Legend of Dungeon Review – a Kickstarter Success, a Greenlight Failure

For such a successful Kickstarter campaign (earning over $30,000 leading up to it’s Greenlight release on September 13th, 2013), Robot Loves Kitty’s Legend of Dungeon is an average roguelike. The game is a side scrolling dungeon crawler that boasts (almost) randomly generated everything, whether that is a strength or a weakness of this game is debatable. You get through each level by finding your way to the stairs which lead you down to the next level. It’s strengths in visual design double as a weakness.

The game features a simple goal, simple combat system, and lots of random generation. Adding two dimensional enemies to a three dimensional landscape, makes for particularly tricky combat. The grabs of this game are its simple (barely existent) story, charming graphics, and simple controls, but with no skills to practice and one frustrating task, its no wonder the game tends to lose your attention quickly.

A Simple Game

The keyword here is simple, the reason being this word can be used to describe many aspects of Legend of Dungeon. Weighing in with 3 repetitive tracks, the game’s music begins to put you to sleep within hours of picking up and playing. Besides the simple soundtrack, you’ll observe a simple scoring system that focuses exclusively on how many coins you have upon your death. The only way to beat the game is to delve to the bottom 26th floor. After your mangled body tumbles down it’s steps, you are rewarded with the task of climbing back all the way up to the starting point of the game.

Replayability

“Alright,” you tell yourself “I made it to the 8th floor! With a little practice, I can get better and make it to the bottom!” and you would be wrong. There is no practice in this game, the skills and weapons you find on your journeys below are different every time; the axe that shot fire you found the last run now does nothing but slow you to a crawl; that hat that gave you good armor stats now increases your speed by a ludicrous amount, sending you flying into the lava pit next to you. The only way you can practice this game is by clicking the mouse, hitting the spacebar, or using whichever button it is that you have binded to the attack/use action.

Underwhelming feedback system

The game also offers a poor feedback system for damage. When you are hit by an enemy, a small red number appears above your head, letting you know how much health you have lost. There is no distinctive sound or screen shake to indicate damage, and in the heat of battling dozens of bats spawning from a vampire, skeletons jumping out of hidden passages, etc., you won’t know how much damage you are taking. You won’t even know if you are near death since there isn’t so much as a red glow around the screen. This is an example of a simple missing feature that highly impacts the game.

Conclusion

For what it’s worth ($9.99 on Steam), Legend of Dungeon is a fun game. With its unique graphics and incredibly ambient music, the game can tend to the needs of both casual and hardcore players. If a pick-up-and-play time-killer with no frills is what you are looking for, then this might just be the game for you. I did enjoy my time playing it, although I never made it close to the fabled 26th floor (or the rumored 27th). I do feel I got my money’s worth, and the game was a fun play, however I was certainly expecting more.