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The Dungeon Crawler thread.

JRPGs are all Wizardry clones for small children and people with a legal attraction to underage looking anime girls (who are actually 500 years old) so I don't see a new game wouldn't resemble a JRPG to some degree.
 
Sentenza said:
God, I hope they plan to use it for something like Wizardry 8 and not the pseudo-JRPGs spin-offs.
Click to expand...

Well, they might probably also branch to those paths. However I highly appreciate Digital Eclipse's remake of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, would have preferred more classic graphics but it was a solid remake (though somewhat buggy) with lots of QoL improvements and the classic engine intact. I'm all in for Wizardry 2-5 remakes like that. 5 is my favorite, got 3 copies for SNES in fact because I find it hard to sell them lol
 

When the Dwarves of Dverghold awakened something ancient beneath the isle of Rekestt, King Sterren sent word across the Shattered Sea: brave the haunted depths, or let the darkness rise. Oldschool dungeon crawler with turn-based combat and atmospheric soundtrack by Dungeon Synth artist Splendorius.

Demo available on Steam.
 
Yesterday I finished Dragon Ruins, someone called it a dungeon crawler for tired people and I quite agree with that statement. The game is extremely simple in every possible sense. The queen wants four heroes to kill a dragon, that's pretty much all the story. My mind cannot wrap around how simplistic everything is:
  • The dungeon is a single 30x30 floor. The game has automapper and coordinates.
  • Two modes, classic and remix, only the map layout differs between them. Each mode has its own save, one save only per mode.
  • The characters have three statistics, attack, defense and agility besides health.
  • There are several (10?) classes but they only modify the initial values for the statistics. They don't have special skills, not even the mages.
  • Combat is automatic, if there's an enemy in a room they battle automatically and only get combat messages. You only watch the health going down. Upon finishing you earn money and experience.
  • Experience is capped per level, you need to get out of the maze to earn a level (Wizardry-like), it costs 25 gold coins per level.
  • While you fight you can still move around, it doesn't affect combat unless you cross a new pack of enemies in which you start fighting that one instead. Escaping works by leaving the room to an empty room.
  • If all your characters die you are "rescued" by a party that takes half of your money as payment.
  • Leaving the maze automatically fills your health and revives your dead members for free.
  • You can leave the maze anytime by paying some amount of coins depending on how far from the entrance and how large your characters are.
  • Blacksmith can improve your armour and weapons (+1 to attack and +1 to defense), increasing in 50 gold coins per bonus.
  • There are two items, a health potion that is automatically used whenever a character drops to 0 HP, or used manually at any point, and a teleporter item to take you back to the entrance and then back to that point.
  • The map is clean, no traps, no chests, no secret walls. Only a few teleports that bring you back to the entrance for convenience.
  • The graphics... dungeons in wireframe just like the original Wizardry. The characters got sprites without movement.
So, it is a cycle of entering, fighting enemies (they respawn once "per year", you start in year 1000), get enough experience and coins, leave the maze, increment level and repeat. There are 2 minibosses (two unique monsters that only spawn in a single room each) and the dragon. Once you kill the dragon you automatically get the ending where the queen thanks you, and then another screen where the queen calls you back because a year later because the dragon revived. This works as an NG+, the map is the same you had last time (all explored if you already explored it all) so you basically go back to the room with the dragon and kill it. Every time the dragon revives becomes slightly stronger.

But I liked it, it was a cool two and a half hour journey. You can literally play the game with only one hand moving the party around since there are no menus to navigate. There's a second game which I haven't bought yet (I play these on Switch). It boggles me how something so simple can be that entertaining. Along Potato Flowers in Full Bloom I think it's a perfect game for beginners in the genre.


 
Released yesterday, a (standalone) expansion for Dragon Ruins 2. Finished 1 earlier and bought 2 today since it's on offer, hopefully he will make a Switch version for this one too.

 
416E688EB2EC59E157B334574CB8E7814C3C8306

Anyone got any love for Caves Of Qud?
 
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