14 DAY TRIAL // FlurryMcPeel takes down a level 3 goblin, which leaves me with 3 health. I’m pushing forward through the space the enemy was guarding, bringing my character back to full strength. I then tackle a range of level 2 opponents, including a meat bag and a wizard, and I bag two potions and one new ability. I know where the boss of the dungeon is, and I need to plan my coming moves well to gain a few more levels and use as few resources as possible doing so. The final engagement will be a tough one.
Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is developed by QCF Design and published by Prismatika. I played a demo on the PC using Steam. The title delivers dungeon exploration and combat with a focus on careful planning.
Gamers can choose from a range of races and archetypes to create their adventurer, before launching into a bite-sized dungeon. The aim is to get the money required to build up a small kingdom. The writing is pretty decent.
Movement and discovery sit at the core of Desktop Dungeons: Rewind gameplay. Players have to explore the space around them, take down enemies, find the level boss and take him down. Opponents are stationary and the player-controlled character can always move around them. They all hit pretty hard, which makes it especially important to reveal new dungeon squares after a battle to refill health and mana.
Each dungeon also features potions, spells, bonuses, and money. It’s a good idea to get to all of them before trying to tackle the big boss. When the player makes a wrong move and dies, the game offers a chance to replay and make new, and hopefully better, choices.
Spending money in the overworld opens up new adventurer resources as well as extra classes to play as. Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is pretty basic looking, even for its genre. Players look at the dungeons from a top-down perspective, with limited details for the heroes and. The good thing is that all the details required to make decisions are clearly presented. The sound design is also pretty basic.
Conclusion
The game does need to introduce some innovative ideas in its full version to keep gamers engaged. The developers at QCF Team clearly love and understand the genre, so they need a way to tweak it in interesting ways.
Preview code provided by the publisher.
