Dungeon of the endless: What’s Behind the Door?: Review

The French from Amplitude studios already won the hearts of fans of strategies with their magnificent Endless Space And Endless Legend. These were large-scale 4x strategies, where originality and fresh look at the fairly conservative genre were combined with the depth of the gameplay and high quality performance. And after that they release the game in the same universe, but, it would seem, much more simple. Dungeon of the endless -This is a hybrid of Tower Defense and now fashionable Roguelike- “Brody” along the gloomy “random” corridors with pixel graphics and little men on the big screen. You think the French decided to take a break? As if not. This is also a very complex and “smart” strategy.

Standard mode is twelve floors that need to be held in one breath, almost without a conservation system.

All to the exit!

We act as passengers of a huge prison ship, which suffered a disaster and fell to the surface of a certain planet. Two surviving characters (we ourselves choose them at the start from the list of accessible ones) find themselves in a large dark underground complex, full of dangerous creatures. And now they have to break through with a battle to the exit, opening the doors, shooting the monsters and moving from floor to floor.

It seems to be a standard “pants”: we fight, “pump”, periodically find a new equipment, meet traders and new survivors, ready to join us. In this case, the levels each time are generated anew, and the heroes differ not only in floor, but also with the speed of movement, strength, skills.

However, not everything is so simple. IN Dungeon of the endless It is not enough to bring your wards to the evacuation point. It is also necessary that someone converts a special crystal there on his shoulders, the source of life-giving energy from the dead prison ship. Until the exit has been found, do it and even raise “your charm” from the place. Therefore, it has to be defended in every possible way. After all, the surrounding monsters, like moths into the light, are drawn to the crystal – with a certain frequency, they crawl out of dark buttons and cracks, trying to get to the artifact and destroy it. If they succeed – that’s it, “Geymover”.

Just standing nearby and shooting all monsters will not work – so you will not get a corny from the level. Therefore, the main task is to open the doors, go to new rooms and build various turrets and special modules there that increase the increase in vital resources.

Food allows you to treat characters and increase their level, science – to study and open new types of turrets and modules, and Industry, in fact, goes to the construction of the whole complex of protective structures (it is also accepted by merchants). Resources are replenished every time you open a new door. Thus, the gameplay is divided into moves.

May there be light! Or there will be no ..

We copy the resources, build turrets for them and protect something very important from the crowd of monsters-all this is also a fairly standard scheme for games in the style of “protection of the tower”. But here the French managed to offer something unusual and very interesting. The fact is that it is allowed to build something only where you turned on the light, that is, you conducted electricity there straight from the crystal. And the reserves of this energy (it is called “Dust”) is not enough for everything. There are no modules generating it, you can only accidentally detect a certain amount of “dust” in new rooms.

Meanwhile, the monsters crawl out and go to the crystal from unlit rooms. The more they damage the artifact, the fewer the reserves of life -giving force and the more locations the dark. That is, in addition to the dilemma, what resources to bet (which is more important – “pump” and treat heroes for food or study new technologies for science?), you still have to think carefully which rooms and when to electrify and which to leave without light.

It is clear that at first it is better to illuminate all the rooms next to “your charm” so that the enemies do not crawl out and allow you to relatively calmly submit the resources. And then, when the time comes, you can turn off the light there and redistribute precious energy to the places closer to the exit in order to include more turrets there. Indeed, before the final jerk, it is here that all the most interesting thing happens: all your wards should be at the evacuation point, you take out the main artifact there and monsters are also crawling there stubbornly.

But this is only ideal. Often the premises before leaving are too large, and there is still not enough energy on them. Another dilemma appears here: you should take a chance and open a new door in the hope of finding additional units of the resource behind it or it is better not to do it? After all, only monsters can be there, and you will receive another source of danger. In general, develop some single algorithm and tactics in Dungeon of the endless difficult: the levels are repeated, each time they are generated randomly, and their architecture, as a rule, is very different.

Some of your wards can operate only with swords and rapiers, others can only shoot from firearms or blasters.

Infinite complexity and complex infinity

As a result, it turns out a very interesting, unpredictable, complex and rich mixture of strategy and “pants”. Here you never know what awaits you behind the new door – several additional units of resources, a new hero, ruins that allow you to study technologies, a chest of equipment, a crowd of monsters or a special obelisk, which for several moves imposes certain effects to the entire level: for example,, for example,reduces the protection indicator of your crystal, but increases the vitality of the wards.

And there are also places where you need to make a choice: to take a chance and activate in order to get additional resources, or do not touch anything from sin away? Therefore, you constantly have to be on the alert and calculate your actions a few moves ahead, although in such unpredictable conditions it is very difficult to do it.

To survive, you need to use all available tools. Indeed, in addition to different types of turrets (including the tesla cannon) and resource generators, a bunch of very useful modules are allowed to build (previously studied): some of them even release holograms of your heroes that take part of the real damage.

Die in Dungeon of the endless will have to often – even in the initial mode, which is considered “easy”. If it turns out to go through it, then others will open, with other conditions: somewhere not two, but four survivors are immediately available, but you can’t meet other characters and build anything other than food generators, somewhere you will have to control one superhero, but you can’t do itstudy technologies, and so on. That is, play in Dungeon of the endless And experimenting with mechanics can be really endlessly (and there is also a multiplayer).

Separately, we note that,

despite the increased complexity, there are a lot of irony: the heroes often make fun of each other, and some seriously consider themselves … spiders. They still have a parameter “Wit”, which is reduced if you read the found magazines with pictures.

Talented people are talented in everything – this is directly about employees Amplitude studios. After large -scale Endless Space And Endless Legend They released, it would seem, something easier, “semi-casual” and completely new for themselves. Nevertheless, in Dungeon of the endless All the same depth, novelty, serious challenge, an abyss of opportunities, excellent quality of execution and endless reiglainess are found. And here is also completely chic music, which I also want to listen to endlessly.

Pros: The fascinating, original, complex and unpredictable gameplay;high reiglable;charismatic characters;Stylish picture and memorable music.
Cons: Sometimes it seems that this game is simply impossible.