Boy, it must suck being a treasure hunter. When you’re not shaking dirt off all your belongings, or running away from snakes, you’re answering asinine riddles from a sphinx. Or being swung around by a treant. It’s a lot of work to find a treasure that might just age you into the dust the moment you touch it. Desk work might not have the excitement factor, but I’ve never once had to wrestle a kraken on my way to get coffee. Still, at least Dialoop allows its treasure hunters to keep up their sense of fashion. Can’t forget the rakish fedora, after all.
Though Dialoop has a rather unusual way of exploring its tombs. Rather than shooting T. Rexes with twin pistols, we’re matching coloured blocks together. Not a bad change, mind you. In fact, I found myself rather charmed by Dialoop, as the central (forgive the word) loop is very relaxing. Pulling down a big combo feels very satisfying, especially when you get to see your protagonist lay the smack down on a monster as a result. Dialoop also has a good sense of humour, which helps. I am a bit confused by its store description, though. It calls itself a puzzle roguelite deckbuilder and, while it can certainly claim the first part, I’m struggling to pin down the other two.
Puzzling For Treasure
Dialoop is pretty straightforward at its core. You pick a hero from a grid, and begin a journey to collect some sacred treasures. Before I dig too much deeper, I want to stop and say that I love Dialoop‘s sense of humour. It’s very silly. The text narration at the beginning and end of levels is usually good for a laugh. Bit of wonky translation here and there, but nothing that kills the mood. The cutscenes when you beat (or don’t beat) a boss are another standout. They’re very chaotic, which is helped by everything being done in a voxel style. One has you defeat a kraken, then turn its tentacles into takoyaki. Sauce is then supposed to fall on top, but the chaotic nature of voxels caused it to slide right off more than once. It’s a charmingly slipshod way of doing things and I love it.
Gameplay, meanwhile, is easy to learn and of middling difficulty to master. It’s a colour matching game, but you don’t switch icons, you either slide up the column or along the row. The aim, in singleplayer, is to get enough points to beat the enemy within a limited number of turns. It took a moment for my brain to process, as I kept undoing matches by pushing down columns. Once I’d switched and got into a rhythm though, I found it quite natural to put together combos. Dialoop lights up like a Christmas tree when you get a big combo and it makes things very satisfying. Particularly when it’s the very first turn. There was a lot of smug tea-sipping going on here.
Un-Rogueish
To complement that, you can grab relics from the shop. These usually help to beef the score of certain coloured blocks, or to influence your multiplier. In true Balatro fashion, the ones that influence the multiplier should be snapped up sharpish. These relics do help, somewhat, to mix up runs. Usually by forcing you to weigh up whether it’s worth making a few big matches, or loads of small ones. Or forcing you to focus on a colour. It’s good stuff, though there is some definite weirdness in the gameplay. There’s a button you can press where the game plays itself for one. Not entirely sure who that button is supposed to be for. Idle game enthusiasts?
It’s far from the only strange thing, either. For one, the store page proclaims it as a roguelite. While you do unlock characters through runs, the actual runs themselves don’t change. It’s the same bosses and stock of relics. The story changes somewhat, but the actual events are broadly the same. I’m not sure that qualifies for even the lightest of roguelites. Same with the ‘Deckbuilder’ label. There’s very little deckbuilding here, other than occasionally buying new tiles in the shop. You can view the tiles in your ‘deck’, but there’s no real reason to as they’re just a percentage drop. Really, the only thing you control is what relics you buy and the matching of the tiles (assuming you don’t automate it). As such, Dialoop is fairly basic, which is fine given the price. Just don’t expect much in the way of variation as you go through it.
Dialoop – Little Yet Charming
I should also mention that Dialoop has online multiplayer. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any games active while my internet was behaving itself, but it looks jolly exciting. In fact, I think Dialoop is up there with the likes of Bejeweled for me. The fact that it has a silly little plot, and a reasonable amount of depth in its mechanics, meant that it became a game I played around with in the background. When I didn’t have anything else I needed to do, I played Dialoop. It even put a big grin on my face a few times. Most notably when I tried out the ‘auto’ button, and it did considerably worse than I did.
Thanks for padding my ego there, guys. But anyway, while Dialoop doesn’t feel as grand as its purported to be in its store page, it has nothing really to be ashamed of. I could completely take or leave the roguelite and deckbuilding elements. Even without them, Dialoop is a funny, charming and relentlessly entertaining puzzle game. Once I’d properly rewired my brain to see multiple colour matches within the grid, I was hooked. While it might not scratch the itch of those wanting to micromanage a deck, if you’re in the mood for a Match-three game that doesn’t take itself remotely seriously, then try Dialoop.
