Only Cowards Turn Off Perma-Death

It seems that I’ve been playing a lot of rogue-likes
lately. One in particular has stuck with me for a few weeks now, Dungeons of Dredmor by indie developer Gaslamp Games. I call it a rogue-like but it’s really more of a turn-based RPG. This is
kind of the same thing though; video game genres are silly.

One of the best parts of Dungeons of Dredmor is that it dumps you right into the action from
the start.  What’s the story? A big, bad
guy is doing bad things and you have to stop him. Sure there’s not much to that
and I usually prefer that my games have good stories, but game-play is where Dungeons of Dredmor truly shines. The
game has a tongue-in-cheek approach throughout its design that is frequently
hilarious but which also creates a clean simplicity in its mechanics. Its
energy is spent on giving the player a host of character customization choices,
tons of loot to find, and magical abilities to use while slaying monsters.

Dungeons
of Dredmor’s list of character customization choices is especially
what has kept me playing. The character I’ve built is a Viking knight of sorts
who can take a lot of damage and bash foes with a mace. Next time I’m going to
go with a vampire who’s an expert at building traps and eating mushrooms— you
know, that old RPG trope. No matter what silly combination you come up with the
recipes for fun characters seems endless.

Being a rogue-like, Dungeons
of Dredmor is intended to be played with perma-death turned on (the games
ends completely when you die, no reloading allowed) and I definitely tried that
with my first few run-throughs. Perma-death adds a nice layer of suspense to
the game as one mistake ends all your work and you really need to think
carefully and strategically about how you’re playing. I had to turn it off
after a while however as in one particular play-through I got very far, ran
into a monster that was entirely impossible to fight, was quickly killed, and
had to start over. It was disheartening having invested so much time in the
game only to lose it all. Plus I really wanted to see what the later game
looked like and never surviving past the first level was getting boring.

I know, I know, how dare I call myself a fan of
rogue-likes… but in my defense I eventually felt guilty and started a new
session, with perma-death turned back on.

MONSTER ZOO!!! 

Dungeons of Dredmor’s graphics are
simple but effective. It’s great that Gaslamp Games has continued to invest in the game by
releasing numerous patches to fix problems and add major features—that’ll keep
me coming back for quite some time.

You should definitely purchase Dungeons of Dredmor as it’s time well spent and will definitely
stay in your playlist for a while; I know it will stay in mine. I’m not sure
why Lord Dredmor needs to be stopped but I’ll bash his head in with my mace
just the same.