head to head
vs
Darkest DungeonvsDungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Darkest Dungeon leans Optimization (Systems & Chaos); Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup leans Optimization (Systems & Chaos).
Darkest DungeonDungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Axis by axis
Execution0 vs 1
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup leans harder on execution: Browser-playable turn-based game; no execution axis at all
Reads0 vs 0
Even - both lean on reads about the same.
Variance7 vs 7
Even - both lean on variance about the same.
Optimization8 vs 9
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup leans harder on optimization: Species/background synergies and god choice form a deep solvable system
Two games can score the same on an axis and still test it in very different ways - read each rationale, not just the number.