Undermine
Arkanos, the Archmage, has sent you on a quest to discover some shaky business in the mines where pilfers come steal your hard-earned cash and turnover is high as peasants are a dime a dozen in the Undermine. What can I say except that I really dig this game? Thorium delivers on this dungeon crawl with a random but familiar layout and 32-bit style.
Publisher/Developer: Thorium
Released: August 6, 2020
Above all, don’t get attached to any one character that crosses your path. The Undermine will steal them from you only to replace them with a different peasant. The new adventurer’s only hope is a mystical canary familiar that saves your stuff (some of it) and journal for the next shmuck… I mean… adventurer.
As I started playing, I realized that time was getting away from me and the grind of getting a better sack for my gold or swing for my attack was consuming me. This may sound like a negative, yet a game rarely transports me for a long. However, I absolutely had to defeat the Rock-Mound Mimic and instead of rage quitting the game simply knew I needed to grind out some new gear.
Undermine makes each new layout feel just familiar enough.
While I’m not usually a fan of a random dungeon, Undermine makes each new layout feel just familiar enough that it keeps me from getting bored, too very lost, or discouraged. There are also in game decisions that can turn the story around. Do you spend all your gold before you get back to the hub with the vague hope of lasting a little longer or save your gold to get better gear? Do you use your key in the locked chest or risk the door?
I’m pretty sure that I will continue to play this game indefinitely. It’s easy to play in short or long doses because the cloud holds all progress. I think the only thing that would have made it better would have been a second player option. However, that is such a small want and not a need. I could keep going on but really just want to get back to the game.