Dinosaur Dungeon Demo

Dungeon crawlers are classic examples of retro video games, because they were simple in almost every regard, yet they had enough content to keep players engaged for hours on end. The replay value was excellent as well, mainly because you could usually choose from multiple character classes, which forced you to approach each situation in a different way, depending on what skills you had available.

Dinosaur Dungeon is a top-down action game in which you have to explore a dungeon and unravel its secrets in order to reach the final boss and defeat him. It’s obviously not a complex formula, but the gameplay is very polished and enjoyable, especially since everything is very intuitive and functional. On top of that, the difficulty level is just right to provide you with a challenge.

You start in a room that appears to have an awful lot of available doors, but as it turns out, only one of them is accessible at first. Thus, you start exploring the dungeon, trying to get to the bottom of it and face the great monster that lies there. However, there are also all sorts of traps and puzzles you have to deal with along the way, not just combat sequences.

The combat system is not very complex, given the fact that all you have to do is perform a left-click whenever an enemy gets in melee range, but you can also use a bow and environmental objects to your advantage. In fact, the bow is a tad counterintuitive to use, given the fact that you have to hold down the button for a second or two before you can fire an arrow.

It’s also possible to throw pots around and stun enemies, although the aiming system is not the best out there. Speaking of which, this also allows you to solve puzzles by hitting otherwise unreachable switches, but the gimmick gets old after you use it the first time. Even so, it’s nice to see a bit of variety in the genre, especially after so many clones have flooded the market.

When it’s all said and done, Dinosaur Dungeon is more than able to keep you busy until the end, although that means a couple of minutes at this point, unfortunately. However, it’s a great start for a potentially exciting game, at least if the developer keeps working on it.