Dungreed Demo

The formula for a classic dungeon is pretty simple, since you only need a few dark corridors that form a maze, some monsters to roam these corridors in search of trouble, as well as the promise of treasure if you make it to the deepest part of the dungeon. Naturally, the concept has seen almost every possible permutation over the years, so it’s difficult for developers to come up with new and exciting ideas.

Dungreed is a 2D action-platformer with role-playing elements that allows you to experience the joy of dungeon exploration for as long as you want, given the fact that the levels are randomly generated every time. There’s more to the game than that, on the other hand, because it’s also possible to rebuild a village, navigate tough platforming sections, as well as wield swords and machine guns at the same time.

The story is not that complex, but it has all the required ingredients to make some sort of sense. Hence, a village gets destroyed when a portal to a dungeon opens up, and your job is to help the villagers rebuild their homes and maybe find a way to deal with the dungeon problem. Hence, you constantly move between the underground levels and the village, which makes the adventure feel more like a journey.

The gameplay is more or less what you would expect from a 2D action-platformer, with dashes, jumps and attacks that involve either a melee or a ranged weapon. However, it worth mentioning that you use the mouse in order to aim, which is incredibly useful for ranged weapons that require precision. Other than that, most of the levels feature the usual spike pits and patrolling enemies, plus the occasional boss.

Although the levels are procedurally-generated, there’s plenty of variety in there to make them feel at least somewhat unique with each iteration. There are also a handful of different biomes, so the full version is probably going to feature more of them. As for the graphics, the pixel artwork is gorgeous throughout the village, but the dungeons can be a bit dull and repetitive at times.

Even in this prototype form, Dungreed looks pretty good, and it’s also more polished than most indie productions out there. Hence, it’s worth keeping an eye on the project’s development if you are a fan of platformers and dungeon crawlers.