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Dungeon of the Endless

Dungeon of the Endless - Indie Seen

Roguelike dungeon crawler on Steam Early Access provides an interesting mix of mechanics.

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Endless? More like Dungeon of a Couple of Minutes. Our first run in Amplitude Studios' Dungeon of the Endless was short and we barely even knew what we were doing or what was going on. Dungeon of the Endless is a hybrid of a dungeon crawl roguelike with tower defence mechanics thrown in for good measure. Your crashlanded spaceship is the starting point and the objective of each floor is to find an exit and carry your power crystal from the ship to said exit.

The first hour playing this early version of the game was spent discovering mechanics and working out how to build a decent economy. Currently there is no tech tree in the build and no persistency meaning you'll start from scratch with random heroes, no items and just the basic buildings. It's enough of a foundation to always have a chance of progressing, but since more towers depend on whether your lucky enough to find a certain blueprint (for example one that heals your hero in combat or one that slows down the enemies) you're not able to craft your tactics freely, but rather you're forced to adapt.

Dungeon of the Endless

There are four basic resources you need to consider in the game. One of these (science) isn't used in this early version of the game. Food, industry and power is what you need to consider. You gain more of each resource by opening doors up to new rooms, but the number of food or industry you gain can be increased by building major nodes in rooms with an appropriate socket. But before that you need to have enough power to install the node. Smaller sockets allow you to place defensive or offensive turrets.

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After an hour or so of aimlessly searching for a winning tactic we concluded that you need to turtle up a bit in order to progress. Build strong defences in one room and then use one character to open new rooms and draw the potential enemies back to the room that you've fortified. Once the exit has been located and you've explored the floor, levelled up your characters and built as many defences as you can along the root to the exit you task one character with carrying your powercore from your ship to the exit. Naturally he or she is very vulnerable, so rushing for the exit as fast as you can is your best course of action. Especially as tons of mobs spawn throughout the floor. Don't try and defeat them all as you'll quickly get overrun - just run for the exit!

Dungeon of the Endless

Food is an interesting resource in that it can be used for several things - levelling up your characters, healing and if you happen to run across additional companions it can be used to recruit these. A larger party naturally aids your cause, but also creates problems as the food is spread thinner across the group for levelling up and healing. Power can both be used to power up rooms for nodes and turrets, but also works as currency if you come across a merchant. What is even more interesting is that the merchant and mercenaries/extra characters can be lost to waves of enemies if not used immediately so as with most areas of this game you gain nothing without also sacrificing something.

There is a story in Dungeon of the Endless. A prison ship was sent to settle on a planet that was once inhabited by the ancient race the Endless. Turns out the orbital defence system was still active and after crash-landing on the surface, surviving is the name of the game. The story, however is largely lacking from this early version of the game and perhaps it only serves as a backdrop anyway.

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There is no rubber band built into Dungeon of the Endless and once your economy takes damage you may as well make a mad dash towards the exit and hope to get as many of your heroes along. The next floor will be even more difficult, but at least you can build your economy from scratch.

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Amplitude Studios has the foundation of a fantastic game here. It's seriously addictive even in this far from finished form. It's gorgeous to look at and the genre hybrid is truly inspired. We're really interested in finding out what the progression, science and tech tree will bring to the table. Hopefully meaningful progression will even out the difficulty somewhat and allow for longer campaigns (in our first two hours we had a hard enough time getting to the second floor). Being able to choose your starting characters would also be nice as it will allow you to choose the underlying tactics rather than being forced to adapt on fly every time as you figure out what cards you've been dealt. Customisation options are another thing we'd like to see added.

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Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless
Dungeon of the Endless

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