In an industry where every successful indie title requires a powerful story or a unique art style to achieve media attention equal to that of blockbuster studios, Knightmare Tower is a breath of fresh air. This is a game purely focused on having fun by being incredibly addicting. Knightmare Tower by Juicy Beast brings players back to a time where it was common practice to sneak into the high school library and play on the (likely outdated) computers, and it is absolutely perfect.

It is difficult to describe why Knightmare Tower is so great, but you play as a knight and you get to pummel dragons in the face. The player’s primary goal is to save ten princesses who have been kidnapped and locked in a massive tower. Instead of simply taking the stairs, our hero launches himself from a barrel and gains speed by slaying each monster along the way. Failing to hit a monster results in losing friction, and if you miss too many times, the risk of falling into lava becomes greater.

The simple mechanics are reminiscent of the flash games of yore in a sense that Juicy Beast fixates on the “Less Is More” ideology. It works wonderfully, of course. The music is over the top and the art style is aesthetically similar to that of Behemoth’s Castle Crashers. The developers acknowledge that this is a very silly experience, but the bells and whistles are part of what makes Knightmare Tower so much fun. It all blends together seamlessly, and nothing feels out of place in this gravity-defying adventure.

More importantly, Knightmare Tower is addicting. The player earns gold for each turn, and depending on the performance, a better score means more gold. Gold can purchase any number of items including armor that can take more damage, or boots that increase the player’s overall speed. By the end of the journey, your roughshod knight will look like a valiant warrior. This is not to say that the game is without challenges, however. Knightmare Tower is very easy to pick up but it can be difficult to master. Certain levels of skill and timing are required to beat the game’s later levels, but it is a steady stream of progression that anyone can jump into without feeling overburdened. Not only that, but it is quite rewarding to beat your previous score with each turn.

Knightmare Tower succeeds at everything it attempts. While the journey to the top is not without its fair share of challenges, the smooth gameplay and silly artistic landscape make the climb a much more enjoyable experience. Plus, Knightmare Tower is cheap. It is on Steam for $3.99, and it is available on iOS, Android, and OUYA as well. Juicy Beast gives players a great product at an affordable price, and I can not give it enough of the praise it deserves. The bottom line? Knightmare Tower provides hours of fun and is easily one of the best indie games available right now.

To purchase Knightmare Tower and check out more from Juicy Beast, feel free to check them out here.

Overall Rating: ★★★★★ 

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Our lives are rollercoasters of happiness and tragedy. It’s our own human condition, to be ever swirling in the cycle of good and bad events throughout our time on this earth. Undoubtedly, we’ve all been in a position at some point in our lives where the bad experiences have weighed down on us, and in some cases it can become so bad that self destruction is the only way to cope.  But what if today was the day that you faced these demons head on? To be presented with a situation so drastic that it alters your attitude entirely, alleviating the pain and freeing you from your burdens.

That is what 4PM intends to explain with its cinematic gameplay experience. And I use the word experience deliberately, as this game is more like an interactive short film where you navigate through the various scenarios to uncover the narrative. Since the story is the main event so to speak, I’ll only add that you play as a woman on the path of self destruction, harbouring bad memories and ultimately ignoring the important aspects of her present life. On this fateful day, you’ll be presented with a realisation, and it’s up to you to take the right path towards coming to terms with what has happened in the past.

The experience is presented in first person, and throughout each scene you’ll be able to interact with the various objects dotted around. It doesn’t take long to piece together protagonist Caroline’s unfortunate past, or her current state for that matter, by simply looking at the various artifacts in the first scene. As the game progresses, you’ll navigate a number of other situations from late night raving in clubs – which comes with some of the most hilarious arm flailing animations I’ve seen to date – to sneaking around the office in an effort to avoid your agitated boss. Eventually, events will come to a head and you’ll be asked to make a couple of choices on what to do. When this came about I could see that the choices were obviously meant to be quite meaningful, but the after going through my options it all felt a little too convenient. It was easy to see what options to pick in order to produce the best ‘ending’, and the concluding scene felt somewhat diminished as a result.

As a whole, the game doesn’t stand up well against tests of visual fidelity. The rich colours and presentation of each scene fit with the cinematic ideals of the game itself but there’s a myriad of issues haunting the game’s presentation from start to finish. After five or ten minutes of play you start to notice an odd blurring effect that slightly obscures your vision, making detailed objects like text difficult to read and generally rendering everything as if a child had smudged the colours all over the family walls. It appears in every scene, and it feels like an attempt to make the game more dramatic. Unfortunately it doesn’t work in every situation, as I quickly found out when having to squint really hard to make out the various notes and stickers on the back of a taxi cab driver’s passenger window. It’s an odd issue to have, but since it’s ever present throughout, it may cause some aggravation amongst those wishing to check out all of the finer details in the game.

Then there’s the odd positioning of the player camera, which is often prone to fits of wobbling and awkward angles. You’d be forgiven in thinking that a game that uses camera bobbing to help immerse the player in the experience couldn’t possibly be that difficult to cope with, but you would be wrong. When Caroline was happily throwing her aforementioned crazy arm dance moves around the nightclub, her head was on its own mission, presumably attempting to detach itself to save any embarrassment of association with its host. Whilst Caroline seems to be able to keep her head mostly upright for the remainder of the game, there’s an awful swaying motion that comes with manoeuvring around the environment that could easily be enough to make you nauseous.

I said at the start that I wouldn’t spoil anything, and I will continue to do so. However, it’s worth noting that the game could very easily be broken into two sections. The first fifteen to twenty minutes culminate into an interesting and progressive narrative. We learn minor details about the main character and her past, with every intention to learn more and progress the story to see how events unfold. After that honeymoon period is over, things take a turn for the worse as the second section takes over. The visual issues become much more noticeable when other characters are presented in full, shoving their jarring stick limbs and flat faces into our field of view whilst we sway and stumble around our office desk like we’re perpetually spinning a hula hoop. The story suffers a similar fate, with the game feeding you obvious choices that aren’t hard to predict and eventually devolving into nothing more than a conclusion that doesn’t shock or surprise anybody.

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.

Greetings and welcome back fellow strategists and gunners. Hope you have kept your wits sharp and your trigger-finger ready to go, because we are going back into Interplanetary for some more planet-bombardment action. The folks at Team Jolly Roger Games have made many improvements to the game since we last looked at it, including graphical fixes, network improvements, more weapons of mass destruction, a tech tree and research mechanic, a working spying mechanic, and other improvements and goodies. I have been purposefully keeping myself in the dark about the game’s development, so that way each iteration can become more of a surprise for my next skirmish. Boy I must say, they really have made some great strides since my initial preview, which you can read here if you haven’t already.

The first topic I wish to talk about is possibly the biggest and most influential of them all, the spying mechanic. Previously you could view your opponent’s planet and see where all cities and developments have been placed, allowing precision-based weapons to take a huge advantage and dominate the weapon selections. With the recent changes, you no longer have all that info readily available. In order to view possible enemy weak points, you must construct buildings which will allow you to view planet infrastructure. Depending on your planet’s level of intelligence – the number of spy buildings you have – the possible targets available range from a couple low-value locales up to the entire planet. To keep away prying eyes, you can counter by building “cloaking” or counter-intelligence buildings in order to hide your planet’s infrastructure. This feature alone adds much more strategic gameplay and flow to the system, as players are no longer just racing to get the biggest and best guns. Priority is now split between getting your planet ready for conflict and keeping your cities and important structures hidden, creating both an arms and intelligence race.

Along with intelligence comes the research aspect of the game. You now need to research technology in order to access the bigger and more advanced weaponry. No longer are you able to build missiles and laser weapons right from the get go. Now you must allocate time in order for research to be done. This is done via a simple tech tree, where various tech and bonuses can be researched and applied to your advantage. Techs include giving permanent boosts such as more power production or spying levels as well as the ability to manufacture one of the two new weapons of massive destruction.

Now we are getting to the juicy parts of the new additions, the new weaponry. A new laser and artillery weapon have been added in the form of the ‘Solar Laser’ and the ‘Asteroid Diversion’ respectively. Once I noticed these weapons in the tech tree, I just HAD to acquire them and give them a shot (pun intended).

FIRE THE LASER!

The Solar Laser is a satellite parked in the sun’s orbit which focuses the sun’s power into a giant solar death ray, obliterating anything you set its deadly sights on with pinpoint precision. I couldn’t help but feel like an evil genius, pinky to mouth, when I set loose the focused wrath of the sun onto my enemy.

As cool as the Solar Laser is, I felt that the Asteroid Diversion was more “in tune” with the sci-fi nature of the game. As the name implies, the Asteroid Diversion weapon takes an asteroid from the local asteroid belt and diverts it to a course of your bidding, into say perhaps a nearby planet that you dislike. Nothing beats the sight of an asteroid hurtling out of space at full speed and slamming right into your enemy’s precious home planet. Numerous blockbusters and B-movies have been made on that premise, and now it is in your hands to unleash upon your foes. So set an asteroid loose on that pesky planet and whip out some popcorn for the show (3D glasses not included).

Recreate a B-movie disaster film on your enemy’s home planet

While all these additions are great, I have merely touched upon a few of the major updates to the game. Many other improvements have been made to the game such as improved multiplayer networking and graphical fixes, all showing that Team Jolly Roger have been putting a lot of effort and love into this project. I was blown away by my first look into the game many versions ago, and the current build they have on offer is no exception to that statement. I look forward to the next iteration of the game. If the additions they have made so far are any indication of the future trajectory of the game, we are in for an Earth-shattering (pun intended) release once the full game is out.
You can check out Interplanetary on Steam Early Access for those interested in some tactical fun. Let’s get those guns primed and lasers flying!

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Gravity sucks. Like that annoying kid on the playground who likes to trip you because he thought it would be funny, gravity is always there waiting for its time to strike. A silent guardian of physics, gravity is the cause of every dropped biscuit wasted, every painful trip you’ve taken, and every pen that’s escaped your grasp.  I hate you, gravity.

0RBITALIS is all about gravity, or perhaps more accurately it’s about figuring out how to exploit the forces of gravity to get a small red ball to stay in orbit for as long as possible. If you’ve ever played Angry Birds: Space, you will already have a good idea how the controls work.

Each level presents itself as its own unique puzzle, with large red stars and smaller white asteroids liberally dotted around in their own orbits. Changing the angle and force of your shot can yield wildly different results, and by using the gravitational pull of each celestial body you’re able to pull off some crazy ‘skill-shots’ that leave your projectile soaring through the stars for what seems like a lifetime.

Of course, getting a trajectory that lasts longer than a few seconds isn’t always easy. If you apply too much force on your shot, you’ll end up flying straight off the map and into a world of failure. Shoot too softly, and you’ll be sucked straight towards the closest object. It’s all about finding that sweet spot for each level.

There’s little to dislike about 0RBITALIS. It scratches an itch for physics puzzling without overcomplicating things. The levels are varied enough to keep you occupied for a good while and the leaderboards can help create healthy competition between you and your friends. The game is essentially feature complete despite launching as an Early Access title, and if you’re in the market for a new puzzle game you can’t go wrong with shooting things into space for fun.

0RBITALIS launched on the 16^TH across Steam Greenlight as an Early Access title.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The entire premise is, for lack of a better word, ridiculous. The developers even tell us that this is a completely pointless game riddled with bugs and glitches, but that’s okay. Goat Simulator is not a commentary on the videogame industry, nor is it a satire for poor game design. Goat Simulator is an entirely different animal altogether. This is a game which not only tells us that we should wait until it goes on sale, Coffee Stain Studios even admits that we would be better off buying a hula hoop. Many will argue that Goat Simulator is merely exploiting its absurdity and sense of self-deprecation as a selling point. Others might say that this is a chilling reflection on the game development cycle as a whole. The scholars will likely argue about the underlying messages of Goat Simulator for the next three years – all I know is that you are an indestructible goat on a jetpack.

YOLO

There are no objectives in Goat Simulator. You simply move around in a poorly rendered suburbia and cause as much mayhem as possible. There are trampolines in swimming pools, giant slides, an indoor skate park, and a gas station which is just begging to be tampered with. Explosions and greatly exaggerated animations ensure that players are always one hoof away from complete and utter chaos. The small town is a sandbox in which players entertain themselves with whatever tools happen to be at their disposal. In one instance, I dragged an unsuspecting hillbilly to the top of a building and used my jetpack to throw him out of the map. Shortly after that, a gas station exploded and my goat was hit by a truck for no reason in particular.

The physics are a major part of the gameplay as well. With the press of a button, your goat can become a ragdoll, which only increases the sense of absurdity. For those who have played Saints Row, it is basically an even more nonsensical version of Insurance Fraud. For those who have not played Saints Row, think of it as a part of the game where gravity simply ceases to exist for the sake of fun. The more anarchy your four-legged beast can create, the more points you acquire. The points mean nothing of course, but it is nice to feel accomplished.

This is how you climb things because reasons.

Unfortunately, the fun dies out fairly early. The first time you cause an explosion by throwing fruit at a car is great, but there really is not much else to laugh at after the initial gags. Absurdity for the sake of absurdity can only go so far before it becomes stale. The truth is that Goat Simulator is at its best when it is being showed to others. There is a certain joy in watching friends react to the notion that goats can ride jetpacks and headbutt gas pumps, yet like a skit on Saturday Night Live, the joke becomes really old in a short amount of time. Luckily, the Steam Workshop will allow for endless possibilities in the future, but as it stands the base game is very limited in a world that should have no limits.

This is a game that doesn’t just break the fourth wall – it completely destroys the whole house. Coffee Stain Studios is definitely going to create a cult following with any future projects. I would love to dive deeper into Goat Simulator, however there really isn’t much else to say. The game does not take itself seriously whatsoever, and the slapstick comedy is certainly welcome in an industry that is constantly out to prove that games can be art. Goat Simulator is entertaining, but the joke dies so quickly that you are better off taking the developer’s own advice and waiting for it to go on sale.

Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

What does this score mean?

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Prepare to encounter the forest’s indigenous population.

The Forest will be available on Steam the 22nd of May and will feature Oculus Rift support.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Magicians and Looters pays homage to old Metroid-esque side-scrollers and does it well. It has a beautiful 2D high-definition pixel artstyle, real time map system, items to discover, and skills to unlock. You play as three apprentice sorcerers aiming to save their mentor from the ominous castle Looter. In Magicians and Looters you switch between  Brent, Nyn and Vienna. Each character has access to the same magic abilities, but also have their own personal abilities. After the epilogue is finished you are able to switch between the three at any save point.

Brent using in-game map

Brent is a classic warrior type, toting a sword and shield. He is the slowest of the three, but can use his shield to block incoming melee and projectile attacks from any direction. He later gains the ability to wall jump, a useful skill for solving puzzles, gaining loot and reaching hidden areas. Brent’s personality is very straightforward. He has good intentions but is very oblivious at times.

Vienna is the sister of Brent, and she’s a headstrong fighter type who specializes in speed and hand-to-hand combat. She is by far the fastest of the three and her only weapons are her fists. She can also equip the most accessories and has more abilities at her disposal than the other two. Vienna is my personal favorite because she has an “in your face” attitude that matches her fighting style. She has abilities like a high jump, wall run and a falcon kick (a likely nod to the Blue Falcon). Nyn and Brent occasionally mention that Vienna may have a screw loose. The fact that she unlocks abilities from her talking cat isn’t helping her case.

Nyn is a hardened ex-child mercenary that doesn’t back down from a fight, and she would be considered the rogue of the group. She can equip two swords, is speedy and has an evasive roll. She later attains the ability to slide, furthering her usefulness in evasion and obstacle clearing. She was my least favorite to play as, but I loved any of the dialog involving her. She is sarcastic, quick-witted and doesn’t pull punches when it comes to her opinions.

While I did find the game’s dialog funny, the actual plot lacked a bit. The story played off the popular cliches of older successes. A majority of the game’s talking has a satirical undertone that I loved, often taking jabs at current games versus the older ones. In one instance, two sorcerers converse about how sorcerers nowadays always use tutorials and teleporting instead of backtracking. I found this hilarious and spot on as today’s games have a tendency to spoon feed players. On random occasions and at save points, the main characters might have a chat with one another. This would at times provide backstory to one or more of the characters in a witty fashion.

King of Looter

Exploration is encouraged and necessary. Rather than grinding to gain levels you must collect a certain number of orbs. These orbs are usually well hidden, and each time you level up the number of orbs required increases. This is a nice reward system for completionists and makes backtracking that much more worthwhile. Orbs aren’t the only things you will discover while exploring; weapons, accessories and even the occasional dungeon wall chicken are out there, ripe for the picking.

The gameplay is easy to get a feel for, and fans of older Castlevania games will feel at home here. For this review I played the PC version and used an Xbox 360 gamepad. The controls are pretty standard with jump, attack and ability buttons. The ability varies depending on the character selected; a block for Brent, back dash for Vienna, and roll/slide for Nyn. Activating the map is done in real time and fills in as you discover new areas. Holding down the right trigger gives you access to any magic abilities that you’ve unlocked including shooting fruit. Yep, in this game rapid fire fruit is a magic spell, attained from defeating the devious Fruit Magician.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Magicians and Looters, and I honestly hope that Morgopolis Studios puts out another one. With a $7.99 price tag it’s well worth the money. Magicians and Looters is available for PC and Xbox 360, and you can purchase your copy here.

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.

Hive is a board game like chess, but with colorful insects in place of the the traditional pieces. Published by Blue Line Game Studios, it’s available on Xbox Live and Steam, with Macintosh and Linux releases planned for the future.

As the title indicates, you’re building an insect hive not unlike a colony of bees, with a single queen supported by many workers. This structure leads to a number of logical rules: Your queen must be placed in the first four turns; no piece can be moved until the queen is in play; when placing a piece, it must be next to one of yours and cannot be next to the opposing team’s pieces; pieces must move in a sliding motion and can not move into a space where it wouldn’t naturally fit; and no piece may break the Hive, which means a piece may not move if it connects two or more other pieces. The rules aren’t too cumbersome making it easy to pick up, but a challenge to master.

Hive is played on a dynamic hex map, and each game creates a unique board as pieces are placed. Once you learn the rules, play proceeds naturally and quickly.

Like the king in chess, the queen is the weakest piece and moves only one space at a time. The objective of the game is to surround the opposing player’s queen using any pieces, yours or your opponent’s. One move by the queen can turn the tide of the game.

Other pieces have their strengths and weaknesses. The ant is powerful because it can move anywhere, but frequently gets in the way of your own strategy as well as your opponent’s. The beetle can move in three dimensions to occupy a hex over other pieces, but only one space at a time. The grasshopper can move any distance through any other piece, but only in a straight line. And the spider, like the knight in chess, must move in a specific pattern over a specific number of spaces. An upcoming expansion will introduce a mysterious new pill bug piece to add more strategic options.

The Steam version AI has four different difficulty levels, and provides a satisfying challenge. When playing I started off with a very aggressive tactic, going straight for the opposing queen. Over time I learned that I had to also protect my own queen in order to be successful at higher difficulties. I enjoyed the level of depth that can be applied once you master the basics.

My only complaint is that playing the AI can get dull after a while. Blue Line Game Studios plans to release their multiplayer patch soon. Player vs player is where I know this game will shine, so I was a bit sad that I didn’t get to experience that since the human factor is really a key element to games like these.

All in all Hive is both interesting and challenging, and will appeal to people who enjoy games like chess, checkers or other classic board games. You can get early access to the Steam version here.

Overall Rating: ★★★★☆ 

What does this score mean?

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

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Indie studio Flippfly have just launched a new sale series showcasing a number of indie titles that are currently not available via the Steam distribution platform.

“We love Steam! It makes buying games easy, and managing our game library even easier” said Flippfly co-founder Aaron San Filippo. “We wanted to highlight the fact that not every great game is available on Steam, and help shine a light on a bunch of great games that many players may be missing out on.”

The sale began today and will carry on until October 8^th, with every title discounted by 25% or more. Head on over to http://notonsteam.com bag some of these great deals.

Here’s a full list of the games currently on offer:

• 6180 the moon
• Aces Wild : Manic Brawling Action!
• Alcarys Complex
• Arcane Worlds
• Blood of the Werewolf
• Dark Scavenger
• Drifter
• Dungeon of Elements
• Full Bore
• Girls Like Robots
• in Space
• Inescapable
• King Arthur’s Gold
• Leviathan: The Last Day of the Decade
• Longshot
• miniFlake
• MouseCraft
• One Finger Death Punch
• Ostrich Island
• Plazma Being
• Pushcat
• Race The Sun
• Ring Runner: Flight of the Sages
• Rose & Time
• Six Sided Sanctuary
• Sky Nations
• Sokobond
• Super Lemonade Factory
• The Sea Will Claim Everything
• The Yawhg
• Tiny Barbarian DX
• Tower of Guns
• Tug: A Space Trucker’s Odyssey
• Vox
• Voyage to Farland
• Wetware [Alpha]
• When Asteroids Attack
• Will Fight for Food

© 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.