Dungeon Inn is a management-sim that thrives on chaos and a good night's rest

Dungeon Inn has just launched in early access and gives you a unique puzzle as you build your inn

Dungeon Inn / Cat Society

I don’t like to think of myself as a boring person, but I am forced to reconsider that belief when the phrase “turn-based management sim” appears in my inbox and immediately makes me excited to check out a game. I’ve always liked management sims, but doing them in real time is very stressful. I’m the kind of person who likes to sit there for five minutes considering options before doing anything in a game – and yes, I do say the options out loud to myself even when I’m alone, how did you know?

Point is, taking the intricacies of that genre and putting it into a turn-based system scratches my brain in just the right way, and it made me excited to try out Dungeon Inn, a game that just launched in early access where you run two inns right outside a dragon’s lair.

Dungeon Inn / Cat Society

Your inns sit between two main roads leading from two different cities that are full of wannabe adventurers with a postcode rivalry. You get to see them coming as they walk down these roads, and must use that chance to convince them to come and stay at your inn. The catch is that if adventurers from opposite cities arrive at the same time, they will immediately launch into a fight to the death.

Aside from your customers killing each other being bad for business, if adventurers keep catching the other side hanging around they’ll eventually grow suspicious that you’re playing both sides, and if you get rumbled, then both factions will be out for blood. To avoid this, you can place items along the roads that will slow down, speed up, or temporarily stop adventurers in their tracks.

All of these items cost wisps – your equivalent to energy each turn – and you can only have one of each active at a time, with them all being unavailable for a set number of turns. This creates a great balancing act where you’re doing all you can to attract as many people as possible to maximize your profits – because if you don’t make enough money the dragon in the dungeon will eat you – while having to carefully plan out in what order everyone’s going to arrive.

Dungeon Inn / Cat Society

In case that wasn’t already chaotic enough to be the plot of a Fawlty Towers episode, events and incidents will also pop up each turn that you’ll either need to spend wisps or money to deal with, further putting a squeeze on your resources. What’s more, the most experienced adventurers – the ones who pay the most money – are more likely to cause these events, meaning you’re actively incentivized to make things more chaotic for yourself.

The game’s objectives are good at pushing you in this direction too. Aside from the constant need to make money, you will also be given additional goals – both mandatory and optional – that reward you with the resources to upgrade your inn, making you do things like get a certain number of guests from one particular town, or of a specific caliber, or even having your inn completely full at one time.

It’s a game that understands where its most chaotic – and therefore most fun – situations arise and makes sure it’s always pushing you into them, whether you’re ready for it or not.

Dungeon Inn / Cat Society

I finished the current crop of content in a little over three hours and I’m excited for what more is planned to push me into even more difficult scenarios with even more plates to keep spinning. What I would like to see more of is a sense of progression in the tools I have at my disposal. While you can upgrade the inn, it doesn’t add anything mechanically. Having more rooms and better quality facilities just brings in more money from visitors, you don’t get anything new to do when you add them. 

What I want is for it to feel like the items I’m placing on the roads – which is what the bulk of the gameplay is about – are actually progressing with me. Whether that means getting new ones, improved ones, or something else remains to be seen, but when my tools don’t change (aside from occasional special character abilities) I don’t get as good a sense of forward momentum from one chapter to the next.

Dungeon Inn / Cat Society

The story does help in that regard though. It’s not an especially complex tale, but it gives us some fun characters based on simple archetypes and lets you in on their many misadventures as they try to turn a profit while avoiding being eaten or their ruse discovered. I made the Fawlty Towers comparison earlier, but the story really does play out a lot like a sitcom, and it stops the pace from dragging between levels.

When I finished the early access I still had an appetite for more, and that’s the best sign I can get that an early access game is on the right track. Dungeon Inn creates a fun and easy-to-grasp core concept and knows exactly what’s so enjoyable about it, making sure that every mechanic drives you towards the brink of everything falling apart so you get to feel nice and satisfied when you hold it together.