Game of Dragons

Game of Dragons is a turn-based strategy RPG set in a fantasy world where players build a party of adventurers, including Dragon Tamers, Spirit Knights, Priestesses, and Mages. The core gameplay revolves around card-based tactics and tile movement, viewed from a diagonal-down perspective. Players begin with a starter deck and embark on adventures to level up their characters, acquire rare items, and customize their cards and skills to overcome challenges.

Game of Dragons: A Cautionary Tale of Ambition and Technical Failure

In the vast annals of video game history, there exist titles that define genres, inspire generations, and become timeless classics. Then there are those that serve a different, yet equally important purpose: as cautionary tales. Game of Dragons, a 2017 tactical RPG deck-builder from the obscure 14Dimension Enterprise, falls squarely and tragically into the latter category. It is a game of stark contrasts—between a genuinely ambitious, almost poetic design document and the crushing, unplayable reality of its execution. This review is an archaeological dig into a ruin of potential, a detailed examination of how fascinating ideas can be utterly dismantled by technical incompetence and a predatory monetization model, leaving behind a legacy that serves as a stark warning to both developers and players.

Development History & Context

The Studio and The Vision

14Dimension Enterprise remains an enigma in the gaming industry. With a sparse portfolio that includes titles like Game of Nations and Game of Puzzles: Dragons, the studio positioned itself as a creator of niche, strategy-focused experiences. Game of Dragons was their most ambitious project, initially launched on Steam’s Early Access platform in August 2017. This was an era where Early Access was both a blessing and a curse—a tool for indie developers to build games with community feedback, but also a haven for unfinished products rushed to market.

The developers’ vision, as gleaned from the official Steam description, was remarkably detailed and ambitious. They planned a rich blend of genres: a turn-based tactical RPG played on a 3D hex grid, fused with a deep deck-building system and traditional character progression. The promise of a five-character narrative, meaningful player choice that altered quest outcomes, and a complex system where unlocked skill cards could be shared among party members suggested a team passionate about creating a dense, strategic experience. They spoke of a “vast, striking, and polished gameplay field” and adventures that were “dangerous and mysterious.”

Technological Constraints and The Gaming Landscape

Built on the Unity engine, Game of Dragons was technically feasible for a small team. The mid-2010s saw the rise of successful indie deck-builders like Dream Quest (which inspired Hearthstone‘s Mercenaries mode) and the subsequent explosion of the genre with Slay the Spire in 2019. 14Dimension Enterprise was, on paper, ahead of the curve, attempting to marry this burgeoning genre with tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem years before such hybrids became more common.

However, the constraints were not technological but developmental. The gap between the vision articulated in the description and the product delivered was a chasm. The game languished in Early Access for five years before a seemingly unimproved version was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2022, suggesting a development cycle plagued by insufficient resources, a lack of focus, and ultimately, an inability to execute on its own promises. The era’s context highlights its failure; it was released into a market increasingly critical of Early Access missteps and predatory free-to-play mechanics, even in paid products.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

The Plot and Characters

The narrative framework of Game of Dragons is one of its more coherent elements, though it remains tragically underdeveloped. The story is set in a world fractured by religious conflict between Meridianism and Ilunesism. The Church of Illunes has created a “paradise of the gods,” rumored to hold immense knowledge and treasure. This premise evokes classic RPG tropes of religious strife and the pursuit of a mythical, transformative place.

The protagonist, Faia, is joined by five other characters: the Dragon Tamer, Spirit Knight, Priestess, Mage, and others. Each is driven by their own personal reasons to seek this paradise. This setup suggests potential for a classic RPG journey of camaraderie and discovery, exploring themes of faith, greed, and redemption. The promise that “depending on these choices, the clear goals of the quest will change and, as a result, the overall game play will be changed” points toward a branching, reactive narrative—a highly ambitious and laudable goal for a small-scale game.

Thematic Potential vs. Reality

Thematically, the game touches on intriguing ideas. The conflict between two religions could have been a lens to explore dogma, fanaticism, and the grey areas between faith and corruption. The paradise of the gods could have served as a MacGuffin to explore what different characters truly value: knowledge, power, wealth, or spiritual solace.

However, these themes are never realized. They remain bullet points in a store description, utterly lost in the final product. The characters are not fleshed-out personas but mere vessels for gameplay functions, their personalities and motivations rendered irrelevant by the game’s impenetrable systems and technical failures. The narrative exists as a ghost—a hint of a story that could have been, overshadowed by the sheer struggle to interact with the game at all.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

The Core Loop: A Labyrinth of Confusion

On paper, the gameplay loop of Game of Dragons is compelling. It proposes a cycle of:
1. Preparation in the Lobby: Crafting and enhancing cards, equipment, and engravings.
2. Quest Acceptance: Selecting a mission from the lobby.
3. Tactical Exploration: Navigating a 3D hexagonal tile map in turn-based adventure mode.
4. Deck-Building Combat: Engaging in real-time automatic battles where the player intervenes by using unique card skills edited beforehand.
5. Reward and Progression: Gaining experience, new cards, and materials to craft better gear, thus strengthening your party for the next challenge.

This is a sophisticated blend of genres that, if executed well, could have been a standout title.

The Execution: A Masterclass in Failure

In practice, as the sole critic review from eShopper Reviews devastatingly notes, this loop is “overwhelmed by issues.” The game is described as “incomprehensible” due to “poor overall menu and game design.” The tactical decision-making is suffocated by a clunky, non-intuitive user interface. The deck-building, which should be the heart of the game, is likely buried under layers of poorly explained menus and systems.

The combat, described as “real-time automatic,” is a critical misstep. By taking control away from the player and reducing their role to occasional card activation, it robs the tactical RPG genre of its core appeal: deliberate, strategic command. This creates a passive, disjointed experience where the player watches a poorly performing simulation rather than actively engaging in a battle of wits.

The Shadow of Monetization

Perhaps the most damning aspect of its design is its inherent structure as a free-to-play game sold for a premium price. The extensive list of paid DLC—from “100 Dragon Coins” to “Cindy Recruitment Ticket” and “Stat Boost Pack”—reveals a cynical monetization strategy. These are not expansion packs but pay-to-win conveniences and character unlocks, a model utterly at odds with the balanced, strategic experience promised in the initial vision. It suggests a game designed not as a cohesive product but as a storefront, a shell meant to funnel players toward microtransactions.

World-Building, Art & Sound

Glimmers of Beauty in a Broken Frame

The sole positive note in the critical panning comes from the acknowledgment of “some really gorgeous artwork.” This suggests that the art team possessed talent, potentially creating visually appealing character designs for the Dragon Tamer, Priestess, and other heroes, as well as striking environments for the hexagonal battle maps. The concept of a “3D hexagonal tile map” could have provided a visually distinct and interesting battlefield, a fresh take on the isometric grids common in tactics games.

The Atmosphere of Neglect

However, any artistic merit is completely undermined by the technical presentation. The reviewer cites an “inconsistent presentation that’s mangled by horrendous performance issues.” This implies severe frame rate drops, long loading times, graphical glitches, and potentially crashes. On the Nintendo Switch, a platform known for its portability but also its performance limitations with poorly optimized ports, these issues would have been magnified. The sound design is never mentioned, likely because it was as forgettable and ineffective as the rest of the experience. The world, therefore, never feels immersive or engaging; it feels broken, unstable, and ultimately forgettable.

Reception & Legacy

Critical and Commercial Reception

The reception for Game of Dragons was virtually non-existent. With only one professional review on record—a score of 0% from eShopper Reviews—it effectively passed through the industry without a whisper. It garnered no user reviews on Metacritic and remains unranked on MobyGames due to a lack of data. Its commercial performance was undoubtedly negligible, a footnote in the sales charts of the Switch eShop and Steam.

This absence of reception is itself a powerful statement. In a crowded market, it failed to capture anyone’s attention long enough to even be criticized broadly. It was ignored into oblivion.

Lasting Legacy: A Historical Warning

The legacy of Game of Dragons is not one of influence but of caution. It stands as a perfect case study for several critical lessons in game development:
1. The Perils of Early Access: It exemplifies how the Early Access model can fail, serving as a conduit for unfinished, abandoned products rather than a collaborative development tool.
2. The Danger of Over-Ambition: It highlights the catastrophic results when a development team’s ambition wildly exceeds its technical, design, and resource capabilities.
3. The Toxicity of Misplaced Monetization: It is a textbook example of how injecting a free-to-play economy into a premium, single-player game destroys its design integrity and player trust.
Its influence on the industry is zero. It did not pave the way for tactical deck-builders; games like SteamWorld Quest and Gordian Quest did that. Instead, it serves as a historical warning sign, a game journalists and historians can point to when discussing the pitfalls of its era.

Conclusion

Game of Dragons is a profoundly tragic artifact. Buried within its code and its store description is the blueprint for a fascinating, genre-blending RPG—a game that could have been a cult classic. Its proposed combination of tactical movement, deep deck-building, and narrative choice remains compelling even today.

Yet, a review cannot be based on what a game promised to be, but only on what it is. And what it is, is a failure of near-total proportions. It is a game brought down by catastrophic technical performance, impenetrable game design, a user-hostile interface, and a cynical monetization strategy that betrays its core concepts. The single piece of praise for its artwork is like noting a beautiful fresco on a collapsing wall; the foundation cannot support it.

Therefore, the final verdict is unequivocal. *Game of Dragons is not merely a bad game; it is a non-functional one. It is a cautionary tale, a relic of misapplied ambition and development malpractice. Its place in video game history is secured only as a reference point for how not to make a video game. For players, it is to be avoided at all costs. For historians, it remains a stark, detailed lesson in the vast gulf that can exist between vision and reality.