Video Game / Guild of Dungeoneering

This is the Guild of Dungeoneering!
On a quest but never fearing.
All to be a Dungeoneer,
Swimming in pools of gold.
This is the Guild of Dungeoneering!
All the monsters keep appearing.
All to be a Dungeoneer,
Whose stories will be told.
What that sound? I hear a noise!
Something's coming girls and boys.
Run for the hills and far away!
The Guild of Dungeoneering!
Curse and swear but don't despair!
The way out of here must be over there!
I think we're lost but what do we care?
The guild of Dungeoneering!

-Intro Song

Guild of Dungeoneering is a 2015 Dungeon Crawler RPG with a twist: Instead of controlling the adventurers in your party, you build the dungeon around them. With cards. It takes a note from Cannon Fodder, with dead characters buried in a graveyard to rub your nose in having a bunch of people dying for your amusement. In practise, it's more like playing an Adventure Board Game on a computer (or an IOS device) than a computer RPG.

The story goes that your (unnamed) character wanted to join the Ivory League of Explorers Guild, but was immediately rejected. Out of revenge, he stole some money from them, purchased a tumbledown guild house in "the bad part of town", and started recruiting adventurers to show up the Ivory League.

Tropes present in this game:

• Achievements in Ignorance: A Cartomancer may choose to intentionally stack Stupidity cards - which waste a turn when used - to power up their Paper Shield (which shields from physical damage for the amount of cards in your hand) and Card Storm (which does magical damage for the amount of cards in your hand). It's possible to have 4+ blank cards in your hand and then nuke an enemy with a single Card Storm.
• Action Initiative:
  • Monsters always attack before the player unless your attack has the 'Swift' trait.
  • All attacks from Rangers that deal physical damage have Swift, allowing rangers to almost always go first if built correctly.
• A Dungeon Is You: You play as both the Dungeon Master and Adventurung Guild master. You place corridors, monsters, and loot, as long as the story hasn't placed them for you.
• Adventure Guild: You and your rival, the titular "Guild of Dungeoneering" and "Ivory League of Explorers" respectively.
• Anti-Grinding: Not that you need to grind since all levels reset upon victory, but a dungeon is locked once cleared. Averted to some degree with the boss rematch available once you clear off the entire region, pitting you against a random boss dungeon.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Unblockable skills.
• Artistic License – Economics: Despite the fact that you never pay your dungeoneers and they have the approximate lifespans of houseflies, an endless number are willing to sign up. Justified by Rule of Funny.
• Attack Backfire:
  • Depending on the cards played. Certain skills do +1 damage vs. Unblockable attacks.
  • The Artificier card "Reflecting Ray" does Magic damage equal to the amount taken that turn. Against Spam Attacks, it's quite the punishment.
  • Some defensive skills have special effects that proc whenever they block an attack.
  • The "Retribution" passive attacks for one Magic damage if the character takes 3 damage.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: Ice Cream Monks, introduced in the Ice Cream Headache DLC, gain +1 to all Physical attacks as long as both of their Hand slots are empty.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Snowmanable monsters, an enemy type from the Ice Cream Headache DLC. They have several subtypes, and only start with "Abominable Snowman". There are Disagreeable snowmen, who have a pair of Nature skills, Honourable, Dishonourable, and Respectable snowmen, Formidable Snowmen, and Profitable Snowmen, who have the ability to tax your earnings in any quest you encounter them on. Their young, Adorable Snowmen, have All Your Powers Combined.
• The Berserker: The Barbarian Class and enemies with the "Irritable" descriptor.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: Certain armors grant a character +1 Heart. Or +2 if you're lucky.
• Boss Rush: In the Very Definite Final Dungeon. The Bosses themselves are not too thrilled to meet you again; to a point where they will sic The Ivory League - the group that would normally hunt them down - at you.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Every class, but the Cartomancer is really mouthy about it. Dungeoneers complain about you putting down dungeon tiles without monsters or loot in them, for example.
• Captain Ersatz: The Boss "Generic, Non-Infringing Princess" is one for Elsa. The trophy for beating her is a C&D letter.
• Captain Obvious: A tip on the loading screen reads, "Watch out for unblockable attacks! They go straight through your blocks."
• Cast from Hit Points: Barbarian/Irritable skills damage the user but do huge physical damage. The Most Holy Grail Knight also has, of all things, a healing ability that is used this way. Flagellate costs one heart and heals 3, for a total of 2. Still a lifesaver in a pinch, surprisingly.
• Chandelier Swing: Used word-for-word as a defensive skill for the Swashbuckler, which blocks 3 physical damage.
• Charge Attack:
  • Certain skills add a point of damage to the next ability of the same damage type as themselves. Some can be spammed indefinately until you find yourself doing enough damage to clean out a boss' entire stock of hearts if you're lucky.
  • The Cartomancer skill Card Storm does magic damage equal to the size of his Hand. He also has several cards that increase his Hand size. Once you have his whole deck in-hand, it becomes more-or-less a Fantastic Nuke.
  • The "Showoff" passive, granted by way of A) the Long Coat shirt or B) playing a Swashbuckler, involves banking physical damage every time you fully block an attack.
• Class and Level System: Classes dictate what skill deck a character starts with. Levelling up simply increases their HP, and doesn't carry over to the next quest.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: Averted. Cat burglars look like skinheads and are absolutely in love with cat jokes.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Shirt and hat equipment grant combat cards and special abilities.
• Damage Over Time: The relatively rare "Burning" and "Bleeding" effects cause a 1 heart loss over the course of a battle. Luckily, only player characters can use them (unless a monster with Ransack steals them on you).
• Damage-Increasing Debuff:
  • The debuffs Frail, Mundane, Decay and Brittle cause enemies (and heroes who drank from a cursed Fountain or have equipment like Seaweed or Dynamite) to take extra damage.
    • Frail adds +1 to physical attacks.
    • Mundane adds +1 to magic attacks.
    • Decay adds +1 untyped damage to any attack that deals two or more damage.
    • Brittle adds +2 untyped damage to any attack that deals three or more damage.
• Damage Typing: Four: Physical (a fist icon), Magic (a fireball), Self-Inflicted (an empty heart), and Untyped (a star). Skills are basically how much of which type you do and wether or not you defend as well. Untyped damage usually only comes from special statuses (Bruiser "Spikey" passive, the "Decay" debuff, etc), and Self-Inflicted is the Necessary Drawback for berserker (Barbarian and Irritable) skills.
• Deflector Shields: The Artificier's Static Field skill blocks one magic damage and retaliates for two.
• The Dead Have Names: Every Dungeineer who dies on your watch gets buried in the guild's Graveyard.
• The Diss Track: Whenever a dungeoneer dies the bard plays a song insulting them (and the player) for dying.
• Ditto Fighter: The Mime ability "Copycat" and the Artificier ability "Thought Extractor" clone the enemy's next card.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: Played for Laughs, of course; you can catch Embro the Firelord right out of the bath, which makes him much easier (if not manageable) to defeat. It does make some sense; he is the Firelord, after all, and having a "Damp" status can't be good for someone with that descriptor. It applies to the (Evil) Lich too; in his case the status says "Half-Baked".
• Drunken Master: The "Drunken Sailor" class.
• Equipment-Based Progression: Your adventurers start out with six class skills and get new ones based on what loot they find, and Battle Scars they accrue.
• Everyone Hates Mimes: The Mime class is considered annoying In-Universe; in combat they're magical powerhouses nearly as good as Apprentices.
• Evolving Attack: The Yodeler's schtick is that their "Yodel" skill gets more and more powerful each time you play it. It starts off doing 1 physical damage, then does two, then becomes Unblockable, and finally becomes a Swift attack.
• Exact Words:
  • Certain skills have special effects that proc "per hit" or "if successful". For example, Siphon steals a heart per hit, and hits twice. However, if you've charged it up with a Focus card, it strikes a third time, and steals three hp. This also works if the enemy is "Mundane" (takes +1 damage from Magic attacks). A skill that procs "if successful" tacks its special effect to the rearmost damage icon. Conversely, Holy Seal defends once against Physical or Magic damage, and heals 1 heart per block. Against a "Sluggish" enemy, it blocks twice, healing on the extra block as well.
  • Certain Cartomancer cards have effects based on how many cards they have in-hand. Once you play them, they don't count as "in-hand" any more.
  • Bulwark doesn't proc against two-damage attacks from enemies with "Sluggish," which counts Block skills as doubly-effective.
• Experience Points: Averted. Defeating enemies at or above a dungeoneers own level is what makes them level up.
• Extrinsic Go-First Rule: Monsters always go first, unless the player uses a "Swift" (a thunderbolt icon) attack.
• Fight Like a Card Player:
  • Characters have a deck of cards that dictates what skills they can use.
  • In universe, the Cartomancer class, which gains attack and defense boni depending on how many cards are in their hand.
• Fire-Breathing Weapon: The "Flintlock" weapon. ^note This makes more sense when you consider where the term "firearm" comes from: originally, guns only projected the explosion from the burning gunpowder, then someone noticed that if he stuck a pebble down the barrel, it could kill people from much further away, and much more reliably.
• Food Slap: The "Cuppa" off-hand gives you the Flame Strike ability, presumably by letting you splash a monster with hot tea.
• Hat of Power: Hats grant new abilities. Some are downright weird, like wearing a bird's nest on your head to gain the "Growth" deck.
• Have a Nice Death: Whenever a dungeoneer dies, the bard sings about it.
• Healing Factor: The "Respite" passive grants a heart whenever a character No Sells an attack.
• Horrible Judge of Character: The Grail Knights think the guild is a charity organization, when in reality its a horde of greedy bastards mostly in it for bragging rights presided over by a vengeful jerk.
• Insistent Terminology: The word "Adventurer" never shows up. Characters are "Dungeoneers."
• Joke Character: Chumps, who are little more than sword and spell fodder after you get access to anyone else. Naturally, there's an achievement for winning 10 quests with the same Chump.
• Lethal Joke Item: No matter how odd an equip, it's useful.
• Life Drain: Several magic attacks steal a heart (or two) if they connect.
• Lightning Gun: the Artificier's Zap-O-Matc skill.
• Luck-Based Mission: You can only choose one skill out of three per turn (before playing cards that grant extras). Skills are randomly chosen from your skill deck.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shields usually grant a defensive skill or two. Sometimes crosses over with "Armor=HP" as they often grant an extra Heart.
• Magic Knight: Fighters can find items that give them magic attacks. Conversely, mages can find items that give them physical attacks.
• Magikarp Power: Certain Battle Scars (earned by surviving a quest) Nerf a character. Surviving the drawback levels up the Scar, turning the handicap into an advantage. For example, "Hard-Headed" adds Stupidity cards to your deck. In its final stage, Stupidity cards are treated as Defensive cards, blocking 1 attack irrespective of its type.
• Manipulating the Opponent's Deck: Both the player and the enemies can cause the other to discard a card from their hand during battles. The Mime class in particular has a desk focused on causing this with their "Stage-Presence" cards.
• Man on Fire: The "Burning!" status does 1 damage per round to both participants. This is the special ability of certain Fire aligned enemies, and Dungeoneers with a level 2 "Pyromaniac" Battle Scar.
• Make Me Wanna Shout: Yodelers have abilities based on their singing abilities. Their signature attack is the "Yodel," which levels up each time it echoes. They also have the skill "Das Big Roar," which does three damage but strains their vocal chords for one recoil damage.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The H2Omancer (introduced in the Pirate Cove DLC) has several skills that cause them to Discard and Draw, and can see the enemy's next card if they have at least 3 cards in the discard pile. They are the only class that you want to lose cards.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: For once, in the players favour. The player gets to draw three cards to an enemy's one.
• No-Sell: Doomplate Armor allows you to block any attack that deals or would deal 1 damage. The same applies to "Bulwark" ability that some enemies have.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: the Shapeshifter class.
• The Paladin: Called the "Most Holy Grail Knights."
• Player Mooks
• Punny Name: Heater Shield, apart from being a shield, does actually provide you with fire attacks.
• Possession Implies Mastery: A character who obtains an item will be able to use it perfectly, even if they're a fighter using a talisman or a wizard using a sword.
• Reinventing the Wheel: Levels reset after dungeons.
• Religious Bruiser:
  • Grail Knights and Ice Cream Monks.
  • Several items are blessed by the gods and grant Holy magic, such as Divine Shield (block all magic damage and retaliate with 3 magic attack) and Holy Seal (block 1 of any damage type and heal for 1 heart).
• Schizo Tech: The dwarves have mining robots (including a security turret), a Humongous Mecha, and a Drill Tank. Everyone else is Medieval European Fantasy or lower.
• Sequel Hook: "There is no way this could bite me in the ass, like some young upstart making his own guild to challenge me."
• Slave Mooks: Dungeoneers don't get paid, or get paid in turnips if they do.
• Spam Attack:
  • Arcane Barrage which launches three unblockable magic attacks.
  • Likewise, physical skills like "Pummel" and "Maul", but they're blockable.
  • The Cartomancer has several abilities that add a card to his hand, and a skill that turns every card in his hand into Magic damage. This gets to the point where you have his entire deck in-hand, and trading them all for a huge swarm of little blue fireballs.
• Spikes of Villainy: Bruisers and characters with a Spike Shield or Vest of Spikes have the "Spikey" passive, which causes them to do one untyped damage when they completely block an enemy attack.
• Spoony Bard:
  • The narrator.
  • The "Troubador" class. Mechanically, they act like Musical Assassins and are gained from the "Might" tree despite using magic.
• Start My Own: Can't join 'em? Beat 'em.
• Stock British Phrases: The "Cuppa" off-hand is a cup of tea. It grants the Flame Strike ability, presumably by letting you throw hot tea in an opponents face.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: Enemies will sometimes use self-damaging or miss-a-turn (actually called "stupidity") cards on a turn where they have only one heart left. This is because they can only draw one card at a time.
• Stylistic Suck: Pencil on graph paper backgrounds and chibi-like character sprites that make it look like South Parks goth cousin.
• Underground Monkey: Better variants of enemies show up in latter dungeons.
• Violent Glaswegian: Bruisers talk like Neds (Think the Scottish version of trailer trash.)
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Rangers think they should get pets and be able to dual wield. There is one pet available to every class (an owl familliar) and no dual wielding option.
• Wrong Side of the Tracks: Your guildhouse is in "the bad part of town".
• You Bastard!: After several of your dungeons die the narrator informs you about how the graveyard of your guild can somehow hold the remains of an infinite number of dungeoneers... and then calls you a monster.
• Your Mime Makes It Real: Mimes start off with the skill "Imaginary Cannon", which presumably involves miming shooting a monster.

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