The first thing I noticed about turn-based tactics game Dobbel Dungeon is that you can see fingerprints on the playdough character models. Even hard metallic objects such as swords are decked with faint, glimmering whorls. I’d have liked the game to let me leave my own prints on those playdough characters, care of the biometrics functionality I assume is secretly built into my work laptop. Perhaps they could have made this part of a proper degradation system, with high level characters looking all greasy and smooshed.

Alas, Dobbel Dungeon has no time for such Crysis-grade simulation elements. Going by the demo, it is simply a cheerful and well-made, tabletop-style game of leisurely flanking and special ability usage with a gentle twist. The twist is that every time a character takes a turn, they fling a bunch of dice. These dice are then slotted into ability boxes to perform them. Some abilities deal effects proportionate to the dice score – stick a dice roll of 5 into a fireball and you’ll inflict 5 points of damage. The three starting characters also have the ability to reroll one die per turn.

I’m not sure it’ll get too fiendish, going by the laidback presentation, but I can imagine scenarios where you’re umming and erring over whether to spend a 3 on a healing spell, or reroll in the hopes of that 6 you need to one-shot a boss boggo.

The Dobbel Dungeon feature rundown hints that “if you find yourself disagreeing with your dice, there are ways to ‘gently nudge’ them in the right direction via various manipulative actions gained through items and skills”. Hey, they’re trying to make us cheat! No thank you, Gamepie. You won’t find me trying to get one over Lady Luck. You won’t find me strolling down the Trickster’s Highway. In the shorter term, the maps are pleasant to gaze down upon, the music is catchy in a Viva Pinata sort of way, and the controls and interface feel like second nature.

The story here is that a witch’s cottage has blown up and transformed local wildlife into slightly angrier, humanoid-looking wildlife. It’s definitely not in the same bracket of atrocity as Mewgenics.

You get a hub town with surrounding jetties that ship you out to islands full of individual mission-battles. You’ll also encounter merchants where you can buy gear for your clayfaced critter clubbers, and yes, there are the expected skill trees. All very genre-standard, but executed with enough bouyancy that I can see myself plugging on for another few hours.

Dobbel Dungeon is out today on Steam. There’s still a demo as of writing, but demos tend to vaporise fast, once the game is on sale. For a considerably less saccharine take on the ‘what if your characters were made of physical arts and crafts materials’ racket, try Mashina, which we really should have reviewed. Curse the limitations of my non-playdough body.