Side Quests // 02.15.23

Dungeons & Dopamine

Hey all!

Sam here with the mid-February recommendations; this month we’ve got two picks, the second of which was suggested (and even gifted!) by friend of the show Kenny Williams.

Kenny, if you’re reading this, thanks!

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In other recent news, I was invited to talk Gaming Morning Show to talk about my recent article for space.com on the use of gravity in games. Definitely check out their channel, they’ve got some other really interesting interviews and do streams and broadcasts every morning!

Now, on to the games!

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Dungeon Alchemist

This one is a little different from our usual picks — Dungeon Alchemist is actually a tool, rather than a game, but it’s worth a look for any of you Dungeon Masters or D&D players out there.

Funded with overwhelming support on Kickstarter, Dungeon Alchemist uses AI to generate high-quality, stylistic maps for tabletop games.

Choose a terrain and a map style, and then just drag and drop your way into a fully-functional, detailed map for gaming. If you don’t like a particular room, or want to re-roll the features, you can just override the initial generation manually on a room-by-room basis.

This feels like a great tool for homebrew settings and oneshots, and I’ll definitely be using it myself.

Vampire Survivors

Chances are, you’ve heard of this one by now. When I first saw it, I was sure it was some kind of idle game that mined crypto in the background; after getting a personal recommendation and a gifted copy, though, I decided to give it another look.

I immediately lost about two hours to it, and I’m officially hooked.

Inspired by Castlevania, you’ll choose one of a handful of heroes to do battle with infinite legions of monsters. Throughout each run, you’ll accumulate items and powerups throughout each run in a mad dash to stay more powerful than the increasingly dangerous fiends (although no actual vampires).

My first few runs were only a few minutes long, but soon I found myself falling back on strategies I’d used on Call of Duty’s Nazi Zombies mode years ago, corralling the beasts into a massive horde and trimming it down with every opportunity on the move.

Even then, I made it about twelve minutes before succumbing to the swarm.

Vampire Survivors feels like a fantastic arcade game, the kind you could spend an entire afternoon - or many - trying to master.

I’m just glad it doesn’t cost real quarters!