FIFA 23 Review

Overview:

After my first taste of victory on a brutal difficulty, which no doubt there will be more to come, I am ready to share my initial thoughts on Dome Keeper and will update this review as time goes by. Right now, it is a strong recommendation if you enjoy pixel art roguelike action game. The design of the game is good and engaging. You are constantly racing against time. The game is challenging but you will improve as you play and will beat it eventually. It is hard but fair. I don't feel frustrated at all when I lose (which is pretty often).


Detail Review:

It is a roguelike action mining game. You are a Dome Keeper, which is also a Relic Hunter. Your dome landed on an alien planet and accidentally squashed one of the indigenous creatures to death. That must have triggered a revenge attack. Your dome is going to undergo waves and waves of attack from various types of creatures. Should you manage to find the relic before the dome collapses, you win. Otherwise, you lose. Come to think on it, that game opening reminds of the movie Avatar.

At brutal difficulty - the intended difficulty for this game - the game is pretty challenging. There are two levels below for more relax game play and one level up (need unlock) for the veterans. You have to constantly prioritize how to allocate resources to the tech trees that improve yourself, your dome, and your gadgets found in the map. You have to constantly make decision on where to dig and how much to carry during the "peace" phase and which enemy type to take down first during the "war" phase.

Gadgets are game changers and they can dramatically change your strategy and approach to the game. You may carry forward one gadget of your choice from your last game to the next one. You can also find new ones as you explore the map. Gadgets have their own tech trees for improvement. Depending on the gadgets you have got, you may approach the tech trees differently as well as how you would play the game. Some gadgets seem to be more valuable than others. But I found the combination of gadgets makes the game fun. Since gadgets are random though limited in number at launch, with the randomness in resource hidden placement, you may say no two games are the same.

Progress in this game comes down to map size and difficulty, as well as various unlocks (including current and planned ones). A small map on brutal difficulty usually takes around 20-40 mins to end (win or lose). You may save your game at any time and continue from where you left off.


What improvements would I like to see?More gadgets, way more gadgets. This alone will increase the replayability a great deal, I believe.

Better gadget balance. Constant balancing and tweaking will create new "meta".

Need better background music.

More classes is always good.

Lifetime stats and infographic is always good.

Consider a "season" implementation - seasonal objectives, unique seasonal mechanism and rewards (more pets!), leaderboard on score. This will keep people playing the game.
Keep up the good work, dev!