Dungeon Magic / Light Bringer

4 People off to kick arse, take names and kill demons.

Basic Premise, take four archetypes from the Dungeons and Dragons gaming series, Warrior, Monk/Thief, Elf/Archer and Wizard/OldGuy, give them all a back-story that is drawn out over four levels and have them save the world from a demon that you know is going to wake up just before the end of the game to be fought. That's effectively what Dungeon Magic is but my brief description is like saying a nuclear bomb is just a big firework.

Your typical choice. Youngish Knight, Dark-Past warrior, Female Elf Magic, Old-man More Magic

Dungeon Magic takes up to four people, and really needs four people if you want to experience the full story, to play through a non-linear set of levels and dungeons. The true mastery in this game is that there's multiple routes, all of which are filled with tricks, traps, enemies and bosses. It's almost guaranteed that you could play this game and every time you play it, you'll face different threats and opponents unless you're someone who only takes the same route every single time. Throw in extra secrets like hidden doors and walls and you've a true glut of gaming potential just in the level design alone.

Really wasn't expecting this.

Each character in Dungeon Magic has a weapon, ranging from Sword to Arm Brace (I've no idea what it's called), Bow and Staff for the main characters respectively and each weapon can range from standard, to fire, ice and lightning giving bonus damage to specific enemies (and bosses) or negating damage from those that are resistant to it. Sadly you can't drop a weapon until you die or pick up another one. Add to this that you can find extra axes, knives, torches, shields (LOTS of them) from chests and other enemies and you've a great selection and potential for causing more damage to your opponents.

UNLIMITED POWAH!

The characters within Dungeon Magic also have your standard melee combo attack, a charged attack which is different depending upon the character and a super charged attack which takes longer to charge but does much more damage and impact. For example the Warrior character has a leaping sword strike while the archer actually fires the arrow, charge it up more and it becomes a flaming leaping sword attack or a high powered arrow capable of skewering multiple enemies. Throw in some grapples and throws along with a finite number of desperation attacks that don't draining your health and you've a large variation between each character that makes the game worth playing through as all of them. Collection of treasures and items will either boost your health or give you experience points and with enough of those, you'll level up, which basically gives you a bigger health bar. But at least they kept the IDEA of experience points in the game for us.

It's got scales, it's also going to be very big.

Enemies in Dungeon Magic have a large variety, ranging from "Mad Box" (It's a mimic for legal), wolf men, lizard men, spiders, snakes, dragons, living plants and animated skeletons. While bosses range from giant snakes, to huge knights, Dridders (Spider/Human combo), demons and more powerful demons. Though hazards range from spears being dropped at key buttons, spikes, pits (non-lethal, just painful) falling rocks (not everyone dies), poison sprays, petrification beams, arrow machines, conveyor belts and plenty, plenty more. Add to all of this a time limit which wipes everyone out if they stay in a room for too long and little ghosts that cause minor damage when the timer is getting low and you've enough of a reason to haul arse and get a move on.

Hmm... I think... Maybe... It's a trap...?

From an aesthetic standpoint, Dungeon Magic looks impressive, although there are times where the dungeons do get rather repetitive within a level, but there's little tips and nods towards the plot where the dungeon steadily becomes darker and more "infected" while the plot progresses and waters that healed and did nothing to the player, now begin to poison and hinder them instead. Enemies all look rather impressive (except the blobs, for blobbish reasons) and the graphic effects of fire, lightning and such are illustrated very cleanly.

Levels get monotonous eventually.

Sounds and music are a mixed bunch in Dungeon Magic, while the sounds and effects are crisp, clean and clearly audible, including even the speech of monsters dying, players dying and the almost memetic "you just powered up" which seems like a large acknowledgement to Altered Beast, the music within the game lacks the volume that such an orchestral fanfare should have. There's the idea behind this of an epic scaled accompaniment piece of music with the game but it's lost behind the battles and fights going on, which is a shame as there's a lot here to be really appreciated if the game itself wasn't almost entirely overshadowed by another Dungeon based game that had a more official backing from the original source material.

Odds on, these chests will attack you.

That's not to say there aren't flaws to Dungeon Magic. The puzzles within the game can be difficult to figure out (I.e. WHERE is that damned switch, oh it's behind the foreground where I can never see it clearly) and some characters are massively inferior to others. Such that the Warrior/Knight character is possibly the weakest while the Wizard is likely the strongest and most powerful character as a result of his charged attacks and special moves. But any player can do well with the other main characters too, if they pay particular attention to the game's hints and clues (if found on their travels).

Lots of rooms, but almost all of them can kill you.

Having said all that for Dungeon Magic, it's a very long game too. Easily taking around an hour to beat and longer if you're finding some of the levels a nightmare to navigate. In particular level 3 which involves finding 4 keystones and destroying them before the game will let you progress. So if you're looking for a fun game that will take you a while and has a great replay ability factor to, you would do well to give this one a try.

Moraff's World - DOS

Thanks to the set up, this was the best title screen I could get. Shut up.

Thought I'd go WAY back to the dawn of time and pluck forth from the depths of DOS, a game that first got me into the whole Dungeons and/or Dragons principle of wandering around a dungeon with various health points, other sorts of stats and generally kicking the shit out of multiple monsters that couldn't reach the upper level where it was safe and I was the only person in the town that could do anything at all, ever. I am of course referring to Moraff's World.

Choose your race, or whichever set of numbers looks nicer to you.

The idea is simple enough, create a character using a quick sheet and wandering your way through approximately 200 levels of dungeons in your quest to punch out the Red Dragon King. (I didn't vote for him...) On the way you'll encounter a veritable army of monsters ranging from badly drawn orcs, to badly drawn puffballs, to badly drawn dragons and many other badly drawn creatures. Combat is an easy enough affair of simply pressing F for fight when they're up close to you and the winner is the one still with a positive number of hit points.

Well, what teenager isn't this these days?

 Interestingly, the screen splits the view into 4 view screens, each one showing your perspective while facing in the four key compass directions. Upper view showing North, Lower view showing South and so on, which allows you to see in all directions and lowers the chance of something sneaking up on you and taking you by surprise. (I said 'lowers' not 'stops'...) What it doesn't stop, is that some walls are fake and enemies can pop out from them at a moment's notice.

How would you like to play? Pick carefully or you're going to be in trouble.

Depending upon your character will depend upon whether they're capable of using weapons, or spells, if they have access to any or all spells and if they gain Experience by wandering around or by fighting and killing things. There's a host of different ways to play the game but regardless of that, it's all a very similar experience.

Slightly confusing at first but the display lets you see all round at all times.

There is only one dungeon and even if you leave to head into the wilderness, you won't find a different dungeon, just the same one again and again. That said, the dungeon is huge at 200 levels and a town where you'll be running back to in order to level up or exchange your hard won cash into game-legal tender (carrying too much will slow you down and give faster monsters more attacks before you can retaliate). You'll also be able to head into the Temple and cure poisons, diseases and resurrect yourself should you bite the big one.

Killing monsters and taking stones, repeat, repeat, repeat.... Ad Nauseam.

The biggest issue in the game is that of combating boredom. After a while it becomes an endless slog through dungeon floor after dungeon floor before you get to the point you MIGHT want to find and kill a boss monster and gain from it a key that will let you descend to that floor instantly. IF you can find the ladder that will take you there. The other big issue here is that without spells or items that can tell you, there's little indication as to which floor of the dungeon you're on. Some ladders in the dungeon drop you one floor, some will drop you multiple floors and the almost undetectable trapdoors can drop any number of levels downwards. Of course this doesn't sound too bad but remember that the further down you go, the higher the level of the monsters and the more powerful monsters come out to play. You know the ones I mean. Those that can strip you of your armour in one move, those that can poison and inflict diseases upon you, those that can drain your levels for you. You know now, the fun ones.

Ah yes, the lovely "Blocker" types of low attack/high hp that just waste your time.

Finding treasures is a random event that happens on the defeat of every monster, you could, for instance, find the most powerful armour on the first creature you battle, or the most powerful weapon but at the same time you might first 1 copper piece, which isn't worth anything in real terms within the game. Typically, Cups of Health will be found initially at the start of the game but later on, you'll be running back and forth from town to the lower levels in search of the stronger monsters so that you might level up sooner rather than later.

The bat, it could infect you, but at 3HP you're more likely to catch a cold than a disease.

Outside of the scope of the instructions, there's little here to keep people playing once they grow tired of the monotonous exploration and discovery, new threats of monsters become annoying when you realise that it will take considerable time and preparation to even begin fighting them and then to realise that some monsters can ignore powerful attacks and spells on the basis of "I'm just not going to accept that" and then it's out of health time and you're dead, or resurrected if you paid enough for it.

Second Wind

While recently many of the games I've reviewed have been commercial releases, punted out by corporations and professionals that produce multitudes of games and such in vast numbers. I thought I'd review something with skill and talent in that hasn't be blighted by the "Triple A" touch of video games I like to refer to as "Thrown enough cash at it to solve a 3rd World Country's starvation issues" and instead is made simply by a few people, with little more behind the motivation beyond the fact they WANT to make the game.

I really should review INDIE games a lot more. There's a lot more variation in the different games and yes, there's a LOT of crappy ones, but the true gems shine even harder for that matter. When you do find something that glorious, you cannot help but be impressed by the concept, the originality, the execution or all of the aforementioned aspects at once.

This one is a flash game from what I can tell so far. It might be available on other formats though as far as I can tell, it's just on flash. But what a game it is.

A little background, Rogue-likes, as the name suggests, are any games that fit a model identifiable with the game Rogue. In which you wander around a dungeon that's randomly generated and continue to progress to harder and harder levels, taking on harder and harder enemies while collecting weapons, items, spells etc to level up and hopefully get to the bottom and win the game. In a manner of speaking. Second Wind, takes the bare bones of this concept and removes the structure of dungeon floor space by having everything that happens as a randomly occurring event.

For example, on the first level, which is set in a dungeon, you'll explore places and perhaps happen upon a monster, an event of skill/strength, shops selling either weapons, armour or health potions, Non-Playable Characters that have their own interactions and quests, or one of the many avatars for what qualifies as Gods within the game itself. Finding one could mean finding another one in the next move, or not finding another one for the next 20 or so movements. So you could find a text that explains a snippet of the world you're in, and never see it again for the next 30 games, or bump straight back into it the next time you press "explore" but that's random number crunching for you.

This does get annoying when you NEED to get to a certain location in order to progress to the next level.

Each enemy is a parody or rip-off of other enemies found within similar games. Usually accompanying the enemy is a very out of place description, something jovially cutting about the genre and then something equally humorous to found when defeating said enemy. For the most part it's very light hearted on the humour and will often give you a chuckle (assuming you GET the reference) the first few times you fight the adversary.

Given the RPG roots, there's the usual Health, Gold, Level for each character. Health being the main decider between "alive" and "dead" though you can return once from death as part of the eponymous "Second Wind" ability. Your character will have 3 abilities during any fight depending upon which character you chose, of which there are around 20 different types of character from fighters to magicians, martial artists to knights etc. You'll also have Dexterity, Power and Armour ratings which will determine how much Armour Penetration you can do, how much damage you can do and how much damage you can soak up, in respective order.

The catch is that there's a BIG difficulty spike from the first level to the second level and you'll find sometimes that going too soon will result in you fighting enemies you cannot harm because you cannot get past the armour. OR you'll have to rely upon other attacks/abilities that will bypass armour entirely. Such as the Parry technique for fighters, that will return a % of damage back onto the enemy but you have to survive the damage first of all. So if you really cannot damage an enemy, you'll have to run and lose cash or die (and sometimes you can't run at all, because you lack the stats to succeed in running away like a prick).

Story wise, you're someone who has ventured into the dungeons of a world ruled by several Gods. Your purpose to rise to the higher levels, transcend realities and battle the Gods of the world. How you play and how well you do will determine whether you ruin reality or rule it as either MasterMcShitBag or a nicer person. Though the criteria for meeting such endings isn't entirely clear as to getting the best ending or middle ending, though the worst endings are clear for either joining the last boss or losing to him. As it turns out, the best ending is met by killing the last boss without killing any other Gods, which makes it a rather herculean task as the deaths of the other Gods will anoint you with the huge stat boosts that will allow you to fight the last boss on relatively fair terms.

Thankfully you can continue repeatedly in the third level as it's purported to be some form of ascension and as such, leaves you on another plane of reality where you can respawn ad infinitum. It doesn't make it mean much more than repeatedly having your arse handing to you.

Though there's a fairly enjoyable story, it is hidden within "pages" that can be found as random events, detailing the events before the game, leading up to the game and the circumstances found now that shape the course of the protagonist. It can however be entirely bypassed and the game becomes "Whose balls do I break next?" while running around looking for more fights to get stronger and stronger. In these senses, it does become a grind fest and most people will find that, as the monsters get stronger, there becomes a limit at which experience is not gained as much and that is the game's way of telling you to move the hell on and kill the bosses already of that level.

The music within the game has become one of the few games where I've actually sat and done nothing in-game just so I could hear the music playing, particularly for Boss fights and the Final Boss fights. It's a suitable mix of epic and exciting that leads to a satisfying build up, though if you're too overpowered, can detract from the overall expectation of wanting a long, solid battle.

That having been said, it's not going to be everyone's game. You really have to have an affinity for a) grinding through levels to get to higher points and a rather expansive knowledge of tropes for, and around, dungeon crawlers, rogue-likes and other such games, but mainly anything closely associated with Dungeons and Dragons (the tabletop game, not the cartoon series... Even if Eric was whiny, but the best character out of the bunch). However for those that DO get this genre, as esoteric as it might be, there's a rather witty wealth of game contained within that will make even the most ardent player sit back and chuckle softly with a wry smile upon their faces.

Though having said all that... I now want to watch Eric and his shield running around, being sarcastic.