Developer: Clewcat Games
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Available on: PC
Tested on: PC
DungeonUp – Review
DungeonUp is won’t surprise you with its genre, it’s a dungeon crawler. Very reminiscent of Zelda. You’ll have to find a way through the labyrinthine pathways, killing many an enemy along the way. You’ll have to use your brain and your brawn along the way through because locked doors don’t open unless you have the keys.
Story
The story starts off with you at the entrance of a dwarven palace, just as a tremor runs through the land and the guards bar you access from the scene. You are left with no other option than to sneak into the place and warn the dwarven king yourself. But as you descent into the manhole, the dwarven guards pick up on you and you are seen as a threat and locked up.
A nifty thief manages to break free and he listens to your pleas and frees you. That’s only where the problem starts as there are 53 levels seperating you from your goal, and many an enemies between you and your goal.
Graphics
The beauty of DungeonUp, lies in its simple graphics, they make the maze clear. As you enter a level, you’ll almost immediately see the paths leading to the stairways up to the next level. There are a lot of different paths, with different enemies blocking your pathway. If you are uncertain whether or not you’ll survive the next encounter with the beasts. If you hover over your cursor over the enemies you’ll see their stats.
If one thing can be said about the graphics is that there is no way to tell whether or not a character is male or female. This isn’t that big of a deal for the enemies, but if you want to get into the role playing aspect of the game then knowing whether or not an ally is male or female adds to the immersion.
Sound
DungeonUp doesn’t have a lot of sounds going for it. The music is a single track playing on loop and even though it’s a fun little ditty, after having heard it for the fifteenth time as you traverse back and forth over the levels it starts to grow stale. There is no voice acting, or even sounds when the characters speak, not even a little beep at the start of every sentence. It’s a little sad that there is so little going on in the audio department.
Gameplay
DungeonUp is a dungeon crawler. You start off in the basement on level -49 of the dungeon and it’s up to you to make it to the king. The game has three difficulty settings in the story mode and difficulty setting. The biggest difficulty lies in managing keys. If you play in the easiest setting you’ll get a yellow key after a minute if you run out of keys. This isn’t he case in the medium and hard difficulty settings. This might not be that big of a deal, but you need to preserve the keys to progress further. If you do run out, it doesn’t mean it’s game over per say, You can either restart in the Afterlife, which means you start from floor 49 and lose all your stats, but keep your Soul Stones, or you can revive yourself if you have gathered a Soul Stone. These are granted to you when you finish off a boss battle. You can buy relics with these Stones which will help you on your journey.
Every few levels you’ll come across an altar, where you can upgrade your stats or heal up. Doing so costs gold, which you collect after every kill. Every upgrade costs more, so you’ll have to weigh your options on whether or not you should heal up now or save up your gold for some damage upgrades.
Planning ahead is a big part of the game and scouting the floors will make it easier for you to overcome the dangers that are in your way. The best part however is that it’s a procedurally generated dungeon crawler, which means that no two runs will be the same. So if you think that if you choose to replay the afterlife with knowledge on what’s to come, think again. This makes for a true challenge.
Conclusion
A Zelda-esque dungeon crawler where careful planning and forethought will help you make it through the maze and to the upper floors. If you are looking for a decent priced game with a lot of content, then this is right up your alley. If you aren’t into dungeon crawlers, then you won’t have any fun in playing this game.
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