A hundred levels later, and I still mutter to myself, “one more dungeon”, c’mon, I can finish this…oh wait, I finished it ten times over already. Fittingly, that’s our game here; One More Dungeon. Title drops!
Here we have another indie game that has no plot whatsoever. Nothing is ever said about your being present in a dungeon with tons of monsters wanting to kill you, so there’s no need to worry about any story to this game.
One More Dungeon is a rogue first person dungeon crawler where the levels in their entirety are randomly generated. Your goal on each level is to find the boss enemy, kill it, take it’s key and find the exit. You’re not defenseless to attempt this, though, as you always have two weapons: melee (swords, daggers, lances) and staves. The staff is powered by ammo in the form of crystals and should be used sparingly, but it is your only ranged method of attack. Melee weapons are infinite, but carry more risk and are weaker. Strategy is important when trekking though the levels, as a weapon can make or break your streak.
The random nature of the game makes level attributes vary greatly. One level could have a shop and tons of healing items whereas another level could only have a dark portal as its noteworthy trait. Speaking of which, dark portals hold more risks to the player, such as obstacle courses and do or die segments, but reward artifacts which grant powerful abilities like wallhacks at the expense of a sanity meter, which goes down with every use.
These aspects point to a game rich in entertainment, but One More Dungeon more often than not feels bland, maybe even boring at times. The lack of anything to aspire to on repeat playthroughs gives the game an overall notable sense of monotony. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s not suitable for the long haul.
One glance at the game shows it’s style; the graphics are an obvious homage to Minecraft mixed in with the UI and movement of Doom. Everything looks great for what it is and there aren’t any glaring performance issues. The music, unfortunately, comes out rather weak, mostly on account of repetition and the long levels not meshing together very well. It looks and performs great, but the music is nothing to write home about.
One More Dungeon is functional at it’s core, but it can fail to grab players in the long haul. The base mechanics work and there’s some replayability to be had with mutators and achievements, but compared to other roguelikes on the system, it’s lackluster. There’s no denying it’s price is accessible, so for those looking for a budget roguelike to get into the genre, this is a fairly okay start. Everyone else could skip straight to something like The Binding of Isaac instead.
