I’ve been watching Dungeon Clawer from a distance for a while now. Much like any other obnoxious arcade tween I love a good crane machine. As the crane game master from my friend group, Dungeon Clawer really spoke to my inner child. If I wasn’t already sold on the idea of a claw machine battler, Stray Fawn Studios threw in some deckbuilding mechanics, and you’ve got what could only be described as my dream time wasting game. 

Claw Machine Dungeon Crawler

For this demo, we have access to a ton of different characters, each with their own unique prebuilt deck and abilities. The gameplay feel really changes for each character and having them all available right away allows players to approach Dungeon Clawer with whatever playstyle they choose. My favorite is Dolly, a character whose prebuilt deck comes with cards that deal damage as you play them.  

As I played, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question. What makes a deck builder? Is it the act of drawing cards from a deck, or playing cards from your hand? Or does it go as far as simply just collecting cards of a specific item? Dungeon Clawer has really stretched what can be called a deck building game.  

The cards are just the vehicle for how you get items to start dropping into the claw machine. These items, I mean cards, then show up in your deck, as noted by a backpack icon. Why are these not pieces of gear we put in a backpack? It would serve the same purpose. I would like to see a few more traditional deckbuilding mechanics besides just some general terminology.  

One Track Wonder

Look it’s got one song, but it’s a banger. You’re going to love it for the first 10, maybe even 15 minutes, but eventually it’ll loop in your dreams. It would be nice to see some sound effects, at least when enemies take damage or when special effects go off. On one hand, this means I’m not missing out on anything when I turn off the sound and play Dungeon Clawer on another screen while doing something else. On the other the lack of variety takes a little charm away from the game.  

Balancing Concerns

Dungeon Clawer is a battler with a little bit of a balance problem. Certain character abilities feel underwhelming when they should be making a difference, and I’ve had runs with nothing but dead card selections.

For example, one of the playable characters can’t gain shields, but so many of the mid run cards give shields. There is an option to reroll them in exchange for gold, but spending money to get options that your character can take advantage of isn’t the most intuitive decision. I would like to see a change in the filtering system that keeps unusable cards from coming up for characters that can’t use them.  

Final Thoughts

I’m giving Dungeon Clawer a 3 out of 5 stars, although that could always change with the full release later this year. 

Dungeon Clawer is a fun casual game for people that enjoy a little bit of luck in their video games. I do have a few concerns with the quickly approaching release date of Q4 2024, but with some balance tweaks it’s shaping up to be a fun game to pass a little time with.  

Dungeon Clawer is currently in Early Access and coming to PC on Steam Q4 2024. The demo is available now.