Monsters' Den: Book of Dread
In a sense, every video game is a Role Playing Game. You're playing the role of Mario, you're playing the role of Niko Bellic, you're playing the role of Pac-Man. Many modern games labeled "RPG" are actually less about stepping into the shoes of another person and more about going through the motions which allow that person to tell his own story. They should be called Story Assist Games, or "SAGs". But I can hardly complain about it, since the point of the original Dungeons and Dragons was never actually about Playing a Role. It was about finding a +5 Dragon-Tooth Chaos Blade of Enchanted Slaying and then splitting a troll in half with it. In fact, the troll part was optional. Many players were perfectly happy just wandering around being handed sacks full of armament like they were Hallowe'en candy corn.
Monsters' Den: The Book of Dread, from Biclops Games, gets that. It understands your insatiable clawing lust for magical super-trinkets, and it does what it can to free the acquisition process from bureaucracy. The story is a perfunctory mash-up of cozy familiarities. The interface is like silk on leather. You don't even get experience points. Monster's Den clears the busywork out of your way so you can collect and wear your new Anti-Venom Magesteel Cloak of Resilience with no more than a few mouse clicks. Oh, and there are indeed monsters to battle, but in a stunning twist for the RPG genre, combat is fun.
This is essentially a turn-based, tactical dungeon crawl. The first time you enter battle, make sure you drag your team members to appropriate positions. Warriors and other short-range fighters should go in the row closest to the enemy, rangers and spell-casters in the rear. When a character's turn comes around, his portrait will be highlighted, and you can simply click on a creature within range to attack it. You can use special abilities (healing spells, special attacks, and the like) from the grid on the left by clicking on the ability and then on its target. Those who played the recently-reviewed Brute Wars will recognize the basic concept, which was probably inspired by the first Monster's Den.
There are three unique quests: the original Den of Corruption quest from the first edition of the game, now playable with the updated interface; the new Den of Terror quest, which features an extra boss fight on every level and a selection of rare but intriguing random events; and a survival mode where you get to massively power up your party and fend off endless waves of attackers. You have a choice between three difficulty levels and a number of other options to fine-tune your playing experience. "Hardcore" mode, where your game just plain ends when your party dies, is where it's at.
The pop-up instructions do a fantastic job of explaining the ins and outs of the interface, so I don't need to explain every little thing here, but rest assured this is one of the most considerate, user-friendly games you can play for free in a browser window. Almost everything in the game offers additional information if you mouse over it. If you have any interest at all in collecting some +4 Elf-Hewn Parrying Daggers of Staggering Wisdom (or whatever), just take a deep breath and dive in.
Analysis: Somewhere between the silvery-smooth interaction and the classically engaging creature portraits, Monster's Den becomes the epitome of casual browser-based dungeon crawls. You have extensive options for customizing your party, with a decent variety of skills for each of 7 different character classes. The enemies have a smart selection of special abilities that keep you on your toes, even during easy encounters. The boss battles especially brim with personality and strategy, and there are plenty of different ones. You might want to skip some of them when your party is weak, but remember that they yield the rarest and coolest equipment. The battles with legendary monsters such as the Gorgon or Hydra are not to be missed.
The graphics and sound are as good as you can reasonably expect. No, there isn't any combat animation, and you're basically telling little cards what they should do to other little cards, but the visual and sound effects still manage to excite the imagination. Since each level is randomly generated, replay value is ridiculously good. The Den of Terror quest does have a final boss, but you can continue to delve deeper indefinitely, growing more powerful and facing harder challenges.
If you played the first Monsters' Den, you should know that Book of Dread has gone over the top in fixing its problems. You can now click anywhere on the map, and a quick path-finding algorithm will take your party there immediately. There are more ways to order your possessions, including an incredibly useful "Recommend" tab that displays a short list of equipment you should be strongly considering for any given character. The recommendations are not completely reliable, but it still makes your life easier 99% of the time. Finally, a certain scroll lets you access a shop where the gruff owner will begrudgingly purchase your useless overflow and occasionally sell you unique items.
There are still a few quirks to be ironed out in the next sequel, to be sure. It's strange that Clerics can't heal outside of combat (potions only on the map screen), and there is probably still too much fiddling with the inventory. But the nit-picks pale in the face of such overall quality. If you are staunchly anti-materialistic or the classic D&D setting does nothing for you, then you can safely skip this one. But if the promise of powerful enchanted do-dads gets your blood pumping even a little bit, then Monsters' Den will have its generous claws in you for quite a while. Play Monsters' Den: The Book of Dread.
Note: There are reports that Book of Dread runs slowly on Kongregate, but developer Garin has posted a work-around in the description below the game window.
I've been playing this for a few days. My only complaint (and it's minor) is the class balance, which is still a little off. An all-cleric team is easily a viable (and perhaps the most desirable) choice. Of course, pretty much any combination is workable, although the early levels can be painful.
Agree with Lizard - though I think some teams would be impossible to win with.
Another surprisingly effective team is four hiding rogues with sneak attack. Purchase Hide, Sneak Attack, and then pump poisoncraft.
By level 6 or so you can one shot almost any normal monster for the rest of the game, and kill most any boss pack in two due to the ridiculous way your poison damage will stack.
Those that played DnD for the loot usually didn't stay very long. Those that played for the stories and the characters still play to this day.
I never could get into DnD. Of course, The one and only time I tried it was when I was... seven? Maybe eight.
Monster's den 2 is fun, but it gets old fast. Usually by the end of a floor. The main focus was equipment in the last game, and it is the same in this game. Only problem is it's the same damn equipment. All the equipment bonuses are the same as the last game. Maybe if the equipment had a little more variety I'd like it more. The shop and the extra dungeons and classes are just icing.
This is a fantastic game; I've been playing it for days. Everything is tuned just right for you to have a great D&D-inspired dungeon crawl without all the micro-managing and pencil-and-paper stuff. (Well, there is a BIT of micro-management when it comes to gearing your players, but luckily the developer put in that "recommended" tab to auto-fit the best gear).
It's also very World of Warcraft-inspired, especially when it comes to the items/weapons/gear. In fact the rarity colors match WoW exactly. Grey, white, green, blue, purple and orange...And the names of the weapons and armor are very Blizzard-esque.
The only complaint I have is that you have to find portal scroll to return to the shop to unload your gear and buy more. You won't always find one scroll per level. I wish instead, the developer gave you the chance to return to the shop once per level, just like those life-giving wells that you can use once (or twice) per level.
A whole town would have been even better, with an armor shop, a weapon shop, an item/alchemy shop and maybe even an Inn. But hey, there's always next version.
This is my favorite game of its type to date. Big kudos to the developer!
-Josh
Nope, sorry, RPG's aren't played just for finding "Shining Sword of Awesome Awesomeness +5". For me the fascination of goof PC RPG's (Eye of the Beholder series, Baldur's Gate series, Fallout 1 and 2, Lands of Lore 1) was the discovery part - solving a puzzle, finding a secret, discovering new stuff..that's the thrill. Sure, it's nice too get a new, fine piece of equipment but that's, like, 10% of the game, if that.
Monster's Den is nice, I give it that, but it takes out just a bit too much of what I find fun in RPGs and puts too big of an emphasis on, well, stuff. I don't know about you but I don't find equipment management to be THAT thrilling. No story, no puzzles (at least in the first few hours of the game), just endless fighting and loot collecting... it's not bad, but I'd rather dig out an old copy of "Eye of the Beholder", arm myself with pen and paper and go do some REAL RPG'ing.
Dang it, there goes my productivity for the next three months...
I was playing the original of this a few weeks ago... it was good fun until it started repeating itself over and over. What I realised is that D&D is not about the super-fire sword of doom +20, but about the new abilities that each person can learn and what effects these will have, and how you can combine these into your playing style. The problem is, after 10 levels, there are no new effects to learn and from then on the game gets dull. What the game creator should have done was at least doubled the effects and abilities, and made the game more playable (maybe more classes?)
Anyway, good fun for a hour or so!
baba44713:
I think Monsters' Den is heavily, heavily inspired by Diablo, which completely tore up the PC gaming scene for years, and then turned into World of Warcraft and brought about armageddon. They are so ridiculously popular. I know both Diablo and WoW ostensibly have a lot of other entertaining features, but mostly they seem to be about getting tons of stuff. Monsters' Den is the closest thing I've seen to a free Flash version of that experience, and it's extremely popular on Kongregate itself, although we're certainly not talking WoW numbers.
I've never been drawn to games like this, personally. Blizzard's games in question did nothing for me, and I think I was mostly interested in Monsters' Den for the speedy, icon-centric battle system. But when 90% of the game is about item collection, that part of it must be working for people. So I made that the basis of my recommendation of the game.
I loved Eye of the Beholder too, back in the day. RPGs now seem to have splintered into JRPGs like Final Fantasy, MMORPGS like WoW, and roguelikes like Monsters' Den. And 9000-hour epics like Morrowind and The Witcher, I guess, but I can't speak about those because I don't feel like I have time to even scratch the surface, so I haven't played them. Maybe they're actually the closest thing to what Bard's Tale once was, but I think there's been too much complexity added. I'm sure I could be proven wrong.
As a final part of this ramble, let me just mention that I've been playing The World Ends with You for the Nintendo DS. It's just a wonderful game in almost every way, and it proves that imaginative people can still make an entirely new kind of game while still pushing all the right RPG buttons. A bit more story than I'd like (although it's very, very good for an RPG story), and there seem to be a lot of semi-useless items to collect. But it's got that rare, incredible sense of being unleashed in a living, breathing world. And it's kind of the anti-WoW, in that it rewards you for NOT spending all your time playing, and it rewards you even more for getting out of the house and socializing. Wild. I'd even post a review of it here if it weren't so staggeringly hard to get into. NOT a casual game.
I've been enjoying the runefactory harvest moon on the DS... I think that is quite casual... except building your house is a 100000000 hour tree chopping slog.
Psychotronic, first of all, I must bow down to you. I am impressed to see that you made such a lengthy post to respond to baba44713.
To address that issue, however, personally I believe that the difference between Diablo (the first at least, I haven't played the second) and Monster's Den is that in Diablo, you never really feel overwhelmed with all the equipment you get, because you don't really get a lot at a time. Also, you WILL need to use a lot of the equipment later on, if you want to survive the game.
In Monster's Den, you need only slay a few monsters, and then you're overwhelmed with armor and swords and what not. Plus it doesn't seem quite necessary to actually use that stuff, it seems more like useless clutter than anything.
And yes, I am an avid Diablo (I) fan. No running from that.
@Black Plague:
Again, this is the brilliance of the 4 rogue strategy. She can't paralyze you if you're hiding, and after poisoncraft and sneak attack, you'll have her likely poisoned enough to die 2 turns later, and if you manage to survive her stun (%chance to avoid equipment), you can just use the #2 skill to apply extra poison to her.
Poison is king for much of the game, really.
Diablo? Not FastCrawl?
The funny thing about this game is there is no real motivation to fight other than the "awesome awesomeness +5" (see above) lewt. You can explore the map and skip fights. The treasures are there for the taking, and you don't have to fight the hordes to get to the exit.
Also, you level by... taking the stairs? So I can explore, loot, and level w/o facing many battles. It's fun to arrange equipment and see how you fare against certain mobs, but like I said above, there's nothing pushing me to take on the big boss room with 15 monsters.
Argh! Horrific bug: If you buy out the Emporium's entire supply of a potion, *all the Emporium's items go away*.
Other complaints:
Oh hey, it's just like Fastcrawl. I'd never played that one, but obviously the basic interface in Monsters' Den is adapted from it. Den has its own thing going, though, what with all the special abilities in combat. And there's definitely some Blizzard in there too. It's sort of an teenage game, still trying to break free of its influences.
I agree that it hands out equipment like candy, and that it's balanced too much in that direction. But I also think it's really on to something with the combat system. If the developer really concentrated on giving the combat depth in the next installment and downplayed the treasure collection quite a bit, he'd have something amazing.
Actually, you are usually rewarded for defeating bosses with an extra-nice piece of equipment, better than anything you could buy from the emporium at that level. I guess that kind of gets lost in the sheer number of item drops after battles.
I ran into this game last week and cleared the first dungeon. As others have said, it is very diablo like. I'm a huge fan of the diablo series and am a recovering WoW addict, so i really enjoy the draw of "ohh shiny item!" games.
I really liked the interface, the class options and the fact you could get special items for the boss fights.
I didn't like the lack of experience. Leveling up by going down the stairs was kinda sad and left you wanting to just kill the boss each level and move on.
I agree the items were a bit overwhelming. The store interface was rather poor so selling all the junk you got was difficult. I don't know if a bigger/more detailed inventory would help, or if going to the store whenever would be better, or if it needs something else, but it needs improvement.
Potions/healing were problematic. You couldn't use potions in battle so they seemed rather useless. They gave you ample opportunity to heal outside of battle, and it makes it much harder(at least i'd think, haven't tried) to play a party without a healer and rely on lots of potions.
My biggest gripe was with the lack of monster variety. You didn't really see anything new except slightly stronger versions of the same monsters you saw in the first two levels. I never really had to change my strategy and they all kinda felt the same. This is probably the biggest reason why i don't plan on playing further.
Also, i would have liked to have been able to invest multiple points in all my skills making the ones i use a lot more powerful rather than just having 2 'dump skill' spaces.
Overall still great fun for a few hours, just lacked depth and could use some more polish.
The game was a few hours fun, but I agree with what people said.
After 5-10 levels or so it gets rather repitive and boring.
The shop bug that suddendly all parts vanish is bad.
This may be a stupid question, but how do you choose what class you want the characters to be? The only way I see possible to change them is by deleting a character slot repeatedly until you randomly get the class you want, and even then the only thing that seems to change is the fourth character slot.
What am I missing here?
I've got the same question. Can't seem to 'get' four Clerks.
Also... the starting line-up (Clerk, Mage, Warrior, Barbarian) doesn't really work for me. I have trouble beating the 'bosses'. Right now, I'm on level three, having skipped boss #1 and boss #2. I'm probably missing out on some great items!
Interesting game though.
@ Julian; you can click on the little icons next to / below the portraits. Click on the sword to get a warrior, on the axe to get a barbarian ect.
Boss battles are...boss. Items are usually good from them. If not, then at least you can keep them to sell in the emporium.
This game is more addicting than I thought it would be for me, or maybe I'm not as much of a "puzzle kind of guy" as I thought. Haha.
Hi all, I encountered a "Mysterious altar"(forgot the exact name) in level 4 (playing Den of Corruption in Normal mode), and it said it can make the characters "temporary become permanent". What is it's use?
@Anthony HK
Regarding "temporary becomes permanent":
Anyone else get the "book of dread" item for the offhand position? Says "dark secrets held within". Are there more abilities to beunlocked for this item?
Julian: At the "create your party" screen, underneath the name and the class, there are 7 dark brown buttons which you can click to change the class of the character.
I actually quite like this game a lot - it seems like a great casual take on a dungeon crawl, which are usually anything but casual in terms of micromanaging, etc..
My main gripe, which actually affects my enjoyment quite a lot, is the inability to heal between fights, especially after I've got everybody equipped with regen armor, or if I have a cleric in the group. So I end up
@Ribs:
every time you explore a section of dungeon you haven't been to before it counts as a round of regeneration in combat.
the shop interface is much easier with ctrl+click (auto sells/auto buys, careful: from your standard inventory it auto destroys). without that i probably wouldn't have stuck with the game. anybody put some effort into the infinite wave campaign?
some interesting changes in tactics there.
*"for the rest of combat" buffs become very interesting (i find one archer to be essential)
*high quickness is no longer important, grouped quickness is important.
i just wish you could look at the equipment available before choosing your characters
i think the game is great for a F2P online single player game.
i'm at level 40 with a
believe me, the conjuror helps alot, specially against the corruptor, cause he summons 4 corrupted clones of us and the conjuror can instantly kill a summoned monster just like he can summon some cool but weak monsters in our favor which can help protect the rest of the team
about the scroll to the shop, i usually just pickup consumables and really good itens, and i have alot of scroll cause i only go to the shop when i'm almost full.
everytime i see a boss, the corruptor(again), or any legendary monster i only rest untill i beat it, cause those have the really good itens!
i give it a possible 9.5/10 more variations of enemies should give it the other 0.5/10
New version didn't fix all the major complaints about this game:
- Endless pumps/upgrading get tedious, boring and not become work not fun.
- Not enough strategy in overcoming a problem. Aka same problems.
- Not enough game options (but bravo on making 3 campaign idea)
- Great idea to see that upgrades if they will help your character, but it was more important to just have an easy click button that puts the equip on the character. Too much clicking and dragging.
The good upgrades:
- Best part of the upgrade is seeing the 3 campaigns.
- Great idea to sell stuff. But again, this is way too much tedious.
and now my questions to players. I can't seem to beat the 3rd campaign where you get 10,000 funds and 3 char. What is the best combo for char and item types?
what do the fragments of glowing stone do???
im at lv 125 at the new campain does it ever end
@nate what was your line-up?
i have no idea how people got to 250+ on survival, but to get to 100+ i did war, cleric, ranger, conjuror. it was all pretty easy until my cleric got stunned three rounds in a row. i guess i know what items i neglected for next time.
Cleric + Barbarian up front = anoint + cleave/overwhelm
killed the corruptor before he even summoned his allies.
I like having the archer and mage at the back just because it makes the normal battles really quick (electric + arrow shower)
not sure about a good survival team though.
i think that there are not enough random events "?" and lengendary creatures, i'm at lvl 16 and have only got one of each: a guy that joined me for 2 rounds and i fought the minatour.
oher than that and that there is too much time spent on equipment it is a really good game
For the unlimited waves (campain 3):
buy the best weapons.
exit out, it should automatically save.
the go back to the game, u should have full money
I have been enjoying the early stage of the game and surprisingly find it fun. Definitely different from the full fledged dungeon crawling games.
I have noticed two problems though and one is: I was on level 4 and needed more health and mana potions so I used the portal scroll believing I would get one on level five. I did not get one on either levels five or six so I am carrying all of this loot to sell and no way to get to the store. I dump the least expensive items as I find new loot. I can't sell and buy better equipment or buy the few potions the store has. The battles of my four against eight enemy(includes any of their summoned help) require more potions to heal and restore mana/energy.
The second problem is the lack of potions carried in the store(3 health and 3 mana at most) or found in the game. Regen is not the answer because they only regen during battle. I think I could leave the game and re-enter it but I have not tried that yet because I don't think it will work.
Any Help ??
Kelteel
How do you get to the shop? I have a lot of things I want to sell. I don't want to discard them. Anybody know?
I got to the store once, but now I can't remember how to get back to it. Can someone please help me? I mean it, I really would like some help.
To get into shop, you need a scroll (it's purple bordered) as an item to take you there. As to needing more health and mana potions, remember these tips:
Regen does work outside of battle, though to a much lesser degree for each part of the map you explore.
You can (if you have a cleric) just keep one battle going indefinitely with a weak enemy, while your cleric heals everybody back up to near perfect health.
Tunnels of Doom. TI94A Texas Instruments. Cassette Loaded. I love it. Thank you for making MonstersDen.
I'm at lvl 179 now and I still like it. The only thing I kill is the lvl boss or specials.
I love the barbarian with his +25k damage (whirlwind) + mage with electric storm doing +22k dmg :D.
I have cleric but he sucks because all my caracters have drain health and with such a high damage they never need healing. I also have conjurer but he doesn't do much either.
I think it's a shame you can't switch characters. I want to try another team but don't want to start all over :s
my top lvl is around 50, but I clean up everything I see.My party is 2 wariors 1 cleric and 1 conjuror:).Conjurors are one of the best tipes.They can summon creatures like wargolems,manasprites,dire wolfs,bloodsprites...
They can also cast eldritch aegis, which is verry good when your opponents have a high atack.
I like playing original campaing, but it isn't something.On what levels can I find specials (hydras, gorgons, minotaurs...)
How many levels are there in The Den of Terror? I'm playing at level 22 currently and haven't picked up a journeyman's stone in a while. I fear i might have missed out one or two stones along the way... Please help! :)
journeyman's stone only appears at the fearsowers
in the first 9 levels of the game.Anyone has any good tips.I play like this:
Warior 1-Power atack,defiance,Inspire,Shield wall and Resolve.
Warior 2-Power atack, defiance, cleave, resolve, execute.
Cleric-Heal,smite,heal all, purify, litany of pain.
Conjuror :)- Dire wolf, call soul, banish, eldritch aegis, wargolem.
Now i'm enchanting weapons with poison, and everything else or with protection or with recuperation or replenishment.
If someone thinks that something is wrong, please tell me.
journeyman's stone only appears at the fearsowers
in the first 9 levels of the game.Anyone has any good tips.I play like this:
Warior 1-Power atack,defiance,Inspire,Shield wall and Resolve.
Warior 2-Power atack, defiance, cleave, resolve, execute.
Cleric-Heal,smite,heal all, purify, litany of pain.
Conjuror :)- Dire wolf, call soul, banish, eldritch aegis, wargolem.
Now i'm enchanting weapons with poison, and everything else or with protection or with recuperation or replenishment.
If someone thinks that something is wrong, please tell me.
On what levels special altars come?
I'm also trying out 4 rouges tactic.It's not bad, and they have a high poison atack, together with create opening, it's one of the best formations ever.I kill them all in 1-4 rounds. So far so good, I'm lvl 12 with them.
To use the glowing stone fragments you double click the stack when you have 9 and it will take you to the place where the Dreadfather is...what the Fearsower was talking about.
I am playing den of endless evil (originaly den of corruption), when I found a dreadfather and 3 fearsowers.How's that?
Has anyone looked at this and thought, "Wow a combination of D and D and "Champions of Norath" (PS2 game) but browser based"? I used to play both, and I never really got into them. This game, however, I like... Weird
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