The moment you open Demon Lord: Just a Block, you’re immediately hit with a funky theme song that sets the tone for the simple, yet wacky gameplay loop you’re about to experience.
This roguelite dungeon crawler features a loose turn-based combat and movement system, kinda like Crypt of the NecroDancer without the rhythm mechanics. It’s a deceptively complex game that I had a hard time putting down, so let’s take a closer look at what it’s all about!
Full disclosure: I received a review copy of this game, and these are my impressions after the first few hours.
Going Block By Block
As the name implies, the game has you playing as a fallen demon lord who is essentially “just a block” now, literally. In an effort to regain your former glory, your dismembered skull will be traveling across varying regions and (hopefully) growing more powerful with every run.
You have to clear each of the randomized levels by ramming enemies with your face, and you can move as fast or as slow as you want one tile at a time. Enemies usually follow the same rules, so they only move whenever you do.
It’s an extremely simple premise that has a lot more depth than it seems. While just running around going “unga bunga” at the start will work just fine, the game throws all kinds of curveballs as you progress further into each run.
Ramping Complexity
The constant addition of environmental hazards, larger groups of enemies, and varying unique mechanics will force you to slow it down a bit. Even if the grid-based maps seem easy to rush through, going too fast can eventually lead to a mistake that’ll quickly end your run.
Even early on, seemingly harmless entities like a plain ol’ chicken can be… fatal. I won’t elaborate any further, just know that it was an embarrassing death. Not even the trees in the starting forest are entirely safe!
The deeper into the game you go, the less the “turn-based” aspect gets respected by pretty much anything, including yourself. This ramping complexity will keep you glued to the game as you see just how much you can get away with.
As with most other roguelites, being overpowered does not guarantee victory. I’ve had runs where I was essentially a walking conduit that hit literally everything on the screen with lightning. However, stuff like that causes you to get complacent or, quite frankly, just completely oblivious to obvious threats nearby due to the sheer amount of particle effects on the screen.
Fast Runs, Slow Progress
It takes a couple of hours or a few good runs/wins to start unlocking most of the meta-progression systems in Demon Lord: Just a Block. After a little over 4 hours of playtime, I’ve finally gotten what I assume are all or almost all of the systems unlocked.
That said, most of them aren’t really essential. By around that time, I was only missing the “Lucky Deck” NPC who lets you pick which sets of bonuses are more likely to appear in your runs. The trial books came a little before that, and those let you activate varying mutators for your runs that have all kinds of powerful buffs/debuffs.
My personal favorite is the Trial of Pride, which gives you bonus attack damage in exchange for only having 1 max HP throughout the whole run. It practically forces you to carefully consider each move and actually take advantage of the turn-based nature of the game.
How Long is the Average Run?
When it comes to the average run length, it’s gonna be based on how fast or slow you approach the game. In my case, I like moving quickly and just taking hits head on, so both my wins and losses last just around 20-30 minutes.
The dev put a surprising amount of effort into actually having a story, which I honestly don’t pay too much attention to as it’s too fragmented for my tastes, but it’s nice that it exists.
Simply Addicting
I know I say this a lot on the blog, but when I call something “addicting”, I really mean it. Despite having a busy schedule, I spent an entire day playing this dang game, and I don’t regret a minute of it.
You don’t have to spend too much time playing it to learn how upgrades synergize with one another, making Demon Lord: Just a Block the perfect “just pick it up and play” game that you can get lost in for hours, but you’ll get a lot out of it even in short bursts.
Personally, I also love a lot of the silly references injected into the game too, even if they don’t seem to have any rhyme or reason to be there. Blatant JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure references in upgrades? Sure, why not! Zagreus from Hades just kinda standing beside a campfire? Um… I guess, sure!
Overall, it’s a fantastic roguelite that slowly turns into a puzzle game with how it puts you in situations where you have to think carefully about each move to avoid certain death… Though nothing’s stopping you from going all gas and no brakes, because that’s how I’ve been playing it this whole time.
I’ll probably keep playing this every now and then, since there’s still a whole lot of stuff that I can unlock despite already clocking in over 8 hours.