Dungeons & Darkness Demo

Dungeon crawlers are one of the cornerstones of gaming, because they allow you to enjoy yourself for hours on end and still have reasons to continue playing even after you finish the story once. On top of that, it’s also fun to choose a different class and experience the adventure from a different perspective, depending on how versatile you are.

Dungeons & Darkness is a first-person roguelike RPG in which your goal is to gather loot and kill as many monsters as you can. There’s no grand story to provide you with purpose, so you have to be content with pure action instead, which might not be everyone’s cup of tea. On the other hand, the gameplay itself is a tad too simple for this day and age, so not even that may be enough to keep some people engaged.

The character classes are pretty standard as well, ranging from knight, to fighter and mage, depending on whether you want to strike from a distance or be in the heart of the battle. The first-person perspective is a bit awkward in the case at hand, because it feels rigid and simple, but you can get used to it after a while. It’s obviously not the first dungeon crawler with an FP point of view, but in this case it is not that well implemented.

Although repetition is a given in the genre, most games tend to present the adventurers with variety when it comes to how monsters approach you, as well as many other traps and tricks. In the case of Dungeons & Darkness, every enemy stands still until you get in range, after which it begins to display a basic attack animation. This gets frustrating after a while, mainly because it doesn’t feel like combat at all.

Your attack motions are just as simple, on the other hand, so there’s nothing to distract you from the monotony. Some classes can use shields to protect themselves, so at least that’s a bit different, but it’s almost impossible to figure out how to use it properly on your own. On top of that, the graphics are very basic and outdated, which adds to the problem.

Dungeons & Darkness can easily be improved in the future, but it needs to do so as quickly as possible, because players might not have the necessary patience. Thus, better graphics and level design are needed, not to mention some kind of distractions while you are exploring the repetitive corridors in search of items.