furthermore, the game is also on sale this week. I bought the game where there was no sale, but even so I still feel that this game is more than worth its weight in gold !! This is a fantastic game.

For someone interested in this style of cRPG, this game is really excellent. The developer is at master-class at creating user interfaces, first of all, and the game has a solid story, along with all the tropes you would expect from this fantasy genre. The developer (yes, one guy) reused freely-distributable assets, so he could focus on the nuts and bolts, and the results are outstanding. To get this at the current full price is a gift, but only to a gamer who has enjoyed games like Ultima in the past.

Unlike so many retro-inspired Steam games, Dungeons of Chaos improves on the mechanics of the past games, which makes the gameplay more enjoyable. This is most visible in the "auto-attack" configuration, which presents a powerful configuration menu to script character behavior. Then, the very mundane combat of "wandering monsters" is completed within seconds, instead of several minutes. Other efficiency improvements are throughout the game. The developer understands what makes these games fun and what makes them a bore, and by building tools to help with the chores, the player gets more time with the fun parts of the game.

In my experience, the indie game developers who are geniuses at game mechanics, produce unplayable games because either the user interface is totally unknowable, there is no tutorial or help interface, the game is only designed for expert-level players, or there is no gameplay beyond the mechanisms. Not so for Dungeons of Chaos! The developer has got some fun quests, jovial dialogue, and a difficulty slider that goes to very easy. This is an approachable, playable game, with a friendly user interface. Maybe this developer can share his ideas at conference seminars for indie development?

Technically, this game runs on the Unity Game Engine. It takes up about 275 MBs of diskspace, and it uses the keyboard and the mouse for interfacing. My computer runs ubuntu linux 19.04 with radeon mesa graphic drivers. The game and levels load quickly, and it probably works great on slower computers. The developer is active in the forums, answering questions and creating new content.