The 100 men versus one gorilla debate is finally over, as How Many Dudes? has the answer—and it’s as chaotic as you’d expect.
How Many Dudes? is a deckbuilder roguelike, packed with strategy and nonsensical fistfights. There is no rhyme or reason why you’re out here doing what you’re doing, which is gathering Dudes to place in a circle and battle it out round-by-round in hopes of taking down the all-powerful gods.
Much like hopping into a game of Vampire Survivors, Balatro, Binding of Isaac, or CloverPit, How Many Dudes has a simple concept that’s easy to grasp and a strong replayability value to keep you hooked to the screen.
There are 42 Unique Dudes who you will slowly but surely meet across your randomized runs. You’re offered three Flyers to pick from to create your foundation, as the Regular Dude won’t be much help in the long term. From there, you add a new Dude to your roster after every victory. Lose the fight and the run is over.
Each Dude is unique, offering different synergies and matchups with Dudes both within and outside their Dude Family. The selection of Dudes on offer grows more limited as you ascend, so choose wisely. Your build could miss a tank, a healer, or a strong DPS backbone. And there is no switching out Dudes once the choice is made.
But what you see isn’t just what you get in How Many Dudes? There are Relics and Trinkets you can find and implement to your build, alongside gear that is applied to a Dude Type as you progress through a run. How Many Dudes keeps things simple and always provides information should you need a reminder on how the fundamentals work.
Experimentation comes in many forms as Dude NPCs will drop by with enticing offers. You have to decide who to give Trinkets to, which Relic to buy or choose as a reward, invest money to get double in return, trade Relics, and decide which order to stack your Dude Types. There are many ways your run can go wrong, but you’re not completely useless. Items you buy and use go on a three-second cooldown, where you can heal, damage, or stun enemies from the sidelines.
The downright ridiculousness of How Many Dudes paired with the desire to see just how far I can make it with my team feels not too dissimilar to curating the perfect Pokémon party. And while experimentation is at an all-time high in this title, it does have a few flaws I feel are worth mentioning.
How Many Dudes will keep you engaged during a single run, but it does get repetitive fast. This is to be expected because of its AFK gameplay loop, but it means the game is best experienced in bite-sized sessions.
The world is vibrant and quirky, yet I had hoped to see variety in the animations from the unique Dude Types and enemies. Though the idea of knocking out toddlers (in-game, in-game!) is hilarious, sadly the visuals are lackluster. Perhaps I was expecting the chaos of Vampire Survivors, but the slight differences between fighting rings (mostly color changes) add to the repetitiveness. The huge difficulty spike from Round 100, the challenging boss fights, and run variety help counter these flaws.
I can see roguelike enthusiasts sinking hundreds, even thousands of hours into this game, coming up with the greatest builds and absolutely annihilating Round 100+. The potential is truly endless. Anyone can play this game and will surely enjoy it. But I feel the best way to get the most out of How Many Dudes? is by playing it in short bursts and going full experimenter mode every time you hop on.
