#dungeon of the endless
Dungeon of the Endless first launched on PC way back in 2014. At the time, rouge-likes were certainly a Thing, as were tower defense games. However, the unholy union of the two was fresh, and the game found a devoted audience. Now, in 2020, Dungeon of the Endless has been brought to the PS4 and the Switch.
After nearly six years - and after seemingly thousands of rouge-likes - how does it fare? Does it hold up after all of this time? Read on for my impressions of the Switch version.
Before I go into the specifics on Dungeon of the Endless, it’s worth backing up for a moment to lay out the terminology. For the uninitiated, a “tower defense” game implies a game based around protection of some kind of object or location. Traditionally, you build defenses around this object, then see if your defenses were enough to stop wave after wave of enemies - generally offering a chance to rebuild and shore up defenses between waves. The exact definition of a rouge-like varies a little more, but usually refers to a game where you explore a large space one room at a time, and must survive the dangers in each room. Generally, the space you explore is randomly generated each time you enter, so if you die, the layout will change on the next visit. You will die. You will die a lot. A hallmark of the genre is its difficulty. Generally, death earns you something that will benefit you in the next life, so strategic death becomes an element of the gameplay. Over time, you master the mechanics and build the skills to survive to the end, but this takes trial, error, and error again.
OK. With me? Great.
There is not really much of a story to speak of in Dungeon of the Endless, but here is the basic framing device. Hundreds of criminals have been shipped to the Auriga system on a prison ship. On arrival, a hidden defense system has activated, blowing the prison ship into scrap. However, each holding cell was equipped as an escape pod. The prisoners find themselves alive, though a bit battered. However, they are far from safe. They have found themselves in a sub-sub-sub-….-sub-basement of a structure built by the Endless, the original inhabitants of Auriga Prime. The facility’s security systems have activated, and you have mere moments to prepare. You must survive, escape the facility, and keep your power generator intact the entire time.
In Dungeon of the Endless, you create a team of heroes - criminals that survived the crash, as well as their guards - each with their own abilities and weaknesses. At the start, a small selection are available, and you can unlock more as you go along. At first, it doesn’t really matter who you pick - I mostly just chose those who looked cool. Over time, however, you can start to see how they complement each other.
A crystalline power generator has survived the crash, and if you want to survive, you need to keep it limping along. You also need food to heal your wounds and keep moving, as well as “dust” to power rooms that you explore. You must manage and expand your resources, all while protecting the crystal and finding your way from floor to floor.
Each floor is randomly generated. When you enter a new room, it will be dark and unpowered, likely to be full of enemies. Once you take care of those enemies, you can choose to expend some of your dust to power the room. This stops new enemies from appearing in that room, and lets you make use of the contents of the room. In some rooms, you can build machines that generate additional resources, as well as defense turrets and other structures. Dust, however, is a very finite resource. You will not be able to power rooms at all times. This means that you need to make decisions about which rooms to power, and which to leave dark. You must be very careful, as dark rooms will pump out new enemies - who will make a beeline for your crystal. It is important to make sure your crystal is relatively safe at all times, so that you have the freedom to explore without constant backtracking to defend the crystal. You can split your team, but this will make survival much harder. You can build defense turrets, but these are not limitless in their defense capacity. It’s important to strike a balance between exploration of the floor, protection of the crystal, and which rooms you keep powered.
This is not simple. Dungeon of the Endless is not a kind and forgiving game. It is brutal, especially at the start. If you can deal with that, it gets better over time. As you make progress, you open up new technologies. Of course, you also discover new dangers. It’s a tough game. It can be rewarding, but it can also be quite frustrating.
My initial experience with the game was awful. As a warning - it does NOT explain its mechanics automatically. I nearly quit after my first run, when the game felt completely indecipherable. However, after poking around in the options, I found the tutorial. Go straight to that! The tutorial should have been presented front and center on the first run. It made my life much better!
Dungeon of the Endless is a decent-looking game. The art direction is a simple, pixellated approach. It’s nothing special, but is colorful and looks nice enough. I opted to play entirely in portable mode, and would recommend it as a portable game. It feels like something you should play in short bursts. Overall, I had no major issues on the Switch. I’ve seen some complaints about crashes, but did not run into any during my time with the game.
Overall, I liked Dungeon of the Endless well enough. It hasn’t sucked me in like some rouge-likes do, and tends a little too far in the difficult direction for my current level of patience and/or sanity. However, the core gameplay is pretty solid, and the combination of exploration and defense still feels creative today. If you’re a big fan of either the rouge-like or tower defense genres, you may want to consider giving it a try.
A copy of Dungeon of the Endless was provided for this review.
