Dungeons of Dredmor Reviews

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on July 23rd, 2011

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What really sets Drednor apart aside from the gameplay and charming 16-bit aesthetic is its sense of humor. The story is a send-up of every RPG ever an evil overlord/demon wants to take over the world and you are the hero working against it. Except you are (unfortunately) the hero who just sort of showed up and there are propaganda posters strewn about the dungeon, warning about a (bushy-eye-browed man). Every item, weapon, potion, monster etc. has a cute name poking fun at genre conventions (your first pair of boots are flip flops, for example, making fun of the near-useless equipment you'll often get on start-up), and you get your quests from (Inconsequentia) a deity of pointless sidequests. It's played for gentle laughs, rather than guffaws, but the humor is a very nice touch.

But boy, does the game lack balance, and if that's important to you (as it is to some fans of roguelikes), Dungeons of Dredmor is going to drive you nuts. I promise you're going to hate the Monster Zoos -- rooms that spit out large groups of bad guys. Be wary of these, and run away if you don't have the resources or health/mana to survive these horrendous encounters. The game also gives you plenty of items, including tons of crafting materials, but in my time with Dredmor, I found it more sensible to see off as much as I could to get the high-powered items instead of hoarding crafting goods for future use. (ProTip: Use, don't hoard, your food, potions, and other items; you find lots of 'em, and chances are, you're going to find plenty of use for them thanks to the game's difficulty).

The game's a bit buggy as well, and while the developers have patched it twice in the game's first week, their work doesn't always improve things, such as rendering all previous saves incompatible with the latest version (they did put out a hotfix for this, and you get a nifty achievement the first time you crash because of this). But the patches do show that Gaslamp's taking player feedback seriously, such as adding autoloot and quick-sell functions.

These drawbacks, though, don't bug me. I'm quite taken with this roguelike; it feels like a game that came out of nowhere and hits all of the dungeon-crawl buttons -- steep challenge, lots of loots, and a ton of monsters. Throw in its humor and soundtrack and you've got a roguelike that should appeal to anyone who likes a good dungeon-crawl.

There are a great variety of surprises to be had in Dungeons of Dredmor's 10 floor romp. Shops, monster boxes, forges to randomly enhance or curse gear, multitudes of sidequests, bosses, monster zoos, uberchests, and much much more. With a wide variety of skill trees to choose from and randomized dungeons, no dungeon dive is ever the same. The feeling of terror as a player unveils his or her first monster zoo is on par with anything you'll find in a good survival horror title.

Dungeons of Dredmor is available on Steam at the $5 price point, and is an absolute must buy for anyone that enjoys RPGs or dungeon crawlers of any kind. Featuring high replayability alongside addictive gameplay, Dungeons of Dredmor is difficult to put down. Like other recent indie offerings such as Minecraft and Terraria, Dungeons of Dredmor stands as testimony that incredible gaming doesn't require overclocked video cards and power processors.

Of course, the game is not perfect. As much as I try to deny that fact, I have run into occasional bugs and general silliness from my summoned monsters. Whenever I summoned slimes or golems, they would either (tank) the enemies (as they are meant to) or run around leaving me to be slaughtered by the Unfriendly AI. I have also found that clicking somewhere during your enemies' turn (to cast a spell or take an item, for example) will make your character run around the dungeon, stepping into traps, monsters and various other hazards you may or may have not set yourself. These are, sadly, things that will get you killed and there's nothing worse than dying because of bugs, especially in permadeath games.

The worst thing is that I've still not been able to get beyond level 5 and I'm not sure Dredmor even exists. He could be a McGuffin or red herring, I don't know. If you ever wanted to dabble in roguelikes, but were intimidated by the unfriendly interfaces, Dungeons of Dredmor is an excellent title to get into. If you're a fan of geek humour and unforgiving difficulty, you should definitely look into it. For the price Gaslamp Games are asking, it's worth every cent (or whatever crazy currency you choose to use). I wouldn't recommend it to veterans of the genre, though. I'm sure they'd consider Dungeons of Dredmor to be a good introduction, but it lacks the unpredictability or complete unfairness. Whether that's a good thing or not, is a matter of taste.

That bargain pricing also means it feels simply petty to criticise Dredmor, but at the same time its fiddly interface leaves plenty to be desired. A patch to correct some issues - such as the toolbars being microscopic at high resolutions - is incoming, so it's hardly a deal breaker. Especially given roguelikes are famously unintuitive in their controls, but Dredmor leaves unguessable key combinations behind in favour of altogether more modern controls.

With crushing inevitability, such common man-enticing changes to the rogue like formula have left the genre's most devout veterans sniffing dismissively at Dredmor. For sure, there are far more taxing (and punishing) examples out there, but Dredmor does an impressive job of bridging accessibility and sadistically unforgiving dungeon survival. Monstrously compulsive and slyly smart, plus there's just no arguing with that price.

Dungeons of Dredmor isn't Diablo III. It's not even Dungeon Siege III, but it makes no pretensions about it. The game barely takes itself seriously enough to have proper swords, much less tell an epic story or rewrite the rules of a genre. Gaslamp Games' mission was to make a fun, accessible, lighthearted dungeon crawl with enough interesting mechanics to make exploring the game's systems as intriguing as diving through its dungeon. Dungeons of Dredmor is a solid success in those terms, and easily exceeds expectations for its five-dollar price tag.

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