Versus Evil, the independent publisher best known for working with Stoic to release the excellent first chapter in The Banner Saga, has partnered up with one-man Irish indie shop Gambrinous to bring Guild of Dungeoneering to PC, Mac, and tablets this year. The game has already been Greenlit for Steam and is tentatively scheduled to launch in April.
Guild of Dungeoneering is worth looking forward to for its unique take on the ever-popular roguelike dungeon crawler. Rather than diving into procedurally generated dungeons and manually hacking through nasties, the game will have you using a card system to build and populate a dungeon with creatures, traps, and loot while the hero AI automatically moves and engages enemies a turn at a time. Once combat is triggered, battles unfold by playing cards against the enemy’s deck.
The game is also noteworthy for its distinct and whimsical art style, which gives the game the appearance of having been hand drawn on a notepad in pencil.
You can watch the level playthrough video below featuring around eight minutes of gameplay to get an idea of how the dungeon building–or Dungeoneering–system works. It sure looks like Gambrinous and Versus Evil have an indie gem in the making. Dungeon crawler fans are going to be in for a real treat, that’s for sure.