“Dungeon of the Endless”, in its current state (as of 12/21/13), isn’t so endless. The game is currently in an Alpha state and available via Steam’s Early Access page, featuring a total of three levels in which to get your feet wet. Crossing a tower defense and a dungeon exploration game, I must admit, is a pretty neat idea. You’ll start with two heroes and your crystal, which you must protect at all costs. While you can move your heroes from room to room, time actually doesn’t progress until you explore a brand new room. In effect, you have both a real-time strategy and turn based mechanic working at the same time.
Dungeon of the Endless (Windows)
Dust, industry, and food are your primary resources, though science will be making its way into the game in a future patch. Dust allows you to power rooms so that you can construct things on the major and minor nodes (if there are any present), as well as purchase equipables (armor, weapons, etc.) for your heroes via a merchant (again, if you find one). Industry allows you to construct structures onto nodes in powered rooms, while food allows you to heal & upgrade your existing heroes as well as recruit new ones (*sigh* if you find one). Baddies spawn in unpowered rooms and you’ll only have so much dust available, so you’ll need to think a bit as you attempt to explore new parts of the dungeon with regard to what configuration would provide you with the best defense.
The game is pretty darned tough, though I finally beat the three levels on the fifth attempt. There is no save feature, making this partially a rouge-like as you won’t be able to go back and undo a mistake. Levels randomly generate, so sometimes you’ll get lucky and sometimes you’ll be dealt a losing hand…that is, finding rooms with monsters as opposed to goodies and resources. I’ll be interested to see how the science resource plays into all of this down the line as future content is released.
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You can check out the game in action or buy into the Alpha yourself via the videos/links below:
http://www.amplitude-studios.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/249050/
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUySf6Yr7QE