Countless Dungeon, the successor to 2014’s Dungeon of The Countless, is a tower protection twin-stick shooter created by French developer Amplitude Studios; and after my hands-on session at Gamescom 2022, it has the potential to be the following huge roguelite.
Apparently, this upcoming roguelite is more a reimagining than a sequel. As an alternative of the point-and-click navigation and automatic fight featured within the first recreation, gamers now immediately management characters and weapons in real-time. Countless Dungeon reimagines its predecessor’s pixel artwork dungeons into bigger, gorgeously-lit 3D areas. Additionally, as much as three pals can play cooperatively.
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You play as members of a shipwrecked crew, every representing a western cowboy trope, stranded on a mysterious house station. However in contrast to the opposite poor souls trapped amidst the celebrities, your squad might need an opportunity to flee. To take action, you’ll need to struggle your means deeper into the terminal.
Countless Dungeon is as a lot a twin-stick shooter as it's a dungeon crawler and tower protection recreation. Each dungeon begins in a closed-off protected room with a crystal within the heart. You should shield the crystal in any respect prices as a result of if it breaks, you die. Your aim is to escort the crystal to an undisclosed exit someplace inside the zone. You don’t know what number of doorways are between you and the exit, so that you higher get to opening them.
However what lies past every door is a complete thriller – it might be new weapons, devices, or probably a nest or swarm of enemies. The crystal can't observe you, so it's essential to concurrently shield it whereas exploring new areas. The easiest way to guard the crystal is to construct turrets.
Building nodes line each room, and you'll place many turret sorts on high. Some modules produce a slowing discipline, others defend every thing of their respective space, and probably the most fundamental ones mechanically shoot enemies. It could be apparent, however the problem comes from a restricted pool of sources, requiring gamers to position turrets the place they provide probably the most utility. You could find more sources by exploring rooms or constructing extractors in distinctive areas, however every extractor can solely produce one kind at a time. After all, every thing you construct is susceptible to assault from hostile robots, aliens, and different enemies.
When you uncover the exit, the crystal will start its journey throughout the station. However the crystal uninstalls itself from the system to maneuver, triggering waves of enemies to spawn and hunt it down. Your job is to guard it, after all.
Each character in Countless Dungeon possesses distinctive passive and lively skills. Bunker, a robotic sheriff, stands in the best way of enemy fireplace with its big defend, Blaze is an explosives-toating zoner, and the newly-revealed Shroom carries potent therapeutic elixirs to buff the group. You may change between characters on a whim and order get together members to remain or observe. Once more, Countless Dungeon will supply multiplayer assist at launch, so as much as three gamers can every choose their favourite character.
I’ve performed many wonderful video games at Gamescom this week, however Countless Dungeon could be my favourite. Its twin-stick gunplay is polished, and its tower protection components pair nicely with dungeon-crawling exploration to create tense eventualities. I see myself sinking dozens of hours into the ultimate launch – each time that could be.
However the studio solely just lately “found the fun,” a phrase usually used to indicate a profitable prototype design. Earlier than that, the group was pulling their hair out in frustration.
“Up until two months ago, I have to admit, Endless Dungeon was not that fun,” says Artistic Director Jean-Maxime Moris. “We were a bit wary of straying too far away from the original.”
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It wasn’t till roughly six months in the past that the group determined to manage characters and weapons in real-time. Moris continues, “When we introduced real-time, that made it, so you were on your toes the whole time. And even if you have to traverse the entire level, it doesn't feel that long because you're always looking for danger.”
“We came to a place just a few weeks ago, where now I can play the game. And this was my vision for the game: if you get good at it, you carefully place your turrets and upgrade them when they need to be repaired. I take great pleasure in not having to fire a single bullet, just watching the carnage unfold and going through the level while watching the turrets do their jobs.”
Now that Amplitude has established a core gameplay loop, the studio focuses every day on degree designs to differ the sport’s tempo and quantity of problem. The mission doesn’t presently have a launch window, however Countless Dungeon might be a breakout hit if it continues alongside the identical trajectory.
