Dungeon Of The Endless Review

Dungeon of the Endless

Ever seen those guys at the circus that can balance spinning plates on long sticks, and they add more and more and then they do it on a unicycle, on a balancing chair, while juggling chainsaws and being chased by bears and xenomorphs?

Well that's kinda like Dungeon of the Endless.

Developed by Amplitude Studios, the team who gave us Endless Legend and Endless Space.

On paper Dungeon of the Endless is a procedurally generated, rogue-lite, tower defence, dungeon crawler. But the way all the different mechanics blend together makes for a truly immersive experience in which you begin to care about your heroes and the choices you make.

The opening scene is a penal transport ship under fire and just as it's about to crash land an escape pod is launched. From there it takes you to a menu where you choose your escape pod, which also determines the parameters of the game you're about to play. These parameters include how many crew you start with, weather they heal at the end of each turn, if modules can be repaired or not and my favourite – if you can pause the game or not. There are many many other differences between the different pods which creates a brand new play style and experience with each pod. Each pod also has different criteria that mast be achieved to unlock the next.

Now once you've chosen your Pod, and your difficulty level which is either Too Easy or Easy and believe me neither option is actually easy, after a few play-throughs you should be able to finish the game on Too Easy but the Easy mode is much much harder. The next step is to choose your starting crew.

When the escape pod launched apparently it had a mixture of prison guards and convicts in it and as you progress more and meet new characters, and play with these characters for three floors you will have access to choose them on your next play through, there are 21 characters to choose from but you only start the game with 4 unlocked. Each character has unique abilities and stats, some walk fast, some walk slow, some are healers some are cannibals, some shoot and others hit, and some are better at using modules while others are better at killing stuff. They all have separate back-stories and interact with the other characters differently, if you choose the right combination of characters then over the course of the game they will play out a story and unlock achievements.

OK. we have chosen the Pod, and our crew. Now What?

You begin in a small room of what seems to be an abandoned installation of some sort. You have a crystal in the room and some doors to choose from. The doors act like turns, each time you open another new room it is a new turn, kinda, some rooms will have places for you to install modules for defence like laser turrets or tear gas dispensers and some will have places for your resource builders, this is where the tower defence game style comes in.

Managing your resources is a big part of the game, you have Food, Science and Industry.

Food allows you to level up your heroes.

Science allows you to research new modules.

Industry allows you to build modules.

And then there is Dust, Dust is more like a currency and it's supply is very limited. Along the way you will meet merchants which you can spend dust to purchase equipment and items, but on top of that Dust is used to power rooms.

Now with every room you have explored you have the option to build something there, power the room, or keep one of your heroes in it, or simply leave it dark and keep exploring. If you leave it dark however monsters may spawn when you open new rooms, so you have to manage your dust accordingly. Monsters will not spawn in powered rooms or rooms where your heroes are but you will not have enough dust to power every room so you need to be tactical with your choices or you may end up overwhelmed by monsters as you continue to explore.

Remember the crystal I mentioned earlier, well that is used to power an elevator that is in one of the rooms, and the aim of the game is to get to the top level of the dungeon. So after exploring enough rooms you will come across an unpowered elevator room, this is where it can get nail biting. Once you have found the elevator room, in order to get to the next level you will need to bring that power crystal to the elevator room, and get all your heroes to it, but the second you pick up the crystal monsters spawn in every single unpowered room and will hunt down your heroes and specifically your crystal carrier, so you need to protect them as you make your way to the elevator. It creates some very hair raising moments believe me.

When your heroes die, they are dead, there is no way to revive them, you may meet other heroes on the way with the option of recruiting them, but it is all random.

There are 10 levels to progress through and each one contains harder and harder monsters to defeat. And one of the Escape Pods you get access to provides an endless mode where you just keep progressing higher and higher with no actual final level to reach.

With the variety of Escape pods and characters to choose from every time you play, the experience will be very different from the last, but your experience from the previous play-through will help you get a little further each time.

I had a blast playing Dungeon of the Endless. The pixel art is fantastic and the level design, even though it's procedurally generated is top notch. The game variety will keep you coming back for more and the soundtrack is amazing, all in all it makes for a truly immersive experience that will make you enjoy failing as much as you will enjoy succeeding. And trust me, you will fail a lot. But like I have said before, that's the beauty of Rogue-lite games, your failures teach you more than your successes and makes your successes so much more satisfying.

Dungeon of the Endless 8/10

Explore, Die, Learn, Repeat.

Available Now on Steam

Steam Link - http://store.steampowered.com/app/249050/Dungeon_of_the_Endless/

Official Link - https://www.amplitude-studios.com/

Trailer Link - https://www.youtube.com/user/dungeonoftheendless