Saturday Casual Gaming 249: Soda Dungeon

In Which I Play A Fun Free Steam Game

I love me some Roguelike Dungeon Crawlers, guys, and Soda Dungeon has been suggested to me pretty much ever since it came out. Since it was free on Steam, I couldn't resist and downloaded it.

It's addicting as heck.

Which is funny, because addiction is kinda a big theme in this game.

Addiction, money, fame, and big scary monsters

You are a hapless, impoverished person with big dreams of bigger wealth, but the best way to get money where you are is to venture into a dungeon of certain death... which you're super not into. Fortunately, while hanging out at the local soda bar, you end up with a grand scheme: con a bunch of soda-addicted crazies into going into the dungeon of death for you.

And thus, your journey as a very messed up kind of adventure pimp begins.

But... money!

Ethical complications aside, this game is fantastic. From the peppy, bullet-hell-style music to the awesome arcade-like graphics to the hilarious story (so far), this game has had me hooked from my first run with a mostly naked Soda Junkie.

You have different choices you can make while your party ventures through the dungeon. Do you choose each move yourself, or do you let the game automatically run your guys through? Which of the three boss chests do you open? Do you take one of the alternate paths that occasionally appear, or do you ignore all possible distractions?

Speaking of bosses...

They can be pretty epic...

Look how tiny you are compared to that behemoth! Your party, which can contain up to five adventurers of varying skills and abilities, is always dwarfed by the bosses (and minibosses) of each section. So far, I've only made it to the fourth zone, the ice levels. I'm sure I'll eventually get further, but I'm having a good time, regardless, and earning tons of money.

But what can you spend that money on?

One of the main features of Soda Dungeon is the Soda Bar, where you hire your adventurers to go make you money. You spend that sweet gold on upgrades to the Soda Bar, which let you buy and sell gear, earn money while offline, invite more and stronger adventurers who get buffs depending on the decor and food qualities, and you even end up with a wizard who can warp you to later levels you've beaten so you don't always have to run the dungeon from level 1! At one point, a faintly creepy gladiator guy shows up to let you know you can send a trio of adventurers to die for you in the arena for money. If you want to see how far your loot can take you, that's a fun challenge!

All in all, Soda Dungeon, from AN Productions and Pox Power via Armor Games is a great game, both on Steam and on Mobile, so if you're looking for a free game fix, this is definitely a fun one to play.

And I'm serious about that music being awesome. It really gets you pumped!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC

Saturday Casual Gaming 226: Coloring Pixels

Since I started gaming with handhelds back in the 1990s, you can guess that I love me some pixels. I love 8- and 16-bit (and 32-bit!) images. I love the creativity inherent in stacking colored blocks to make things look recognizable or to come up with something brand new! It's always wonderful.

And since I draw and color and paint, you might be able to guess that I love coloring books.

I do not have a ton of space for coloring books, however, so the recent boom in digital coloring books has been a major boon to me! I was bumming around last year on Steam and found this:

From ToastieLabs, this is Coloring Pixels

Coloring Pixels is a really cool free-to-play coloring book you can download from Steam and fill in beautiful pixel art images that range from incredibly simple shapes to incredibly lush scenes. I love the way it looks, the fact that there are occasionally overlays for holidays (there was snow around Christmas, drifting slowly over the screen, and the edges of the screen were, I believe, on fire around Halloween) just makes it more fun!

Now, I'm the kind of coloring person who likes to finish one color before moving on to the next, which works really easily on small images, but when you get here...

Well... once you get into the crazy amount of colors, things go much slower.
Much. Much slower.

But your reward for finishing each image is that wonderful sense of accomplishment from completing a very difficult task! And it really does feel like an accomplishment. You feel like you've done something, and on days when I literally can't will myself out of bed, that can be soothing.

It's not done, yet, but this is a zoomed-in portion of that same image!
Looooook at allllll that deeeeetaaaaaaiiillllll!

Now, the argument can certainly be made that these sorts of things are not, technically, games, but I'm going to count it because it was free, it makes me happy, it requires input, and you are, technically, finishing tasks to get to an end goal. The tasks are just "input all colors in the appropriate locations" and the end goal is just "finish the picture"...

I did mention that it's only kind of a free game. There is DLC. The DLC is really cool, but it also costs money, which means it isn't happening for me. I mean, there are 12 DLC packs (all of which sound fun), and none of them are more than a dollar. The only reason the "Buy All" function on Steam tells you it's over sixteen dollars is the addition of a downloadable copy of the soundtrack. While the music is pretty fun, it's not something I'm dying to download, but I can always appreciate wanting people to pay you for the music.

That wasn't sarcasm. I've played music in a community band before. The number of people who took "community band" to mean "free of charge because we're not famous" was horrific. No, we will not play your wedding for free. The band itself does have financial needs. Like renting practice space and buying water.

What I'm saying here is, I don't think soundtracks should always be free to download. It's cool when a company can afford to do it, but I'm not going to be butthurt when it's under seven bucks.

If they were charging twenty bucks for the soundtrack, then I'd be butthurt.

But yes, the art you're coloring, the colors you use, the soundtrack, the little extras (like the holiday particle effects), and the overall game itself are more than worth your time if you need a moment of zen!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC