History:
In 2015 Iron Tower Studio released Age of Decadance after 11 years of development - an extremely well received 3D turn based role playing game set in a world inspired by the fall of the roman empire. It was a game lacqured in the dark atmosphere of a post apocolyptic, low magic setting and it offered tons of player choice while emphasizing consequence and multi-tiered paths for completing quests.
The Premise & Story
Your journey through Dungeon Rats starts in the dark and dusty shadows of a prison mine. Dungeon Rats attempts to harken back to the old Fallout and Planescape roleplaying games. It’s a rare breed of RPG, and doesn’t focus on casting you as some great hero that’s going to take on hordes of enemies and save the universe like most games. It’s a story on a smaller scale, with many choices and sequences woven intricately in the mix.
Gameplay
You begin the game by creating your character and shelling your trait and attribute points to the style of your choosing.
Dig a little deeper and you’ll find more interesting things. Dive into alcemy to draft poision or healing potions, put some points into crafting to use the blacksmith, or increase your Charisma to be able to enlarge the size of your party and followers.
You begin each battle by strategically accessing your environment and enemies, and I think this is the allure of these types of games. Replace rash decisions with Patience and tactics and you’ll be rewarded. Attack types will be based off the weapons that you have equipped and of course depending on how many points you allocated to certain weapon types will effect the performance of your combat prowess.
Opportunities
For a $9 dollar game and spin off of AOD, I can’t complain too much. This is a fairly qualified game, albeit extremely familiar in feel, but it just doesn’t do much to expand on the principle mechanics of AOD. The developers are quoted as stating that the main implementation of Dungeon Rats was to add a multi-character party system.
I would have loved to see some diversity in the level design, the mine shafts and dingy shadowy environments get old quickly, and a much needed improvment to the animations during all walks of the game.
Verdict
Dungeon Rats feels like an offshoot journey down a familiar road, and less of a defined game on its own. I played for about 10 hours and i’m nearing completion, but it may take you far longer if you didn’t play AOD. For those of you who have played AOD, this game will feel commonplace but maybe a little routine if you were just so-so about the game. If you were super into AOD and wanted more, just a little bit more, some slight tweaks and a few additions, Dungeon Rats has you covered.
I can certainty recommend Dungon Rats for $9 bucks.
