Playing A Game The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos PC

On the one hand, I'm impressed by how well The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos (what a mouthful) adapts Dungeons & Dragons rules into a fun turn-based game. Its complexities aren't tutorialized very well - if you aren't already familiar with how "sprint" works, or "attacks of opportunity," the in-game explanations are little help - but I like the balance it strikes between simplification and versatility. This combat engine lets me worry about line-of-sight and backstab positioning, while keeping me from worrying about the minutiae of inventory management or spell preparation.

And I also like how the game sets up a pre-made party to exercise the breadth of D&D archetypes. Instead of doing the typical CRPG thing, asking me to pick a race and class then discarding the rest -- here we've got a human ranger, an elven archer, an ogre ... warrior I guess, a wizard, a dwarf; between the party of seven, every interesting character function gets some coverage. (Whatever your favorite D&D "thing" is, it's surely represented.)

On the other hand, Dungeon of Naheulbeuk bets big on its story and loses. It's a parody of RPG tropes, telling its tale via in-game cutscenes and extensive (voice-acted!) dialog, exploiting character stereotypes and some "knowing" satire both for entertainment value and to drive the plot forward. But the characters in this parody are overly rote; the few ideas that do feel fresh, like the cowardly thief, are overshadowed by low-hanging fruit like the speech-impaired barbarian or the wizard losing herself in a book. And the dialog is similarly uncreative, resulting in spoken lines that are more cringey than humorous. I appreciate the intent and effort, but the implementation just isn't good enough.

Since the original creation is French - as is the game's default language setting - I suspect that some of its sense of humor may have been lost in translation. But on that I can only speculate.

The gameplay is fine, but takes a back seat to storytelling, which isn't as funny as it wants or needs to be. Like many other parody games (see: DLC Quest, Eat Lead) Dungeon of Naheulbeuk ends up being the very thing that it intended to lampoon.

Progress: Got the magic amulet, didn't finish the demo.