When it comes to fighting monsters, there’s nothing more satisfying than watching your super human avatar carve a swathe through a horde, skilfully dispatching the group as if each slain foe is a giant middle finger to the game’s attempts to stop you. As it turns out, Ascendant ticks off this checkbox with its 2D side scrolling beat ‘em up action gameplay which is as satisfyingly difficult as it is pleasant to watch, as we found out last year.

The game has you assume command of one of several demi-god creatures with the express intent to invade another world and slay its inhabitants. To what purpose or motivation you have isn’t explained, but when you’re a supercharged foe-slaying god that can travel across planes of existence sometimes context just has to stand aside and let you do your business.

Most of your time will be spent traversing the interconnected chambers of each world, with the express goal of finding the boss chamber and slaying whatever random beastie is found within. Each play through is subject to a randomly generated layout, which means you’ll probably never experience the same world composition twice. Entering a chamber locks down all exits, and the only way to continue on your merry way is to dole out a healthy dose of beat-down against the unfortunate souls that stand in your way. Interspersed between the random mob zones and the final boss area are a number of side rooms that can contain chests with new weapons, challenge zones that grant extra health or magic spells, and the occasional shop to spend any tokens you may have gathered after pounding them out of your enemies. Some of these extra zones are more useful than others though, with the shop especially proving to be the biggest waste of time. Items within the shop are incredibly inflated considering the small amount of currency tokens that do decide to drop from fallen enemies.

Luckily these extra zones are more of a distraction than a necessity, with combat taking centre stage and providing the most fun you could have slamming green alien kobold creatures into the closest surface. Every character has access to two attack types, the first being the normal attack which acts as your bread and butter go-to for fighting. This allows you to attack multiple times in quick succession, eventually whittling away your opponent’s health and making them vulnerable to your strong attack. When an enemy is weak enough, you can employ this strong attack as a finishing blow which launches them off in a direction, usually hurtling towards a wall or another enemy. It’s a simple combat flow but by not complicating things too much, there’s plenty of enemy nuance to grab your attention which requires you to think when you’re fighting. Simpler enemies will mostly just stand there and take your punishment, but progress further along and the monsters will start to become wise to your shenanigans, using shields and ranged attacks to thwart any hopes of button mashing you might have. That’s when the counter ability comes into focus. Counters allow you to completely negate an incoming attack and redirect it back towards the source, usually dealing out a powerful killing blow as a result. However, misjudge the timing on your counter and you’ll be left fully exposed to the full force of that incoming attack.

When you do finally make it to the end of a level, one of several boss monsters will greet you with their hulking bodies. Each boss requires you to do something different to take it down, and learning each one’s weakness is key to progressing. The giant monkey king for example, starts by lauding over you in his tower whilst an army of minions try to pound on you below. The tactic here is to weaken his minions and then launch them towards his wooden tower until it slowly tips his lordship out into the open, where you can begin to dole out some sweet sword based justice straight into his simian face. As boss battles go, these tend to be quite simple. The mechanics of each boss are easy to learn, and once you’ve downed the giant centipede ten times it becomes much less dangerous, and as a consequence, much less interesting. Because of the nature of the game and the repeated interaction with these bosses, they start to feel less like epic fight sequences and more like bite-sized encounters.

Ascendant feels like a game that understands what makes combat fun, and when you do get locked into combat fighting against these enemies, it just feels right. There’s a great deal of fluidity to each skirmish, and you’re expected to use every trick in the book to get by because the game won’t hold back when it comes to punishing mistakes. When you do fail – and you will – all of your progress is forever lost to the digital ether, so by incorporating these roguelike tendencies death becomes the ultimate punishment. This is going to aggravate some players, especially if you’re more into your fighting games than your roguelikes, and when you do fall it can be quite exacerbating to know that you have to fight through all of those weaker enemies again to get back to where you were.

As brawlers go, Ascendant is certainly one of the more polished entries I’ve played. The combat is satisfyingly aggressive whilst keeping things simple enough to focus on more engaging aspects like timing and reaction-based play. I would strongly advise anyone considering getting the game to make sure you have a gamepad to play on though as the fast-paced gameplay doesn’t lend itself well to a mouse and keyboard control scheme. With that said, if you enjoy fancy flourishes of sword play and the roguelike mantra of procedurally generated singular playthroughs then Ascendant is right up your alley.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Developer Triple.B.Titles ran a successful Kickstarter to make the game Ring Runner – Flight of the Sages, which received generally favorable reception. Now they hope to get backing on their newest project, Popup Dungeon. They have already gone through the entire process of getting backed on Kickstarter and creating the game they promised once, so I think just from that, they have an advantage over most developers on Kickstarter.

Even without their prior experience, Popup Dungeon looks like it could be a very good roguelike dungeon crawler that would give the player a plethora of choices throughout the game. They are going to let players create their own spells, weapons, abilities, characters, and even enemies. In addition to the solid looking, strategic turn-based gameplay, this roguelike will offer online co-op, something that isn’t offered in many other games of the same genre.

The replay value of the game could also be very high, due to the random aspect of the creation of the levels, the player customization, and the planned allowance of sharing through the Steam Workshop. For those that notice, in the rewards section there is no choice for getting the game DRM-free. Their plans relating to the option of sharing user-generated content is the reason for this, though they do hope to find a way to offer the game DRM-free in the future.

They have A LOT more information on the project, addressing basically any questions you could have on their Kickstarter page, so I urge you to check it out and if so inclined, to back them. If you like roguelikes, Popup Dungeon seems more than promising.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Over the past few years horror has been making great strides in the gaming community. With releases like Amnesia: The Dark Descent - which made a huge impression on the survival horror genre – it is no surprise that many others wish to make their own mark in the community. One of the more newly announced titles is Monstrum, a game by Team Junkfish and created in the Unity engine.

Monstrum sets you aboard an abandoned derelict ship filled with traps, environmental hazards, and another “passenger” who is not exactly friendly. From there you must find an escape route among the vast, dark, and claustrophobia-inducing confines of the ship’s procedurally generated corridors. Be sure not to meander too long because your fellow passenger is out to get you, and you have no way of fighting back. Run, hide, and use distractions and your wits in order to survive your pursuer’s relentless onslaught.

The ship generates a new layout each playthrough.

Monstrum incorporates permadeath, so if you unfortunately come to your untimely demise, you have to start over again with a brand new ship, new layout, and possibly a new hunter hot on your tail. With three unique monsters, each with their own behavior and hunting techniques, one method of escape or distraction may work on one hunter, but not on the others, forcing you to adapt your escape and survival strategy.

Does that not intrigue you enough? Perhaps the inclusion of Oculus Rift support would heighten your interest. Now you can experience the grit, claustrophobia, and terror first-hand as you attempt to flee your doom.

Monstrum is set to release in late Q3 2014 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If you love horror games with a roguelike procedurally generated map, Monstrum is the title to look out for. With native Oculus Rift support planned, a unique map generated each playthrough, and three different hunters to chase you down, it seems like a no-brainer for any survival horror junkie.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Late last year I wrote a preview of Orlando-based Hapa Games’ Ascendant, a self-proclaimed ‘broguelike’. The intense brawling and harsh roguelike rules combined for a tough, but entertaining experience while playing an early build. After a successful Kickstarter campaign in November, the developers have put in a lot of work over the past few months. The fruits of their labor were recently showed off in an updated build at local indie events Indienomicon and Game Developer Night, and I had a chance to have another look at the game along with some of those changes.

One of the biggest changes to the game is the addition of multiplayer. Two players can team up to take down zealots and gods in local cooperative play. The players aren’t necessarily working together (i.e. no combo attacks) so much as they’re battling simultaneously, giving the game an old-school beat-em-up feel. After talking to the devs, there are still some decisions to be made about how to handle balancing the difficulty with two players and what to do when one of the players dies. I had mixed feelings about the multiplayer only being for local play, but the experience does tend to lend itself better to a couch session with a friend.

Cooperative multiplayer and an improved map UI are just two of the latest changes to Ascendant.

Another area of improvement is with the overall polish of the presentation. A shining example are the new boss fights. While bosses were included in the early demo, this latest build includes big baddies that require some interesting combat mechanics to take down. They are also introduced in video sequences akin to the Legend of Zelda series. I did end up fighting the same first boss over and over again during my many playthroughs (it IS a roguelike afterall), so I’m curious to see what other villains the developers have in store for us. An improved set of map views make traversing the world a bit easier to handle as well.

The game’s areas are all season-based. The Summer-based areas that I saw – but didn’t play – look very close to what the team envisioned in their concept art released during the Kickstarter campaign. Since I spent most of my play time in some aesthetically-beautiful Spring-themed areas, I can’t wait to see what the artists are going to do with the environments and enemies for the other seasons.

Let’s see some more of this.

Ascendant was originally planned for a February release, but that time frame has obviously passed. The developers are still shooting for a Spring release, possibly as soon as April. There’s still room for small improvements as evidenced by the fact that the devs are still taking in player feedback from these indie events. The game continues to look more and more promising, and the devs hope that players will see that as they push for a successful Steam Greenlight campaign. Hapa Games plans to release a new trailer soon, so stay tuned to The Indie Mine for new details about Ascendant in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: New teaser trailer released!

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

This was part of my experience with Quest of Dungeons, a 16-bit, turn-based RPG which tasks players with navigating through multiple levels of a ruined mansion to find a magical lantern that has been used by a powerful sorcerer to steal the light from the world. The artistic styling is everything you’d expect from a roguelike game, the controls are smooth, and I didn’t encounter any bugs or glitches (which is hard to say about a lot of indie games). However, the repetitiveness of both combat and level progression dragged down an otherwise entertaining experience as I kept waiting for another element to emerge and provide a new challenge.

Players can choose between four characters: The Warrior, The Wizard, The Shaman, and The Assassin. The Warrior relies solely on melee combat to defeat enemies, while The Assassin is able to take out enemies from afar with his bow. Both characters are able to implement a variety of special abilities to do area damage, increase stats, and deal extra damage for a time, but these abilities are rarely more effective than their standard attacks. The Wizard and the Shaman both rely on magic and spells to defeat their enemies, but they do so in different ways. The Wizard’s abilities focus on direct damage, while The Shaman uses black magic to weaken and disorient his foes before moving in to finish them off. The enemies all rely on melee attacks and aren’t much of a challenge on the two lower difficulties. On the hardest difficulty, you’ll need to rely on both skill and luck to survive as the enemies take more hits to kill and large groups will surround you if you’re not smart.

As I progressed through the procedurally generated levels, some enemies would taunt me and my character would occasionally remark on his surroundings, but there wasn’t much of a storyline or plot to follow. I know first-hand the difficulty in programming a linear story in an otherwise non-linear environment, but the lack of a cohesive story outside of the singular main objective didn’t provide much incentive to explore the entirety of a level. The occasional quest and boss would pop up, but the quests simply tasked me with finding and killing a “special” enemy, and the boss battles lacked the formality required to be considered a true “Boss Battle”. If it wasn’t for my loot-happy, “completionist” OCD, I would have descended through the mansion with reckless abandon, defeated the sorcerer, and grabbed that lantern in an hour or two.

If you’re looking for game that’s fun, easy to jump into, and offers plenty of incentive to replay the adventure using each character, Quest of Dungeons is perfect for you. Quest of Dungeons provides a great, retro-style gaming experience that will bring back fond memories of past eras, but some repetitiveness in its combat and lack of story prevent it from living up to it’s full potential.

Quest of Dungeons has been Greenlit by the Steam community and is tentatively scheduled for a February 2014 release on PC, Mac, and iOS. To see the game in action, check out the website or watch the trailer below.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a pre-release build provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

It’s been a while since I swore on such a constant scale that passers-by would likely confuse the obscenities heard for that of a sailor’s tavern, which is exactly what makes Risk of Rain a worthy entry into the roguelike genre. On the surface, there’s not much to see and nothing will immediately jump out as anything spectacular. That is until you scratch away the unassuming top layer, to uncover a challenging 2D side-scroller with a ton of content to explore.

The rules are simple, you get one life to progress through a series of levels. Die and it’s game over and you’ve got to start again from the very beginning. To mix things up a bit here, there’s an ominous timer present in the top right corner of the screen, constantly ticking higher and higher as time progresses. Unfortunately for the player this is an increasing difficulty slider, so the more time it takes to complete a level, the harder things will get. It’s savage and unforgiving for those unfamiliar to the genre, but roguelike fans and sadomasochists alike will find a satisfying level of difficulty to make the pain worthwhile.

NO, YOU’RE DEAD!

From the get-go you’re given access to only one character class, with the ability to unlock the rest by achieving a variety of hidden goals throughout each session. At first this may seem like a clever addition to the game’s overall style, but the harsh reality is it’s nigh on impossible to discern what you need to do in order to get access to some of the more obscure characters which is pretty frustrating for those just starting out. A quick Google search and a few specific tasks completed later and the game will most certainly feel more varied as you pick between your favourite sci-fi inspired classes, each bringing a different skill set to the party. This doesn’t matter as much in single player, but for the multiplayer aspects it can be the difference between level completion or ultimate defeat.

The levels are all procedurally generated, and your goal on each level requires you to locate and activate a teleporter. Doing so triggers a timer which counts down for 90 seconds, and during this time an increased number of enemies will continue to spawn along with one big boss monster. These are frantic moments of panic, usually resulting in either glorious victory or humiliating defeat at the hands of the hordes. While these moments are more fast paced and entertaining, the build up to triggering the teleporter devices can be tedious at times. Sometimes you’ll have to back-track the entire length of a level in order to find the teleporter device that was five inches off screen in a corner you didn’t check which can be quite frustrating at times.

I have the worst luck…

Because of its roguelike nature, the story aspects take a backseat to the action of running and gunning. That doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no substance to what’s happening in the game, in fact quite the opposite. The intro video sets the scene, but most of the game’s lore is uncovered by playing through the levels slaying specific enemies to collect monster logs or by collecting the vast number of power-up items. As you collect each of these objects, an entry will be added to the item and monster logs which can be accessed via the main menu. Each item offers up a little bit of background information on the inhabitants and items found on the strange planet. This is a nice added bonus that provides an extra sense of depth for those who prefer to learn more about the lore of the game world.

Risk of Rain doesn’t bother to hide the fact that it wants you, your family and everyone you’ve ever known to suffer, and ultimately that’s its main attraction and what makes it a worthwhile entry to the roguelike genre. Despite a few minor issues with levels and character unlocks, Risk of Rain is definitely worth the number of broken keyboards you’re likely to burn through whilst playing it.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a PC copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

In early November I had a chance to attend my first Indienomicon meeting in the Orlando, FL area. Three games were showcased at the event including a trailer for Ascendant, a unique title from local studio Hapa Games. Ascendant melds the brawler and roguelike subgenres, and also includes some platforming elements. As the titular Ascendant, the player must battle through a diverse world of monsters and fanatics to overthrow the ancient god ruling over the realm. While it’s only three months into development, you wouldn’t know it from the impressive showing this “broguelike” puts on.

As with any roguelike, this game is going to beat the player down, and I quickly and repeatedly learned that lesson. Health pickups are few and far between, there are environmental hazards to watch out for, and of course there’s a near-constant onslaught of enemies to deal with. Thankfully, the game offers a currency system (influence) so that the player can periodically purchase upgrades, and enemies will often drop treasure chests that contain attack upgrades.

There’s also a socketing system that uses upgrades called Aspects which the player can use to enhance their weapons, spells, or armor. There’s some customization allowed in that different behaviors are achieved depending on where the player chooses to slot an Aspect. Unfortunately, I really didn’t get a chance to see how this system develops over time during the demo, but as a numbers guy, I’m interested in seeing how much you can really beef up the characters.

Player customization is available through the slotting of Aspects.

I’ve played a handful of roguelikes before, so I was curious if there would be something about Ascendant to differentiate itself. Indeed there was because the brawler mechanics sucked me in. Ascendant is not the kind of game where the player can simply run in godlike and mop the floor with everyone. Enemies tend to attack in packs by surrounding the player and coming from all directions. The combat system is set up quite nicely with a variety of melee attacks, ranged spells, and the ability to dodge and parry. I was warned that there’s a bit of a learning curve, and that’s absolutely true. Button mashing will only take the player so far. It took a fair amount of dying before I really studied enemy attack patterns and reviewed the controls to learn combos. Pull off some impressive combos and you can actually convert your enemies into Followers who will aid you. Even after putting in a couple of hours I find that I’m still learning, so I’m hoping that means that I won’t eventually run into combat fatigue.

Ascendant is a visual feast, comparing favorably to the stylistic direction of games like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron. It also reminded me quite a bit of one of my favorite animated television series, Samurai Jack. The graphical quality of indie games is an area that often seems to lag behind development, so I was quite frankly amazed to see a game that looked like it had been in development for much longer than three months. It’s just an absolutely beautiful (albeit deadly) world that the developers have created, and I can’t wait to see more of the environments and monsters.

Beautiful landscapes like this concept art exist throughout the stylized world of Ascendant.

My experiences playing Ascendant left me with some mixed feelings. The game is punishingly hard, and success is largely dictated by the player’s familiarity and patience with the inherent conventions of each of the genres involved. The fact that I didn’t stop coming back to try again, though, is a testament to the promise that the game shows. Ascendant is slated to come out in February of next year, and the team has created a Kickstarter campaign to secure licensing for the music. The team has also readied an entry for Steam Greenlight and recently released a gameplay trailer. Keep your eyes on The Indie Mine for continuing coverage on Ascendant, and in the meantime, check out the relevant links and trailer below.

Ascendant on Kickstarter

Ascendant on Steam Greenlight

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Better put your boots on, there’s treasure to be had on the 26th floor. You probably won’t make it though. The dastardly duo at Robot Loves Kitty made sure there are more dangers than you can shake a +1 mace at, but is the game worth spending countless hours and most of your sanity on?

Legend of Dungeon is a roguelike dungeon crawler that takes no prisoners. The game tasks you with the seemingly simple goal of reaching the 26th floor where gold, diamonds, and other lucrative goodies are just waiting to be hoisted from the depths. Along your journey you’ll be forced to square off against a variety of monsters and traps, most of which will present as simple obstacles. However, with this being a roguelike, not everything is as it seems, and you will often find yourself caught out after underestimating the deadliness of your enemies. This style of play isn’t for everyone, and you will have to shed a good amount of blood before you can stand much chance of reaching the lower levels. Combine that with a randomized layout on each excursion to the depths and you can see why the game appeals to the more masochistic player who likes a challenge.

Throughout each lifetime, you will come across a variety of randomly dropped loot ranging from stat boosting hats to uniquely obscure weapons. On one of my many sessions I stumbled across a Feeble Oculus Rift hat which gave me a handy speed boost, as well as a giant red glowing glaive that would shoot out angry red skulls to seek out my enemies. The items hold some rarity to them, but their usefulness means the player has to decide whether to risk searching further into the side rooms on each level, potentially meeting a grizzly death in the process. When you do finally succumb to death’s common embrace, it’s time to start again from the very beginning.

I would have settled for a sword, but this works too, I guess…

Once you do finally crawl down to that final level, expect to be showered in numerous riches. After you’ve grabbed your fill of the booty, it’s time to  start the second leg of your journey as you progress back towards the surface up the path you came, which has now been inhabited with harder enemies. This way of generating a new experience on each run ensures gameplay remains dynamic, so as to keep that level of uncertainty throughout each session, and in many ways it keeps the game itself from becoming stale and easy. It’s the high level of difficulty in the challenges that are presented which give Legend of Dungeon its appeal, and by causing things to be different each time there’s always a sense of tension when you take your next apprehensive step into the abyss.

Controlling your wary adventurer is a fairly simple matter, given that the levels stretch out on a horizontal plane with some depth. This means you’re always interacting with things that are directly parallel to you along the plane, but never above or below you. By doing this, they’ve made the game feel slightly more restricted for the player, as they have to take into consideration where they are standing in order to attack an enemy or flick a switch.

The game is presented as an homage to the old school style 8-bit graphics, where each sprite is sporting a highly detailed appearance, from the slimes all the way to the grim reapers. The dungeon is brought to life through the use of dynamic lighting, which helps to set the mood for exploring around corners, and in some cases it actually acts as its own hazard where certain rooms are plunged into complete darkness. There’s something quite charming about seeing the shadows of a thousand angry bats cast against the wall as you’re fleeing. It contributes a sense of depth that most games in this genre seem to disregard. This is a dangerous place, and it feels as ominous as it should.

I always bump into the strangest people at night…

Legend of Dungeon also sports a healthy co-op mode, allowing up to 4 local players to join forces in an effort to plunder the depths of the dungeon. By joining forces, the game shifts from a very careful and calculated process of risk vs. reward into a mad dash through the levels as each player sprints for the next big piece of loot. Sure, you’re “supposed” to be a team, but the lure of loot can break the strongest of bonds. I’d sell my friend for a laser beam cat any day. It’s just a shame this mode doesn’t see an online aspect, as not everyone can persuade their friends to join them in the same room.

Unfortunately, some aspects of the game detract from the fun of dungeon diving, holding you back with unnecessary obstacles that could be easily addressed to keep the player better informed about what’s going on with their character. The bottom left of the screen displays a series of digits, including your current health and experience values. These icons are made fairly obvious by being marked with sensible symbols, like a heart for the health bar. Unfortunately, there are certain elements that get absolutely no explanation, through in-game prompts or icons. After a few Google searches, I discovered these mystery numbers to be secondary stats, relating to attack damage, run speed, and armour. It’s understandable that games of this genre don’t hold your hand, and that the enjoyment comes from learning through experience. However, I feel that in this respect some guidance during the starting tavern scene would have been enough to inform the player of each value and its purpose, so that they can make better choices of what loot to equip during their journey.

Legend of Dungeon stands out as a successful venture into the roguelike genre, where my time inside the murky depths was spent in fear and desperation, clambering for the last ray of hope that I might not die in a corner with my hard earned loot. The dynamic lighting and well designed textures help to breathe life into the narrow corridors, and creates an alluring environment for you to explore and eventually die in. There are a few issues with fiddly controls and a lack of information on certain aspects of your character that can cause some unnecessary complications, but these are easily overlooked as you’ll probably be too busy stuffing your pockets full of VR helmets and cats anyway.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

If you want to find out more about Legend of Dungeon, check out the trailer video below, the game’s website or their Steam page. You can also follow them on Twitter @RobotLovesKitty.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Developer RobotLovesKitty’s healthily-funded Kickstarter project Legend of Dungeon experienced a double-whammy of success, also being Greenlit on Steam back in April. It is finally available for pre-order on Steam as well as on the developer’s website for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Legend of Dungeon is a roguelike with beat-’em-up style combat featuring lush, dynamically lighted pixel art. Players are tasked with trying to reach treasure on the twenty-sixth level of the dungeon. The game features randomized dungeons, permadeath, and both single player and up to 4-player co-op. Controllers are also supported and there is an online leaderboard.

If you pre-order on Steam, you’ll get access to the game’s beta. The same goes for the purchasing on the developer’s site, but for an extra $5, you’ll also get the the soundtrack.

Legend of Dungeon will officially release on September 13th. RobotLovesKitty will also be showcasing the game at PAX Prime.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Lately I have been on a space-faring kick and had the urge to pilot a ship and explore the far reaches of the galaxy. As a result I have come upon Drox Operative, an action-based RPG created by Soldak Entertainment, Inc. The game is set in a randomly created galaxy full of dangerous enemies, unique civilizations, uncharted worlds, and the thirst for adventure. In the universe of Drox Operative you are a member of the titular Drox Operatives, a mercenary group who operate in the galaxy as a neutral entity and work to further their own gains. The Drox Operatives have no qualms over how they achieve their goals so you, as their newest member, have total free reign on how to expand.

You are thrown into the game world piloting your own Drox ship and what happens next is completely up to the player. You can scour the randomly-created galaxy wiping out dangerous monsters strewn throughout the area, gain favor with the local civilizations by aiding them with quests, or simply explore and discover strange anomalies and treasures. My career as a Drox Operative began with the christening of my own ship aptly named the “Space Weasel”. From there on I was plunked into a random jumpgate and thus began my journey into the unknown.

The Space Weasel in all her glory

Much like the abyss of space, the beginning of Drox Operative is very daunting. There is a lot of information you must take in right from the get go. The first time you play, a tutorial help-screen begins and I highly advise that you take a thorough examination of the help screens otherwise you will become easily lost. This game can be a bit unforgiving and simply going in blind will cut your adventures very short, very quickly. After mastering the basics, though, will get you into familiar and comfortable territory, as an RPG the mainstay of the game is loot and there are plenty of loot to be had. The items use a color-code system for rarity and grading much like other dungeon crawlers. You can venture out and acquire better equipment for your ship and with experience comes even bigger and better ships, meaning even more quality loot. Be sure not to dawdle too long, though. Unlike most ARPG’s things happen and progress whether you intervene or not. Monsters will patrol the galaxy and feuds between rival civilizations will ensue. Entire worlds may rise and fall without you even being aware of it. You are simply a pawn in the vast universe of Drox Operative.

Anomalies, monsters, incoming missile, just another day for a Drox Operative

You have an end-goal, multiple ones in fact, that you must reach in order to “win” that current galaxy and progress to the next one. Each time you must ensure that the Drox come up on top via whichever method you choose, be it a decisive military win and destroying all those who appose you and your ally, trading goods and becoming rich with an economic win, using brute force and striking fear into the other surviving races so they will not dare oppose you, or simply become a legend and do legendary deeds by vanquishing vile monsters. The choice is yours to make, as a Drox Operative you call the shots and you win how you want to.

Galactic diplomacy, how hard can it be?

The game has a very distinct feel about its gameplay, it plays a lot like a traditional dungeon crawler and yet has a bit of Civilization or RTS mashed into it. An odd mix, but it certainly does work and has its own unique allure. If you have an itching to pilot your own starship and explore, plunder, destroy, or what have you, Drox Operative will certainly not disappoint. My space-faring career may have just started, but the Space Weasel and her crew will soon be feared by all as we aim to be the top Drox Operative.

Great Game!

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

This game was reviewed using a copy provided by the developer for that purpose.

Visit the developer’s page
Demo or buy the game

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.