[PC] Dungeons of Dredmor Review

[Lekon]

Dungeons of Dredmor

Title: Dungeons of Dredmor
Platform: PC
Developer: Gaslamp Games
ESRB: None
MSRP: $4.99 US (Available on Steam)
Editor: James 'Lekon' Barry

What's Hot: Great sense of humor, tons of loot & skill choices, wonderful user interface.

What's Not: Some bugs still being worked on, difficulty ramps up in a very short time, some handy game mechanics are never explained in game.

As many in the CoG community know, I am a fan of the Roguelike Genre. The deep systems, the oppressive difficulty that rewards dilligence and creativity (and dirty tricks), all of these appeal to my inner munchkin loot monger. Gaslamp Game's new title is an attempt to bring the Roguelike to a wider audience, eschewing several of the problems common in roguelikes while keeping what matters most: Your Horrific Demise.

You'll be getting congratulated often.

Story wise, an ancient evil has begun to awake, and isn't happy about being locked in a dungeon. The land needs a hero. Sadly, all they have is you. Ten large dungeon floors stand between you and Dredmor himself. It's a fairly standard plot, but it sets up the first real break from most of the hardcore dungeon crawl games, in that Dredmor does not take its story or setting seriously.

Nearly every item, enemy, and object in the game has some little tool tip that helps flesh out the strangeness of the dungeon. Aqua Vitae comes with a warning about how strong the water is, Rusty Swords warn you about tetanus, invisible shields promise that they are really there. The enemies themselves are a strange bunch, from Diggles (Drill nosed birds) to thrusties (Dark creatures with an awkward attack) to sentient shrooms. Those are just the early level monsters. As you get explore the dungeon, you'll constantly be surprised by all the weird little touches. Lutefisk Shrines, tombs of other players, even items based around beta testers and fans of the game.

Fortunately, despite all the humor, the game takes mechanics, skill sets, and abilities quite seriously. At character creation, you have a choice of 3 difficulties, a choice of if you want permanent death on or off, and once you've chosen that you'll be off to choose the seven skill lines that will make up your character. With 34 skill lines to choose from, ranging from Viking Magic to Fungal arts, and from Golemancy to Archeology, chances are you'll have a challenge just in figuring out what mix of skills you want to tackle the dungeon with. You'll then take your hero into the dungeon, walking, slaying, looting happily in a turn based world. Though the game eschews any real time systems, you'll still feel a sense of pressure anytime you become surrounded by enemies, or accidently open a monster zoo without having some weaponry to handle the swarm of enemies. When you do have the right tool for the job though, the sense of accomplishment will really hit you.

The game is pretty complex, but never obtuse fortunately, several tutorials are included to help guide you on the path to dungeon crawling bliss. Controls are mouse and keyboard, WASD and Arrows both working just as well. The only real problems here is a lack of documentation of some useful features, such as Shift-Click being the default key to pick items up directly into your pack, or that pressing space to pass turns won't damage you if you're in a fire or acid cloud, but moving through said cloud will cause full damage.

Pravin Lal and the UN aren't going to like this.

At a price point of under $5, there is very little risk for taking the plunge into what is a charming, deep, wonderful game with a remarkable style to it. Complimenting the style of your strange jouney is one of the best soundtracks I've heard in a casual game in quite some time. The music is mood appropriate, and never feels like it is in the way. You'll have many hours of fighting tooth and nail through the strange prison of Dredmor, and each victory will strengthen your resolve. At least until a diggle stabs you in the back. At that point, you'll think "Just one more game" and be right back in with a new character.

COG Rating: 4.5 out of 5.


James says, "Do you like dungeon crawls? Do you have five dollars? If so, what are you waiting for? This game is an absolutely amazing deal for the price, and with developer promises of upcoming free content packs, there's no reason not to jump on in."

[Serapth]

Shit, you can zoom out????

[LongStepMantis]

Great game.
I want to echo the kudos to the music as well. Especially the dark, organ-style track and the Zoo music. I also said this already in the game thread, but the art style really hooked me.

I do agree that some mechanics were learned through trial and error even with having played the tutorial. I'd say your rating is spot on. A few issues and bugs that will hopefully be addressed in future patches. Yes, the latest patch corrupted save compatibility for many of us, but they are a small group working in the wake of their first major release which, issues aside, is awesome. I'm willing to cut them some slack.

[Hawkzombie]

Originally Posted by Serapth

Shit, you can zoom out????

I thought the same thing o.O...

And yeah, this game just sings to me. Even with the faults, it's a fucking amazing first offering from what I hope is a development company that will be making games for a very long time.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Hawkzombie

I thought the same thing o.O...

And yeah, this game just sings to me. Even with the faults, it's a fucking amazing first offering from what I hope is a development company that will be making games for a very long time.

That's my main hope. They did this for Roguelikes. What will they tackle next and make us say "Why didn't anyone else think to do this?"

On a side note. I'm with Trackzero. We need a new term for roguelikes badly. It's as bad as Doomclones used to be.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Serapth

Shit, you can zoom out????

Zoom out the map? Just click the little icons at the top right of said map. Very handy. It gets pretty big too at top size.

[Serapth]

Originally Posted by Lekon

Zoom out the map? Just click the little icons at the top right of said map. Very handy. It gets pretty big too at top size.

No, your screenshots show way more tiles than mine. Mines zoomed in way to close to my character which is annoying.

[blair]

I'd say the ammount of tiles shown depends on your resolution.

[Lekon]

Originally Posted by Serapth

No, your screenshots show way more tiles than mine. Mines zoomed in way to close to my character which is annoying.

OH! That's because I play in 1600x900 windowed usually. Blair's right. Just a matter of your resolution.

[Serapth]

Originally Posted by Lekon

OH! That's because I play in 1600x900 windowed usually. Blair's right. Just a matter of your resolution.

Odd, that's exactly the resolution I play, just not Windowed, maybe that's the difference.

[Esquilax1138]

Nice review! Went and bought it just now

It's been forever since I played a dungeon crawl, think the last one I tried was Temple of Apshai on the C-64 so I'm expecting some old school fun from this.

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by Lekon

On a side note. I'm with Trackzero. We need a new term for roguelikes badly. It's as bad as Doomclones used to be.

TBS Dungeon Crawler

as opposed to RTS Dungeon Crawler (Diablo)

Or TBDC / RTDC

[MagGnome]

Originally Posted by biosc1

TBS Dungeon Crawler

as opposed to RTS Dungeon Crawler (Diablo)

Or TBDC / RTDC

TBS stands for "Turn-based strategy" though, and I wouldn't put Dredmore in the same genre as Civilization, Age of Wonders, Galactic Civilization/Masters of Orion, and other TBS games. The same goes for calling Diablo an "RTS".

I would refer to Diablo as a hack 'n' slash, if anything.


Genre arguments aside, great review Lekon! Dungeons of Dredmore is a lot of fun.