Dungeon of the Endless Review

A roguelike dungeon crawler tower defense space game? Yes!

Based on appearances alone, Dungeon of the Endless looks like a top-down-ish hack-‘n'-slash adventure game. It looks as its name implies, a dungeon crawler with a retro aesthetic. Looks, of course, can be deceiving.

As I learned when I first went hands-on with the game back at PAX East this year, Dungeon of the Endless is closer to a turn-based roguelike than it is a hack‘n'-slash. This is a thinking player’s game, and it will challenge you throughout its randomized levels and drive you to take one stab after another in completing them. You will fail. You will die. But you will learn. That’s the point of this unrelenting quest.

In Dungeon of the Endless, you manage a group of heroes as they explore the dungeon their spaceship escape pod has crashed into, traversing the dungeon in a room-by-room fashion. Each time you open a room, you’ll be met by monsters, an item shop, or unique items.

The whole point of the game is to carry your escape pod’s crystal from level to level, so you’ll move room by room until you find the exit. Each room needs power (dust), and inside most rooms you’ll have the ability to build turrets, minor assistance modules, and major modules that generate resources. Along the way, you'll want you to construct turrets.

When you do find the exit, you’ll return to your starting point in order to grab the crystal, but once your hero grabs it and carries it slowly to the exit, a horde of monsters will wake up. All those turrets you spent building suddenly make their money's worth. That said, not having enough turrets in specific regions of the dungeon will mean death for one or both of your heroes, and that means a complete game over since this game packs permadeath.

Where Dungeon of the Endless makes itself unique is in its definition of a turn, which occurs every time you open a new door. Since resource generation happens each turn, you'll need to be cautious at every door you encounter, as every room you reveal generates new enemies in unpowered rooms and resources. But you can move around, build upon, and explore the opened dungeon before you open each door, giving you the ability to strategize during this "turn-driven" downtime.

This idea of placing turns at door-openings works well because the tension builds during this period of, shall I say, relaxation during an otherwise stressful game. Like I said, Dungeon of the Endless is hard, even on the “Too Easy” setting. You will die a lot, and that contributes to the overall intensity of the game and every turn you spend. By having turns fall behind doors, the developers manage to pace the game at the player's discretion, which is nice for a game that requires thinking and strategy.

As you progress, you’ll upgrade your heroes, unlock new heroes, find unique weaponry and gear, and, slowly build yourself a team that’s capable of taking on the nasty beasts on the fifteenth floor of the dungeon. That’s where the final exit resides, and it will be tough to reach.

Once you do figure out the best balance of resource generation (food, industry, science) and upgrades, you’ll fall into this nice groove of exploration and defense. You’ll learn with time that it’s smart to kill power to auxiliary rooms to generate more monsters in between turns for further kills and more possible dust drops. You’ll even learn to place your eventual team of four heroes down specific paths depending on their speed and strength for that moment when you pull the crystal and run for the floor’s exit.

The game will throw you into the deep end, an approach that may make or break your experience. It’s hard in both its mechanics and the way it teaches you how to play. There’s a brief tutorial that shows you how to build, how to move, and the goal of the game. Beyond that five-minute experience, you’re left to your own devices when it comes to survival and the random nature of play.

What does help the learning process is the multiplayer element, which will allow you to pair up with friends and random people who perhaps know the game a little better than you do. Communication, however, as it stands right now, isn’t very good with random players. That will supposedly be addressed by the developer with future updates. With friends who have voice chat enabled, though, this game can be a blast in pairs as you open each door to battle back the evil horde within. It’s stressful fun that builds with a team.

Roguelikes are a tough beast to love. As someone who enjoys classic dungeon crawlers and endless rounds of games like FTL: Faster Than Light, I like Dungeon of the Endless quite a bit. This game features the awesome UI the Endless series is known for, particularly Endless Legend.

From its setting to its design and aesthetic, Dungeon of the Endless feels like a game built for me. It’s tough and unforgiving, but it’s also fair. Despite all the deaths I spent climbing through the dungeon’s floors, I slowly mastered the game. That’s a testament to the roguelike genre, and it’s why I like tangling with it so much. It may not be a perfect experience, but it’s a real blast for anyone who likes these types of games.