Dungeons of the Endless Too Easy Vs Easyt

Dungeon of the Endless Review

Deeper Diving

The mark of a great game isn't simply throwing a million features into a pot, but balancing them; making them work together and feel part of a coherent whole. Dungeon of the Endless absolutely nails that, with a simple premise offering much to learn. The goal on each level is the same: to find the exit and transport a crystal to power the lift to the next level. Behind each door there might be a swarm of monsters, an artefact, a socket to build a factory, or one of a few other options, with the doors acting as tacit turns in the real-time action - special ability recharges, for instance, are based not on time passing, but doors opened (much like The Binding of Isaac). You're always pushed to move forwards, and never have quite enough supplies.

It's a brutal experience, with its stated difficulty options of "Too Easy" and "Easy" being entirely tongue in cheek. There's a tutorial, but it only covers the absolute basics, and the initial learning curve is both a bit too steep and makes it easy to overlook important elements like levelling up heroes with food instead of simply healing them or kitting them out with improved gear. The options aren't hidden, but there's a lot going on to keep track of.

That's because Dungeon of the Endless is a game of climbing through levels, but more than that it's one about peeling back layers. At first glance, it's a roguelike; a randomly generated, science- fiction dungeon to explore one room at a time. Peel back. Now those rooms have to be lit to prevent them from spawning monsters, but there's no way to do so for more than a handful at a time. Peel back. Now those powered rooms play host to tower defence action, where you build weapons and support structures to protect your team of two heroes. Then four heroes. At this point, Dungeon of the Endless could easily stop. It doesn't. It's got many layers left to go.

Provided you can get over its introductory hump though, it's the kind of difficulty that you can conquer simply by playing, getting a little further each time and enjoying the small victories. Playable heroes, for instance, are unlocked not by simply meeting them, but by surviving three levels with them, and each offer their own subtleties. A fast runner like Sara Numas (no relation to Samus Aran…) isn't as effective in combat as someone like Gork "Not Arnie/Duke Nukem" Koroser, but can be a great help when trying to rush the crystal to the exit past the sudden swarm of aliens that begins as soon as you pick it up. There's also an element of synergy to handle. The plot is that everyone arrived on a crashed prison ship, so some characters are guards and lawmen, and others newly escaped convicts. Along with their basic weapons and skills, that adds both stat- and story-based issues to assembling teams for dungeon runs.

Every decision, though, is a balancing act, from whether to leave heroes by the crystal to prevent enemy waves smashing it while you're at the other end of the map, to whether to use a factory slot in a new room to build an industry generator for creating weapons, a science one for researching toys, or a food one for healing and recruiting. Tactics soon emerge naturally, such as the realisation that you don't have to fight enemies in their rooms - there's nothing at all stopping you kiting them back into a pre-prepared deathtrap full of turrets.

All of this is wrapped in excellent, and very thoughtful design. A basic but outstanding demonstration is that while you're actually in-game and playing, the dark rooms and busy pixellated backgrounds can make it difficult to see doors and heroes, but you're only a spin of the mousewheel away from a clear map where everything is flagged up in strong colours - a map from which you can also issue orders to heroes to save having to pan around the whole level. It might be more realistic to need the heroes to build guns into rooms, or to only be able to do so while they're not infested with monsters. But it wouldn't be as fluid either, and so Dungeon of the Endless lets you place them as if by magic, albeit on a timer. It also automatically powers the room if you have enough of the relevant resource, rather than insisting on that petty extra click.

The main issue with Dungeon of the Endless is that its relatively limited scope - complex mechanics, but still basic objective - gets notably less compelling once the first major challenge is over and the sense of exploring the space rather than simply the mechanics has faded. There are other still spins on this goal to try though, with alternate starts including an endless-with-small-e game rather than simply set floors, and a mode that focuses on the heroes smashing their way through the dungeon rather than building defences. Simply unlocking these is a challenge in itself. That second one, for instance, doesn't just demand a winning game with a previous custom start, but doing so without losing a single hero.

More Reviews on IGN

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of its pixels: no individual element of Dungeon of the Endless is especially complicated, but together they form a fiendish and unforgiving challenge. If you're willing to take that on then it makes it more than worthwhile, borrowing from several genres to create something that feels unique - as well as bursting with personality and smart choices. It's likely to be a relatively limited love affair, but one with no shortage of extra challenges if you escape its initial dungeon and still crave more.

In This Article

Dungeon of the Endless

The makers of Endless Space invite you now to journey into an endless dungeon in this sci-fi mystery game.

great

Dungeon of the Endless combines many games, but emerges as something entirely its own.

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Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/13/dungeon-of-the-endless-review

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