Video Game / Soda Dungeon

It is the booming age of courageous adventurers and dungeons bursting with riches!

Soda Dungeon is a free-to-play Dungeon Crawler Role-Playing Game developed by AN Productions and published by Armor Games (yes, one of the most famous Freeware Game sites) for the iOS (App Store), Android (Play Store), and PC (Steam).

The game is quite simple for a role-playing game: It takes place somewhere where it's the booming age of courageous adventurers and dungeons bursting with riches. The player, however, starts with not a single penny, which makes raiding a nearby dungeon a challenge. The player has to persuade adventurers to raid the dungeon to get riches, starting with a single Soda Junkie, and eventually gaining more wealth to upgrade the tavern, buy more sodas to hire more and better adventurers, and raid the dungeon to the top, with the help from fellow adventurers.

A sequel to the game, simply titled Soda Dungeon 2, was released for all of the three platforms the original was released on. The story is significantly different from the prequel, in which it starts with a group of soda-fueled adventurers in another far-away land making a last stand, only to be defeated by the "Darkest of all Lords" who then proceeds to destroy everything into ruins, showing a city nearby the lord's castle to be destroyed. The tavern owner then hands over the trinket, transporting someone into another land, somewhere else, so that eventually they would return with stronger adventurers...

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Soda Dungeon and it's sequel provide examples of:

• Action Initiative: A new mechanic in the Soda Dungeon 2 makes some enemies attack first before the party has time to act. The Dark Lord also retains this ability as a party member, too.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: In terms of refreshing for new prospects in the Tavern, at least in Soda Dungeon 2, the price for refreshing with the beds increases by the proportional stats (yes, including given by relics) of the party members you already have in your party. ^note If you refresh with an empty party, you only need to pay the default initial price of 20 gold coins.
• Affably Evil: Turns out that the Dark Lord eventually becomes this later with each defeat becomes even more comical than before. The Lord of Light also has this behavior especially, considering his backstory, and he actually sends gifts to the player while progressing all the way to his throne.
• All Your Powers Combined: The Final Boss of the first Soda Dungeon uses all the abilities of the other Dungeon Bosses. It's actually most of them, since it would be unfair to fight with certain bosses' gimmicks.
• Almighty Janitor: In Soda Dungeon 2, every time you reach a floor that is a multiple of 100 and you've cleared in a previous dimension, a Janitor appears in place of the Dimension Boss. He attacks the party because they're in the way of his cleaning. The Janitor has the same stats and abilities as the Dimension Boss that was there in his place, and also attacks first.
• Apocalypse How: Soda Dungeon 2 has this happening at Class 2 when the black-clad Evil Overlord destroys the dimension, as it shows the the buildings on the town also completely ruined afterwards.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Although the AI for auto mode does at least have a decent sense, it mostly only focuses on healing when the health of party members get low, uses single-target attacks over group attacks when there are two enemies (despite it could be more beneficial to use group attacks anyway). It also might waste MP using stronger single-target skills on regular enemies instead of bosses.
  • Certain party members will not use specific skills normally on the default script, such as Mystic's Energize buff (which adds MP regen to all party members). Though this might be intentional, to encourage the usage of custom scripts to defy this trope.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Soda Junkies in both games have no skills other than Attack, by default (not counting items such as Heal Stones) Though in the second game they can also learn a more powerful attacking skill. The Ragezerker in the first game also mostly attacks, aside from roaring on the first turn (which buffs a party member's ATK by 2, for the entire run), and the Blademaster in the second game downplays this by having an ability to stun an enemy (though he doesn't have the Defend skill available, either).
• Back Stab: Both games have a mechanic where attacking enemies that are facing the other way from your party members will deal 1.5x the original damage. Soda Dungeon 2 also has enemy ambushes turn the tables on the party instead, with one of them always attacking first.
• The Berserker: In Soda Dungeon 1, Ragezerker is even more frenzied than the original Soda Junkie, are uncontrollable, and roars at the first turn, granting a stackable ATK buff to a party member. He also gains ATK the more enemies he kills.
• Big Bad: Soda Dungeon 2 has a main antagonist that directly causes the conflict and kicks the plot of the game: The Darkest Lord.
• Black Mage: The Darkmage (appears in both games) is an adventurer that is one of the last adventurers you unlock, and she can do strong multi-targeting attacks that can poison foes (and confuse them, but only in the first game). The Conjurer in the first game and the Mystic in the second also counts, too, as both can attack group of enemies with a skill. Also, the Wizard, which is usually the strongest AoE magic attacker, as a party member.
• Boring, but Practical: In SD2, the Carpenter's Nailed It does surprisingly high damage (2x ATK) for a relatively low MP cost - more so than the Fighter in the prequel. And it becomes even more so powerful (4x ATK) with the upgrade, after a certain quest.
• Cast from Money: Both Merchant skills: 50/50 attempts to exactly half the target enemy's HP (though it can fail) at the cost of 500 G, while Affluence launches treasure at enemies, dealing huge damage to all enemies at the cost of 1000G.
• Combat Exclusive Healing: You can't heal grievously injured party members or even cure status effects (like sleeping) between battles or during events without a Healer healing beforehand in the previous floor. This is the usual cause of an early retirement, as enemy hordes on the X6-X9 floors can dogpile on an injured party member, especially when they ambush
• Combat Medic: Healer in the original Soda Dungeon, and Nurse in the sequel, both of these can just hurt with their attacks as much as their healing proficiency. The latter also has a damaging skill that can poison enemies, as well.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: Averted in Soda Dungeon 1 , but Soda Dungeon 2 slightly downplays this, since bosses are mostly resistant to status effects (around 90%, with the exception of the Grill accompanying Vacation Lord, and the final boss's One-Winged Angel form, which have 100% instead and play this straight), though this is fair since statuses only last up to 3 turns at most. However, in the arena's Boss Rush mode, this is actually averted (with the exception of aftermentioned two 100% status resist bosses ^note The Grill of Darkness, is strangely enough, not immune to the Owner's Closing Time, a One-Hit Kill skill.)
• Crutch Character: In a sense, strangely enough, The Dark Lord. Said character can't equip shields or armors, and will eventually fall off and becomes increasingly more fragile, though their speed allows them to act first before Janitors. But then, there is a unique relic in the Primal Lands that allow you to also gain Action Initiative on any party member. Even then, this purpose becomes invalid once you can recruit the Janitor, preventing them from spawning as enemies at the end of every 100 levels.
• Darker and Edgier: Soda Dungeon 2's story is this, due to actually involving an actual villain that destroys a dimension, something that never happened in the prequel.
• Defeat Means Friendship: The Dark Lord in the second game, with each defeat, becomes more so Affably Evil, and In the Warrior's Dimension, he becomes also recruit-able as well.
• Denser and Wackier: Soda Dungeon 2 has actually more whacky designs for the adventurers, dungeon levels and the enemies overall - outside of the plot.
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • The Nurse, in the second game, is essentially a female version to the (male) Healer in the first game.
  • The second game also has the gender flip counterpart of the first Dark Lord you have encountered: The Dark Lady, who also happens to have an amazonian build and also has a BFS that she can throw.
• Downer Beginning: As mentioned by the premise of Soda Dungeon 2, the world in which the opening of the game is destroyed by some really dark Lord by the aptly-named "Oblivion" ability, which doesn't even show up the party members getting knocked out - it just fades to white, then shows the world being destroyed into oblivion, including the tavern, preventing the production of soda and any adventurers to come and stop the one who destroyed the entire town.
• Dual Wielding: The Blademaster eschews the regular shield slot in exchange for a secondary weapon slot. This usually results in Blademasters being Glass Cannons that trades HP and/or damage reduction, in exchange for higher attack power.
• Eldritch Abomination: Ornos, the Final Boss of the first Soda Dungeon game, is a massive eldritch being and looks like a fusion of all the previous Dungeon bosses' body parts somewhere.
• Enemy Mine: The Dark Lord, in Dimension 4, 6, 8, and 10 will request the heroes' help to defeat another "Lord" that replaces him as the overlord of the respective dimension's castle, while... sort of, guarding the outside of town (and given that nothing bad happens in the town for a meanwhile, he did keep his word for good.)
• Evil Overlord: The antagonist(s) of the second game have this theme, being the lord of some castle with loot to raid.
• Excuse Plot: The plot of the first Soda Dungeon is simply described as "start from one Soda Junkie, raid dungeon, get loot, recruit stronger adventurers, raid dungeon, get loot, rinse and repeat, then finally defeat the Dungeon Boss".
• Failure Is the Only Option: A quest in Soda Dungeon 2 is given by "a purple guy", which says "Don't be" for the title, "A big" for the quest description, "Stupid" and "Idiot" for the tasks, with a 1 Diamond attached in as the rewards. This is the only quest you cannot clear, and you can only fail it by Defeating the Dark Lord's third form at floor 300, the Dark Lobster.. After the quest is failed, the achievement "Whoops" is earned.
• Fearless Fool: The Soda Junkie that is the first adventurer you hire, in both games, seems really hyped in to beat up monsters and get the loot, but eventually when his HP hits 0, he panics and realizes that he has a life and family he cares about, and flees.
• Final Boss Preview: The first Evil Overlord you encounter in Soda Dungeon 2 is actually the Final Boss that you'll fight... eventually, after a long time. The adventurers didn't even get a single action against him in the intro of the game, and didn't stand a chance either.
• Flunky Boss: Demora summons skeletons during her battle.
• Goomba Stomp: The main attacking method of the Darker Lord in the second game. His special attacking skill is called Crag Stomp, which also turns the target into stone.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: The most basic weapon in the games is a broken bottle that can be carried by the Soda Junkie.
• Hero Killer: The Big Bad of Soda Dungeon 2 starts up by not just obliterating the last adventurers that attempt to stop him, but also destroyed the entire world where it takes place in.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Zig-zagged in Soda Dungeon 2. The Dark Lord acts as the Starter Villain for the first three dimensions, but in the fourth and every even-numbered dimension afterwards, another Lord will replace him as the Dimension boss, but on the odd-numbered dimensions, he takes back his position as the Evil Overlord. Dropped completely in the Warrior's Dimension, as the Dark Lord instead becomes a playable party member instead.
• Light Is Not Good: The Lord of Light, the Dimension Boss of the 8th Dimension, though this is very, very downplayed because he is really surprisingly nice, and he actually gives gifts to the player on his messages sent towards progress to reaching his throne room.
• Loophole Abuse: One in-game that the player can accidentally discover with the Miner: If there is only one normal enemy left, the Miner can Transmute and turn it into an ore node, not instantly skipping the floor and allowing the rest of the party to mine the node to get an ore. This is because said enemy still counts towards enemies left to defeat before the party automatically advances to the next floor, while natural ore nodes don't count towards this.
• Magikarp Power:
  • Soda Stein, a legendary weapon unlocked by unlocking the Tavern Owner in both games. Moreso in the second game due to it's higher rate of triggering the +1 relic level. And this is per hit, in a potentially long run.
  • The Shifter in the first game, who needs to be in battle together with a different class to eventually gain the abililties of said class in a stone.
  • In a single run, the Ragezerker in the first game, and the Chef in the second game (along with the Fishing Rod accessory when used in the Primal Lands in areas with liquid in the background) can permanently buff a party member's ATK for the run.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The Miner in the second game, who's only main specialty is to mine ores. He has to skills, one that does a lot more damage to ores than any other attacks, and one that turns a regular enemy into an ore node.
• New Game Plus: Traveling to another dimension is a variation of this; You lose your sodas, gear and resources (though you can buy upgrades to retain a fraction of them) but keep building upgrades and unlock Relics that offer permanent stat boosts.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: The adventurers when hit 0 HP actually flees the dungeon instead of dying. Though they're permanently removed from the party in the run (with nothing being able to bring them back aside from a revive that requires you to watch a video ad in the mobile versions - they can't ever be brought back in the PC version).
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: The Darkest Lord has nothing funny at all to add for his personality gimmick, and only seeks for destruction of all opposition to him and his reign of terror.
• One-Hit Kill: Very rare, and they do not work on the dungeon/dimension Bosses, but there are several methods for the player to inflict these on regular enemies:
  • The only sole method in 1 is the legendary weapon first found in level 800-900, the Reaper, at 20% Insta-kill chance.
  • The Voidsoul Reaper in 2 can one-shot anything but Dimension Bosses on regular attacks (or Double Strike) for guaranteed, but after said attack, the wielder's HP is reduced to 1. ^note It also works on Grill of Darkness since it's treated like a normal enemy.
• One Hit Poly Kill: The Tavern Owner in Soda Dungeon 2 has the "Closing Time" skill which instantly defeats all normal Enemies ^note It can also affect the Grill of Darkness that assists the Vacation Lord, although it is limited by a 10-turn Cooldown.
• Orcus on His Throne:
  • In the first game, the Dungeon/Dimension bosses don't do anything aside from awaiting player on the highest level of the dungeon (X00, where X is the number of the dimension).
  • The second game literally has the Dark Lord sitting on the throne when the party reaches floor 81 to 100 (which takes place in the throne room, of course). His alternate counterparts also do so in their respective castles.
• Our Fairies Are Different: The Soda Fairy in 2 is a round fairy with wings that surely is kind, but somewhat incompetent. She can be found at the other end of a portal in some path choices, and will try to heal the party with a spell, but will more often than not mess up and cause damage to the party instead, unless the party chooses a portal that has "Healing Fairy" written under it. She is actually an Expy to the traps and healing fountains in 1.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The Healer in 1 has blue hair, while the Nurse in 2 wears white and pink outfits. Inverted with Fabulo, who is a male despite his pink color and feminine looks.
• Power Copying: Used by the Shifter in the first game. The Shifter stores skills learned from other classes with a stone each, though only can use 2 classes skills at the same time.
• Promoted to Playable: The Tavern Owner and the Wizard (along with Shopkeeper and Gladiator in the first) can be recruited to your party... if you can afford to get them. In the first game, the special characters require _caps_ to unlock, which you probably won't be getting (without paying in-app purchases) until the final dimension.
• Puzzle Boss: The first game has two of these Dungeon Bosses who has a really special gimmick to their fights, both involving Character Select Forcing.
  • The 5th Dungeon Boss, Demora, is immune to all damage except for healing. Guess which class is the only one with healing abilities by default? Oh, and she also summons skeletons to make things more difficult.
  • The 7th Dungeon Boss, Tengen, instead goes with an opening attack on his first turn that instantly makes all adventurers immediately pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, except for Fighters.
• Recurring Boss: In the second game, The Dark Lord will be refought so often in every prime number dimension (not counting the final dimension), each with a new One-Winged Angel form after the first dimension.
• Secret Character:
  • The Dinner Boy in 1 is a special variant of Soda Junkie that has otherwise same stats, but comes with a rare fork weapon. To have one appear, one must purchase tables, max out the kitchen upgrade, and set auto-equip to "Never". Then a Soda Junkie next to a table with food has a chance to be one.
  • The Dark Lord eventually can be recruited to your party in the final dimension.
  • The Janitor can be unlocked by first getting a Wet Floor Sign and Mop Bucket from Janitor enemy which both are rare. Equip them to a character in your team and defeat 10k Elite Janitors that can only be spawned this way. His main use is to avoid the Janitor battles in late game runs.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Soda Dungeon, the pet Dasha references Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Masks and hairstyles in the customize menu reference Crono from Chrono Trigger, Cloud from Final Fantasy VII, Wakka from Final Fantasy X, the mask from The Mask, the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta, Trap Jaw from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), Ghostface's mask from Scream (1996), and Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. The Lair of Despair monsters reference Barney & Friends, Film/Casper, Cast Away, Duck Hunt, {{Video Game/Pokémon}}, Super Mario Bros.., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, KFC, Love Lamps, Ring Pops, and Troll Dolls.
  • Soda Dungeon 2's 7th dimension boss, the Dark Dialer, has a skill called "Wrong Number", which has varying effects depending on the number that appears (1 to 9), a reference to Mr. Game and Watch's Judge numbers: 1 being a joke attack that does exactly 12 damage (the same amount as the recoil damage on the original attack it's based on), 2 and 3 are both weak attacks, 4 does exactly the standard attack power with no side effects, 5 inflicting stun in addition to the standard attack damage, 6 does the same but with inflicting Burn instead, 7 is a strong attack that also makes an apple appear aftewards, 8 is a strong attack that inflicts Stone, and 9... it does 9999 damage, essentially an One-Hit Kill, unless you somehow have more HP than that ^note or a certain accessory that prevents it, way late in the Primal Lands. (The 9999 damage is also a reference to the damage cap in Final Fantasy series.)
• Sirens Are Mermaids: In Soda Dungeon, the Water Temple mermaids are surrounded by hearts. Sirens appear as undead mermaids. In the Lair of Despair, the Harp mermaid sits on a rock and plays the harp like a Siren.
• Speaks in Binary: The 6th Dungeon Boss of the first game (coincidentally named Binary) speaks in this when defeated:
  Binary: 01001001 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110110 01100101 01100110 01100001 01101001 01101100 01100101 01100100. ^Translation  "I have failed."
• Status Effects: The first game has the first four status effects, and the sequel has all of these:
  • Burn and Poison, both are Damage Over Time status effects, indicated by steam coming out of the victim and the victim turning pale green, respectively. The difference is that Burn's damage starts low and then raises up, while Poison is more consistent.
  • Sleep makes a party member or enemy unable to act for a whlie. Note that in the first game, attacking a sleeping target does not remove the status.
  • Confused is also another status effect, but despite it's name, it acts more as "reduced accuracy" debuff, making them likely to miss their abilities on enemy targets.
  • Other status effects that makes the target unable to act in the second game include: Freeze (which also does damage over time similar to Burn), Stone (which also halves damage taken by the target), and Stun (only lasts for 1 turn instead of 3).
  • Speed Down affects the combat initiative and makes the target act last.
  • Mark, only inflicted by the Huntress, is a Damage-Increasing Debuff that makes an enemy take more damage.
  • Delirium introduced in the Primal Lands update is the actual Confused status that can cause the characters to attack their teammates.
• Stuck Items: The "Default" variation applies with The Dark Lord, whose weapon, Aphotic Blade, cannot be un-equipped and is by default in his weapon slot. ^note When the Aphotic Blade II recipe is unlocked by defeating the final boss of Primal Lands, this limitation is dropped, as the original Aphotic Blade disappears from The Dark Lord's auto-equipped weapon slot, also allowing him to equip any weapon. This also applies with the Chef's Iron Skillet, which cannot be unequipped, no matter what.
• Taking the Bullet: In the first Soda Dungeon, the Knight can automatically take one attack that would otherwise drop another party member's health to 0.
• Video Game Stealing: The Thief in both games can steal from an enemy, ranging from golds, items, and even essence.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: All of these Lords you defeat at the end of dimension does this, except for The Darkest Lord, who was finished off by the recurring Dark Lord - for good.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: While most of the game is pretty wacky, has silly dialogue and designs - the Darkest Lord would have none of these nonsense, is really scary, and definitely really evil and has no sympathy for anything else. Even the Dark Lord you keep meeting with previously calls this out on the Darkest Lord before finishing him for good.
• Warm-Up Boss: Both games' first dimension bosses are really easy compared to the later dimension bosses:
  • Julius in the first Soda Dungeon game is fairly straightforward, whose special skill is to inflict Confusion (which acts more like the blind status effect in other RPGs) on all adventurers, though it does 0 damage to them and doesn't reliably inflict the status.
  • The Dark Lord, when first fought in Soda Dungeon 2, is pretty straightforward aside from acting first and able to hit all party members with Shadow Slicer.