Dungelot: Shattered Lands is a rather unique game that can best be described as a roguelike dungeon crawler with minesweeper mechanics thrown in. While that sounds like a massive headache it actually works fantastically well and makes for an easy to play yet surprisingly deep and addictive experience.

The core gameplay of Dungelot: Shattered Lands sees you explore dungeons made up of a number of different floors where you must find the key on each floor to proceed to the next. This is done by tapping to uncover squares which contain items and monsters. When a monster is uncovered you are unable break any adjacent blocks until it is dead which you may need to in order to search further. You do not have to kill a monster you uncover but if the key has not yet been found you may not have a choice.

Monsters get strong rather quick and often the deck is stacked against you. Monsters almost always attack first, they are littered with battle cries and death rattles and some make other adjacent monsters stronger. Really this game is a roguelike puzzle game and man is it fun.

As you progress you uncover a variety of different loot that help your adventure. Armour gives you extra buffs and abilities, all important food can be gained to stop hunger setting in as you lose a hunger point each floor, the usual life, armour and attack stats and a number of different offensive items. A personal favourite other item of mine is the lantern that reveals the location of enemies on the floor.

Each of the game characters that are unlocked as you progress also come with a number of different spells. The Paladin for instance has an instant damage or heal spell and the vegan vampire can cast a spell to move a monster to a different location (which is very handy to search nearby blocks without fighting overpowered mobs).

Another key mechanic comes in the form of salvaging which allows you to destroy an item to gain charge which increases the likelihood of gaining one off buffs and abilities. There is also a mood system in the game but honestly compared to the effect of other things its use is largely unimportant.
Every 5 floors you enter a merchant and there are other floors mixed in throughout the dungeon with other mechanics. The dungeons are all randomly generated which ensure that each run-through is a new experience.

In terms of the iPad version (which is by far the more sensible and in my mind better buy) it is a nice change of pace from the f2p offerings currently littering the ipad store. It is a nice change to have a decent difficulty curve and not be met by in game currency nonsense, stupid replenishing stamina and the ability to buy cheats. This is a proper and may I say very challenging game.
There are a few quality of life issues that I wish could be changed. Due to the nature of how the levels work there is a lot of wasted space at the edge of the screen. Why the inventories are not there as opposed to being on a separate screen is a bizarre move. Also I sometimes wished I had the option of playing as more characters from the start as opposed to unlocking one each act.

Overall though Dungelot: Shattered Lands is a great game the I would say is definitely worth considering on steam but an absolute must buy on iPad largely due to the touch controls being a more preferable way to play and the much more attractive price tag.