I didn’t intend to play this. I thought I’d pulled the Sega Rally UMD out of the case, but Dungeon Maker booted up instead. I had been waiting until Jeanne D’Arc was finished before playing it, but as it was there I thought I’d have a quick go.

A “quick go” which ended up eating my entire evening.

It’s all very simple. If you want a soundbite, think Viva Pinata with monsters. (Thanks to my wife for that comparision.) If you want a slightly more detailed description, it’s a simple dungeon hack, where instead of the levels being pre-determined or randomly-generated they’re user-created.

A day goes like this. You wake up at home in town and then go into your dungeon. You run around killing the monsters your dungeon has attracted overnight while refining and extending it. Run to a dead end? Then bring up the building menu and add some rooms or corridors from your supplies. Running through boring corridors? Why not bring up the building menu and give them some wood panelling, if you’ve got some in stock. In a boring room? Add a fountain or some beds. Everything you do improves your dungeon and changes which monsters you’ll attract. Some need water, hence the fountain. Some are only attracted by certain types of room, such as the self-explanatory Goblin Room. Once you’ve explored and expanded your dungeon, it’s back to town. Sell any loot you don’t need, buy supplies, cook yourself an evening meal, go to sleep ready for the next day.

Combat’s pretty simple. Two attacks (fast and slow, basically) and a magic menu which lets you teleport or drop rocks on enemies, or, well, I’ve not got any new magic yet. So far my dungeon is just a single level and money’s tight. I’m spending most of my cash on new building parts. Only about half my dungeon is decorated, so I need more wood panelling. There’s lots of space and the bigger your dungeon is the more and better monsters you get, so I need to buy more corridors and rooms.

My current main goal is to attract a boss creature. Once the dungeon’s good enough he should turn up and defeating him will let me add a second floor to my dungeon. I also get the odd side-quest, which all seem to be “find object X”. At the moment I only have one, which is to get a Kobold Ring for the weird chap who runs the museum in town. I’ve killed plenty of kobolds, but not one has dropped a ring yet.

It’s all quite simple after some initial confusion, but that’s not a bad thing in a handheld game. At least, it’s not in short term. It remains to be seen if this game has legs, but I’ve had a good couple hours of fun so far.