Quick Review: DRAGON: A Game About a Dragon

The most imappropriate children's story ever.

Developed by Games with Dragons In, published by IPBuilders, and released to Steam on April 24th, 2015, this game is the story of a proud mythic creature – or rather, not so much.

Dragon is a dragon. But he’s not very good at being a dragon; he prefers to spend his time watching TV, playing tabletop RPGs, and being with his human girlfriend, the Princess of the nearby kingdom. This all changes when the King kidnaps his own daughter – Dragon will have to… er… “Dragon up” and rescue her!

On a hunt for every piece of treasure.

The game takes on the feel of a children’s storybook, and takes things a step further by looking like it was drawn and colored by children. I don’t recall ever seeing a game doing this – they really go all-out with the concept. Thankfully, barring a rare few instances, the elements that matter are perfectly visible. That goes for the protagonist’s sprites as well as the platforms, the enemies, the hazards and the NPCs.

Dragon starts with few skills: A claw attack, a short flight ability, and his fire breath. As the game progresses, our unlikely protagonist gets his hands on new attacks – all breaths, one that’s electric, one that freezes, one that’s a spit of acid, and one that’s a spew of magic. Some of these are earned through story progress, some need to be found to be unlocked.

Taste my fire, Robin Hood!

Be sure to check the bigger version of the picture.

The levels are fairly short, but every one of them has at least one hidden treasure, which is obtained by using either of these abilities and, sometimes, solving little puzzles. Each treasure can improve Dragon in some way – more HP, longer breath, improved flight duration, stronger attacks, and so on. On top of it all, Dragon earns money by defeating enemies, and can then spend it on leveling up his Attack, Defense and Specials on his Tabletop RPG sheet. (That particular screen is a goldmine of jokes.)

Gotta love tandem bosses.

The game may look like it’s been drawn by children, but it’s been designed with a proper difficulty curve and some fairly creative level designs as well – the treasures encourage the player to revisit and search every corner of all the levels. I would argue one of the bigger issues with the game is that enemy hitboxes aren’t always clear, so a few opponents can be tricky to defeat. The bosses require special strategies as well. Most of the game isn’t too hard, but the bosses can be tough when you're not sue what to do. The final boss, in particular, has four weak points, with each one damaged solely by a different breath in Dragon’s arsenal. And it’s crazy difficult.

I didn't expect a game made in hand-colored art featuring
a silly dragon to provide me such a tough challenge.

There are two possible endings, one earned before all the treasures have been collected, and one after. Either way, Dragon retrieves his human girlfriend, and they live happily ever after and have lots of half-human half-dragon abominations. Another bonus unlock that’s hinted at during the first run (in which Dragon speaks Dragon Common, incomprehensible for humans) is the option to change the game’s language to Human Creole English. It makes the narrator speak (or write) with a heavy accent, while Dragon becomes comprehensible.

Even the map, with all its deatil, was hand-drawn
and hand-colored!

I’m not going to call it the best thing ever, but it’s a nice enough idea. The graphics make the game feel unique, the music is fine, the challenge is there and getting 100% completion is harder than it looks, and the story has a nice dosage of comedy to it. The biggest issues I’ve encountered involve the hitboxes as I mentioned earlier, as well as a handful of times where animations didn’t run well (mostly after defeating an enemy). It’s also been reported that one or more of the Steam achievements literally don’t work, and that this issue was never corrected. Also annoying is that Dragon can’t attack while in midair or crouching. But outside of these issues, it’s an okay way to spend three hours.

DRAGON: A Game About a Dragon is available on Steam for roughly 2$.