Comments on: Thoughts: Dungeon of the Endless

By: SomeGuy

SomeGuy — Thu, 21 May 2015 11:28:53 +0000

I liked to play this one, reminded me of FLT but less random and more skill, and bigger map

By: Ninja Foodstuff

Ninja Foodstuff — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 11:29:35 +0000

You should maybe checkout Deathtrap as well. Played about two hours, seems pretty solid and it’ll be out of early access next week. (I also have a spare review key if anyone wants)

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 21:19:22 +0000

I enjoyed the comedy descriptions of things in Endless Space, but they got completely out of hand here and actively obstructed my figuring out how to play the game. This extended to the difficulty levels – I actually picked Easy as my default difficulty setting expecting harder difficulty levels to unlock once I’d been through it the first time, except they never did.

That being said, it didn’t necessarily need to make itself harder to keep my interest, it just had to provide more variety. Unfortunately level 10 of DotE is functionally identical to level 1 of DotE, except the monsters and your turrets/heroes are tougher. It’s a good formula, but its inflexibility meant it wore out its welcome a little too quickly.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 21:10:30 +0000

Orcs Must Die (and its sequel) is the one I’ve had the most fun with during the last few years. Most of my other recommendations would be very, very old – I was playing Desktop Tower Defence in between teaching undergrads how not to be terrible at science seven years ago, for example.

Oh yes, also Revenge of the Titans. Although I played it just after it was released, and it was *incredibly* difficult at that time, that just made me enjoy it more. They did a lot of balance passes over it and it’s probably a better balanced game now, but I tried to go back to it a year or two back and it was less fun, somehow.

Finally, there’s Defender’s Quest. Which is a very well-designed game and probably the best of the lot in terms of brain-taxing strategy.

By: Ninja Foodstuff

Ninja Foodstuff — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 14:57:40 +0000

Great review, as usual. You’ve also shed some light for me as to exactly the benefits of powering rooms, I’ve played a couple of games now without realising enemies won’t spawn in powered rooms. For me the big issue is the interface is just awful. There’s no enough to indicate you can click on certain things within some rooms, and other weird mouse-related quirks.

Out of curiosity, which tower defence games would you recommend (other than Defense Grid?)

By: Aleksei Volchok

Aleksei Volchok — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 11:20:39 +0000

Interesting point about replayability. I, too, completed it after several hours (though unlike you I didn’t get even a fraction of all those achievements, which makes you efficient powergamer who is worthy to spill his wisdom on lesser ones) and since then I’ve tried to get through “Easy” mode. In case others haven’t played the game, it has “very easy” and “easy” mode. It also has infuriating number of puns and it’s the worst part about the game.

Anyway, Easy mode sort of continues a difficulty progression. In basic game you don’t really have to care about selective room powering and resource management up until the end; in harder mode you can easily lose a character on the very first floor. Besides you know what’s ahead and have to balance savings (I can’t levelup cause any room can have recruitable character inside who will ask for food) so you’re end up playing a riskier game. It doesn’t feel like an interesting challenge someway. But I don’t know what else could they’ve done: your mistakes matter more, what else?

Still, nice game. And good analysis.