PixlBit

With hundreds of new indie games spilling onto the scene each month, it's easy to overlook some of the more deserving but obscure titles. Thus, this blog.

 

Super Dungeon Quest--Xbox Live Indie Games--Smoodlez

The growing indie movement continues to be a huge boon for gaming, granting the medium a level of dynamism and diversity rarely achieved by traditional publishers. Indeed, there’s a reason Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are furiously courting the more talented of these studios—their innovative titles are invigorating the industry, generating huge revenues for their respective platforms.

That said, for every indie masterpiece that hits the marketplace, there are numerous others that are at best mediocre, at worse complete trash. And while this blog strives to highlight the better half of these titles, sometimes the chaff slips through. As is the case, sadly, with Super Dungeon Quest, a sort of hack n’ slash dungeon crawler that never reaches its full potential.

At least the game begins well. Set within an appropriately pixelated, 8-bit aesthetic and accompanied by some well-themed music, all seems promising as the player chooses his class archetype (from a selection of eight) and begins his descent into the dungeons. Each character specializes in a special “hero power”; the Paladin can heal himself, the Rogue can launch a salvo of knives, the Bomber can lay exploding traps, and so forth. Outside these unique attacks, however, there’s little else to distinguish the heroes beyond their stock long- and short-range striking abilities, leaving them feeling cheap and generic after just a few rounds of play.

It may look fun enough, but what's depicted here is essentially the whole game, sans some extra scenery.

And the same can be said of the fourteen dungeons players will have to hack through to “win” the game. Although randomly generated, these levels all play the same—whether set within the middle of a volcano or the bowels of an unholy crypt, the only goal is to simply scurry about, slaying stupid enemies until a key is found and the gateway opens to the next dungeon. No environment-specific hazards, puzzles, or bosses exist in these rote affairs—just swarms of clueless monsters that must always be killed in the same way. The lack of worthwhile loot or anything remotely collectible only furthers this sense of pointlessness. Although the game strives for an accessible, arcadey feel a la Gauntlet, it falters by removing one of the genre’s most appealing features.

In addition to the main quest, the game also offers two arena modes. But their redundant nature and lack of leaderboard support renders them largely pointless.

So what does this game offer? Challenge, presumably. In stark refutation to its otherwise casual inspirations, the game employs permadeath, that common staple of the roguelike genre in which dying means a brutal reset to the very beginning of the game. Players will thus have to use patience and care if they want to beat all fourteen dungeons, although it’s not really as difficult as it sounds; collected gold from fallen monsters and chests can be spent in between rounds to level up a character’s stats, and smart players will quickly uncover the necessary exploits to render the journey a much easier one.

In other words, Super Dungeon Quest is more middling than super, and feels largely unfinished. More varied dungeons, smarter enemies, better loot drops, and the inclusion of some bosses would have all helped make the game a more rewarding, epic experience. Perhaps a much needed update will improve matters, but until then, better dungeon crawlers can be had elsewhere.

 

Thanks to http://marketplace.xbox.com/ for the images.