Tofu Muffin

Although dungeon crawlers are not difficult in theory, the recipe is highly volatile, and it can wrong in so many ways. As such, it’s not enough to fill the game with monsters and random epic swords in order to keep players engaged. The actual gameplay must be exciting as well, otherwise it doesn’t matter how shiny your armor is or how much damage your spells do.

Tofu Muffin is an interesting genre combination, given the fact that it mixes roguelike and CCG mechanics in the hope that the result is worth the trouble. Unfortunately, it’s pretty difficult to say whether the mashup has any merit, because the game itself lacks polish and content, at least in the current phase. Hence, more work is needed before the whole concept becomes viable.

To begin with, the gameplay is about as simple as you would expect it to be. In essence, you have to explore level after level of a dark dungeon and defeat the monsters that inhabit them, while making your way to the higher levels of the tower. Speaking of which, there is even a basic story to explain what’s happening, but it all resumes to the fact that you are a witch trying to get to the top of a magical tower.

You start with a handful of cards, and each one of them has specific powers and stats. These cards can then be activated and used against enemies, although the combat system is either broken or badly designed. Hence, it would seem like you can only have one card active at a time, which is a bit of a bummer. It also seems to be impossible to change the cards unless the one that’s currently active is destroyed in combat.

The graphics are very basic as well, which shows the most when it comes to level design. Every room looks the same, and it doesn’t help that the fog blocks your view for the most part. Hence, you’ll always be able to see only a handful of tiles around you, and these tiles are almost always the same. The controls are pretty intuitive, thankfully, but there’s not a lot to do other than move and attack when an enemy blocks your way.

All things being equal, Tofu Muffin could certainly turn into something fun and engaging, but it needs a lot more work before that can happen. Until then, there are plenty of issues that need to be fixed.