Player One Reviews Matchmaker: Dungeon Heart

Matchmaker: Dungeon Heart Review: A Slow and Steady Dating Sim

Reviewed by Philip Lee

Matchmaker: Dungeon Heart is a whimsical amalgamation of a dating simulator and a match-3 battle system. The debut title from Melbourne-based indie studio Ghost Moth, it succeeds in meshing together themes of a conventional fantasy game and Greek mythology in a visual novel style. If you have ever wanted to build relationships with upbeat mythical creatures, this is the game for you.

 

After the Lich revives you in a forest, you are charged with managing dungeons where you can battle and romance a variety of potential suitors. Each suitor can be found at a designated location that gives them an inherent occupation and personality, such as Philomela, the harpy scout who can be found at the watchtower.

 

 

While the game thrives on its puzzles, art-style, and storytelling, the actual progression of the game can feel slow at times. I found it more rewarding to try to romance my favourite characters - AJ and Oren - rather than trying to romance everyone. These two characters are incredibly wholesome and have very charming personalities. While AJ can appear intimidating at first, being the initial heavy hitter you fight, he subverts your perceptions of him by sharing his hobbies (reading with a hot cup of tea) and being very down to Earth. Oren, meanwhile, can be very uptight, but becomes really cozy when you cook meals together.

 

 

When training or hanging out with potential suitors, you can get rewarded with stat boosts, gems for upgrading, extra points for relationships and more. Its strongest incentive is that you’ll receive a reward regardless of winning or losing a battle or hangout game. However, this lack of risk makes the reward less satisfying to achieve, catering to a stronger dating simulator in terms of gameplay.

 

You can also equip weapons, spells and an ally move, but I found using these can feel like an after-thought. It can take a while to collect weapons, and spells equip automatically at the beginning of the game. There’s also no explanation or tour of the menu or inventory as of yet, making it hard to know what each option does. The ally move, an additional attack or buff that utilises the skills and strength of each relationship, is better implemented. My personal favourite was becoming ‘friends’ with AJ who can delay enemy actions for five turns. It’s a convenient skill that can save you when you’re struggling to evade or attack, and is a satisfying reward for spending time with characters.

 

 

Matchmaker: Dungeon Heart is a well-made game and fun to play, and I kept finding myself coming back for the character developments and upgrades in particular. It’s a very promising game, and it’s still in its development stages so it’s bound for a great future. I look forward to seeing how the game develops further into its full version.

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Matchmaker: Dungeon Heart was reviewed by Philip Lee using a provided beta copy for PC.