One of the other games that caught my eye at PAX East was Dungeon Stars, a new Roguelite (or is that Roguelike-like?) from indie developer and publisher Furnace Games and Riposte Games & Co.
Just launched into Steam Early Access last week, Dungeon Stars tasks players with assembling a group of heroes, and battling through a series of ever more challenging semi-randomized dungeons to return the stars to the night sky. Along the way they’ll level up heroes for ever bigger adventures, find all sorts of fun loot, and rescue new heroes and companions.
One of the nice features of Dungeon Stars, especially as compared to more traditional roguelikes, is how it’s designed for playing in short bursts. Running through a single dungeon won’t take more than five or ten minutes. However, the game has more than enough challenges and depth to be played for a marathon session, if desired.
The game follows a Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy system. Each hero is one of three colors (Red, Green, or Blue) as are all of the enemies. A single dungeon level will feature enemies of one color, and possibly a boss which may or may not be a different color. Fortunately, players can take on each dungeon with a team of three heroes, and switch between them on the fly (with a short cooldown timer) to ensure that they always have the edge in combat. Between dungeon floors, there’s also the opportunity to heal and revive any characters who didn’t make it through the previous floor.
Gameplay is simple to pick up. The game automatically pushes the selected character forward and performs basic attacks. Block and shield breaker attacks are fired from the keyboard or controller, as is character switching. Each character also has two magical attacks, plus a third power derived from equipping a pet. Experience and gold are acquired with each enemy killed and persist even through failed runs. Clearing a dungeon floor provides additional loot. Clearing an entire dungeon challenge puts a star back into the night sky.
The main between dungeon screens. There’s a few stars already in the night sky.
Between runs, there are opportunities to level up heroes, equip new gear, and purchase helpful items from the rotating supply at the item shop. As befits the game’s roguelike inspiration, many runs won’t end in success. Those supplies from the item shop can end up being the difference between success and failure.
I found Dungeon Stars to be a fun romp through the roguelike genre. With its bite-sized, accessible gameplay, it’s something that I can fire up for just a few minutes at a time, and still feel like I’ve accomplished something. The game has a great sense of humor, with a cartoon art style that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
The dungeon preview shows the player’s selected party, and the color of the enemies on the levels of the dungeon.
Developer Furnace Games plans to have Dungeon Stars in Early Access for two or three months before hitting official release. Their objective is to iterate and improve on the existing gameplay and add additional monsters, bosses, dungeons, chapters, and core mechanics. They also have an Xbox One release planned for later in 2018. The game also appears to be well optimized for a future mobile version.
Gamers interested in finding out more about Dungeon Stars should check out the game’s Steam page, or the official Facebook page.
