[Review] Dungeons of Dredmor: Conquest of the Wizardlands

[Lekon]

Dungeons of Dredmor: Conquest of the Wizardlands

Title: Dungeons of Dredmor: Conquest of the Wizardlands
Platform: PC
Developer: Gaslamp Games
MSRP: $3 Via Steam
Editor: James "Lekon" Barry

What's Hot: More items, more monsters, new crafting abilities, new skill lines, same great rogue-like with Gaslampian Humor.

What's Not: You're still pretty much at the mercy of the random number generator; never enough chalk to go around.

Since Dungeons of Dredmor's release just over a year ago, countless diggles have been slain, booze has been drunk, heroes have been congratulated in horrifically violent ways, and now, three expansions have been released. Conquest of the Wizardlands finds our lucky heroes and heroines charged with picking up the inter-dimensional keys left over after a few wizards had way too much to drink.

For those not familiar, Dungeons of Dredmor is a rogue-like dungeon crawler, in which your goal is to make it to the bottom of a dungeon to kill the evil lich and save the kingdom. Doing so will require clever planning, liberal eating of cheese, and a bit of luck. Conquest of the Wizardlands adds in several new skill-lines, new monsters, new abilities, items, and a whole new dimension of strangeness. Upon finding one of the new "Wizard Keys" You gain access to your own private pocket dimension, complete with adventure portal and decorating options. Basically, a giant storage area.

Snazzy Private Dimensions for Everyone!

Next up on the newness parade: Six new skill lines, each filling a different, odd little niche for your characters. Magical Law allows quite a bit of utility with evidence confiscation and random objections, while Paranormal Investigator lets you find the truth, no matter how out there it is. Bankster allows you to make quite a bit of cash while dumping your toxic assets on enemies, while Communism lets players finally buy into the Public Option of Kanadia. Lastly, Tourism will let intrepid adventurers get away from it all and eat hammers, while the Egyptian skill tree allows you to wipe away enemies in massive flaming sandstorms.

The new Egypt skill line is a bit dangerous.

On the physical side of things, several new items and enemies have been added. Now little sky gremlins and murderous rutabaga will be trying to congratulate you into oblivion, along side several new flavors of Dredmor's mascot, the diggle. To help combat the new menaces, the crafting system has been expanded to allow "Encrusting" of items with useful and occasionally explosive bonuses.

Keeping it Classy

Those interested in collectibles will find a bit more to enjoy in Conquest of the Wizardlands, as the achievement system has been expanded, now giving a list of all the enemies killed, as well as items found. Should you wish to embrace your inner achievement hunter, Dredmor is happy to oblige.


Finally, the Wizardlands themselves offer a nearly infinite area to play around in. Throughout the game will be magical graffiti, special words that when punched into your pocket dimension's portal, open a magic gate to a uniquely generated dungeon. These words can be shared with others, and are usually great places to get extra loot and experience while delving the depths. Should you put in the wrong word you'll end up with a portal to "Diggle Hell", a special challenge dungeon meant for the most hardcore Dredmor players. Hell is full of demon diggles, red walls, devil diggle statues, and even the new bonus boss "Vlad Digula". Good luck actually killing him.


In closing, there's really no reason to skip Conquest of the Wizardlands. It's everything great about Dredmor, expanded, added to, and with a nice helping of infinite dungeons to go along with your regular 10-15 level romping. Along with the Steam Workshop integration, you'll be dungeon crawling for quite sometime. At 3 bucks, this is a steal.

Score: 4.5 out of 5 CoGs


James says, "Gaslamp's quality continues with a strong expansion containing tons of fun new options at a tiny price."

[Superman's Dead]

I don't play this game that frequently, but it's like...I can't NOT get it.

[Lint of Death]

Why? WHY?!

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Lint of Death

Why? WHY?!

That Crust was almost the image I used for the review. It really lives up to its name. You could even put it on one of the new thermal lances that explode on hit and just go boom all the time.

[LongStepMantis]

Bought and downloaded as soon as I logged into Steam and saw the update. Now to give the modders some time to update, and I'll be right back in. I have tons of mods from the workshop and Gaslamp expressed some minor worry that mods might be broken until they get things synced up. I just beat it a week ago, so I'm willing to wait.

You have to hand it to the fine gentlemen at Gaslamp, we're up to 3 expansions for Dredmor now, with small gaps between them and really low pricing. Hell, one was free!

[Hawkzombie]

I love this so much. I need to buy it ASAP.

[MagGnome]

Gaslamp is such a great developer. I had a ton of fun with Dredmore back when it came out. I really need to dive back in soon and check out the expansions.

[CES]

My only issue with the expansion is that the dimensional gate words only work once. I got three so far, two Wizardlands and one Diggle Hell. Also, did they nerf the Unarmed skills? They don't seem to be as effective now.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by CES

My only issue with the expansion is that the dimensional gate words only work once. I got three so far, two Wizardlands and one Diggle Hell. Also, did they nerf the Unarmed skills? They don't seem to be as effective now.

You got one wrong then. The codes work once per game, but it's setup that if you don't write in a code correctly (or just hit gibberish) it always sends you to Diggle Hell. Basically, if the gate's white/grey? You're fine. If it's red, Hell.
Codes work cross game though, so if Hawk writes down one of the codes he finds, everyone can use it.

Also, there is a special magic staff in Dredmor now. Hint hint.

[CES]

Originally Posted by Lekon

You got one wrong then. The codes work once per game, but it's setup that if you don't write in a code correctly (or just hit gibberish) it always sends you to Diggle Hell. Basically, if the gate's white/grey? You're fine. If it's red, Hell.
Codes work cross game though, so if Hawk writes down one of the codes he finds, everyone can use it.

Also, there is a special magic staff in Dredmor now. Hint hint.

I noticed on the Dredmor forum there's a Google doc with codes people have found. There also doesn't seem to be a limit on how many you can find in a dungeon level per playthrough, I found three on DL1 in my last game.

[LongStepMantis]

At first I didn't understand their decision to make each code only usable once, but it does make sense. If you found a code that gave you a bunch of awesome artifacts, you could just go there with every new character and load up. Granted, it's a singleplayer game and you can really do what you want, but since the sheer number of possible codes are so high you won't ever run out of new ones.

As Lekon also stated, if the portal is red, it goes to Diggle Hell. Easy way to know right off if a code was correct or not. For the love of god, don't go in if it's red. Unless you didn't like that character anyway.

Some people have been reporting issues with their pocket dimensions. Things like crashing the game if they try to go back in, essentially losing all the items they try to store there. Makes me a bit wary about dumping too much there.

Originally Posted by Lekon

Also, there is a special magic staff in Dredmor now. Hint hint.

Another Lekon endorsed item? I smile to myself every time I find your robe. Hopefully it's as awesome if so.

[Lint of Death]

Originally Posted by LongStepMantis

Another Lekon endorsed item? I smile to myself every time I find your robe. Hopefully it's as awesome if so.

I don't want some dead guy's magic stick.