It’s difficult to gripe over kinks in Legend of Dungeon’s engrossing armor since the game isn’t even finished. With that said, as a fan of roguelikes, I do have a few, shall we say, suggestions in mind. First and foremost is that the game’s abrupt difficulty spikes need to be reined in. It’s one thing to challenge a player with new, powerful enemies, but another entirely to drop a giant, one-hitting Minotaur on their head on Floor 2. Many bosses are outlandishly powerful, and when your primary weapon is a blade with the attack radius of a broken butter knife, player “strategy” is so limited that the only sensible decision is to run away screaming, defeating the purpose of a boss fight entirely. The other end of the spectrum is finding powerful gear sequence-breakingly early, rendering “bosses” nothing more than abnormally durable punching bags.
Behold my undead army and tremble!
Level generation is in equal need of a few structural parameters. Too frequent were the floors consisting of one or two rooms—as opposed to the usual six to eight—before sending me on my merry, underequipped and under-leveled way. This not only thrusts the player into imbalanced environments, but undermines the end-game goal of making it back to Floor 0 after retrieving the deified 26th loot (which is quite difficult, by the way, because enemies are constantly spawning in).
Actually navigating those levels could use a few tweaks as well. Doorways are also placed randomly, and with no map to go on, “Let’s progress through this door” quickly devolves into “I guess we’ll just go through random doors until we find our way out.” Interestingly, a means of countering this mundane exploration is already part of the game: The door that you entered a room from is highlighted red while all others are black. Applying this same color-coating to one or two more entryways in descending order of use would lend direction to the dungeon.
I've made a huge mistake.
There’s also wasted potential in the game’s item system. Legend of Dungeon’s colorful array of potions, for example, is worth approximately nothing since their effects are completely unpredictable, with potions of the same name resulting in everything from a full heal to putting your character to sleep, which, in pitched combat, can put a damper on things and quickly end your otherwise successful dungeon run. Dedicated heal and buff potions would add variety to the game’s healing system — which currently consists of eating apples — and could help balance the aforementioned boss fights.
Where is your magic now!?
In addition, due to the lack of any sort of mana gauge, magic is downright trivializing. Why should I care about the Fantastical Sword of Life-Rending (which I just made up, but is probably in the game) when I can spam enemy-seeking fireballs or summon skeletons like there’s no tomorrow?
Notice that I didn’t request a tutorial. When I said you have nothing but “Here’s a dungeon; GO!” to go on, I wasn’t kidding. The game does absolutely nothing in the way of explanation, instead throwing you to the wolves and telling you to figure it out. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Legend of Dungeon is about learning the old fashioned way — by trying again. Even after several dead characters, I found myself discovering more and more about the dungeon’s design and how I could better the chances of keeping my face intact. Barring the pointless boss fights, dying is never annoying because you know you’re only three seconds away from getting back to the action and not stopping to take review notes while standing next to a lit bomb.
Proud of its indie roots, Legend of Dungeon threw in some Plants vs. Zombie and other references.
Legend of Dungeon is an expertly tailored and refreshing love letter to the rogue games of old and can already stand among the ranks of Spelunky, Dungeons of Dredmor or The Binding of Isaac. If, after making the necessary changes and updates to bring the game out of Beta, RobotLovesKitty can find a way to secure online multiplayer and do away with the limitation of local key binding, it could establish an entirely new standard for the rogue-like(-like) genre. However, it’s still incomplete, and there is plenty of room for improvement. Luckily, the team has a solid, fun, unique foundation to build on.
The rogue genre is easily characterized. Add randomized levels, a minimal interface, unforgiving difficulty and character permadeath to dungeon crawling, and you end up somewhere in the neighborhood of a rogue-like. This makes Kickstarter success and aptly named rogue-like-like Legend of Dungeon all the more interesting. Although the game is currently in Beta (specifically BetaRobot, whatever that means), developer RobotLovesKitty (oh, that explains the Beta) has already accounted for these key elements while innovating on a simple style in equally simple but impactful ways.
Into the breach.
What does one do in the 2.5D beat-em-up world of Legend of Dungeon, you may ask? Well, there is a dungeon, legend says (go figure) there’s some awesome loot on level 26, and it’s up to you to find it and bring it back. That’s pretty much all you have to go on, which is good, because that’s actually more than you need in the way of motivation. And so begins the often short ballad of you, the intrepid and randomly generated adventurer hell-bent on learning what the elusive 26th floor hides.
From the juxtaposition of an appropriately retro 16-bit aesthetic and curiously detailed environments to the game’s remarkable lighting effects, Legend of Dungeon exudes style. Central to the game is the rogue hallmark of random which excels in generating ludicrous items. This becomes particularly entertaining when finding powerful weaponry early on and helps make each new attempt truly unique. Throughout my many playthroughs, I found myself wielding everything from the game’s starter weapon, a plain sword, to a powerful scythe to the Nimble Flamethrower of Awesome to a myriad of spells to a revolver, all while sporting stylish hats, which comprise the game’s armor system. My personal favorite would have to be the Safety Nimble Ethereal Bunny Band of Feebleness.
Why on Earth would I do that?
Beyond floors and items, the overarching randomization has also been applied to puzzles and even the music. This is where random truly shines: the game’s 244 songs — a figure which may grow through future updates — are subject to the same variance as everything else, resulting in a dynamic in-game soundtrack that complements each new level perfectly. Far from medieval, however, you’ll be exploring to the tune of 8-bit throwback themes, electronic beats and beautiful orchestral pieces.
Of course, the game does leave a few things up to the player. A character creator is sorely absent, but the game’s simple controls (move, jump, attack, cycle items, and a nifty screenshot feature) can be mapped to your keyboard or gamepad however you like. (For all intents and purposes, I recommend arrow keys to move, ‘S’ to attack, ‘A’ and ‘D’ as previous/next item, and Shift to jump.) This is all too necessary when accounting for what is arguably the most impressive and enjoyable bit of Legend of Dungeon: local co-op.
Grab some friends and hope for the best.
That’s right; no longer are you forced to trek through floor after floor all by your lonesome. You can have up to three friends at your side. And I’d grab as many comrades as you can because, as is often the case with well-designed multiplayer, each new teammate improves the experience ten-fold. Whether you’re racing for that epic sword, working to overwhelm a boss that just so happened to pop out of a nearby wall, or just laughing at each other’s hats, playing Legend of Dungeon with friends is a recipe for a good time. And for such a simple game, it accommodates multiple players admirably well: the camera will pan out to allow each player to explore whatever part of a level they choose; all party members must enter a door to move to a new area, preventing any jarring teleports; and, upon death, rather than drag the team down with your absence, you can be revived (with a whopping 1 HP) once your partners kill enough enemies.
Fight for a top-tier seat of honor!
