@@phaedruslive Arx Fatalis is also one of my favorites, so I looked up a gameplay video of King's Field 4, which I hadn't known yet. To be honest, next to Arx it looks rather embarrassing. Maybe I would have enjoyed it somewhat, 20 years ago...but right now I could only call it "geriatric simulator". My impression was as such: You play a naked old man, who can hardly move and takes damage whenever he tries to drop from a height of barely more than 2-3 feet. For whatever reason, you come across a dangerous environment. The first man, a soldier, that sees you is so shocked by your absence of anything that he gifts you a flimsy branch to fight with. After any slowmotion swing of your naked arm or slim stick, you're heavily exhausted and need to catch your breath for 5 seconds, before you can swing in slowmotion again. What helps you, though, is that all monsters in the game are also geriatric, demented, hardly able to move and really just tired of being alive. The game world is suffering from a lack of detail but otherwise interesting. There are seemingly enough scripted events to at least make it feel dynamic and after having skipped through more of the video, I see the appeal. It's horribly dated, though. =)
@kijinn @phaedruslive Neither of those games are dungeon crawlers, Arx is an immersive sim, Kings Field an Action RPG. If you look at the games in the video, all of them use grid-based movement, and with one exception, they have turn-based combat. It is very common for the games we’re talking about here to have a party system, and for those characters portraits to feature somewhere on the screen during gameplay, classically as a feature in a larger frame, very often paired with basic status information. Maps will be grid based, using glyphs to denote various features on the dungeon, and are often displayed in the aforementioned frame. Classic examples include Wizardry, the gold box Dungeons and Dragons games, the Ravenloft series, and Might & Magic. Japan has a rich catalogue of dungeon crawlers, with games like the Elminage series, the first several Shin Megami Tensei entries, as well as a large number of spin-offs are true dungeon crawlers, including the first 2 Persona games, and the Persona Q games. Many studios have created games that are, at their core, dungeon crawlers, but introduce elements from other genres to create something wholly unique. Heroes of a Broken land is a dungeon crawler with elements of a 4X game, creating something like a combination of Civ II and Eye of the Beholder, giving you a town to manage as well. Zanki Zero is a Japanese dungeon crawler featuring the use of an aging mechanic, killing off characters every 13 in-game days, resulting in an ever changing party composition. Aeon of Sands is a *highly* underrated indie game that is half dungeon crawlers, half “choose your own adventure” book, with overworld traversal akin to the original Fallout games. Very unique in its thematics and presentation. Normally, I don’t care that much about genres, and I certainly wouldn’t rant about them like this, but dungeon crawlers have a deep history that is highly specific, completely separate from other RPGs, and it deserves to be remembered.
i have a soft spot for dungeon crawlers. i always really liked going through a maze and clearing a map and most of them always have cool looking HUD's and layouts. the first game Islands of the Caliph looks really nice, They Speak From The Abyss and Labyrinth of the Demon King look right right up my ally but Ludus Mortis does have some really awesome art work
Yeah, I’m looking forward to those two the most. If you like Ludus Mortus’ style, you should also look into their other game Inferno: Beyond the 7th Circle. I played it a couple years ago. It’s really good.
Is it weird that it just makes me think of some D20 era book art? There were like 1000 indie sourcebooks and settings and it has that style.@@dungeonchill
With how much I enjoyed the 'late antiquity undead'-style of Battle Brothers' skeleton armies, I'm really pumped for Ludus Mortis in particular. I used to work at an open-air museum as a Roman legionary and the sheer amount of sinister ghost-stories, curses, fables etc. endemic to ancient Roman culture specifically, are something of an untapped wellspring of inspiration to draw from. Definitely checking all of these out. Just got into dungeon-crawling and after Grimrock 2, I have an itch that can't be scratched in third-person.
Exanima has been in development for almost a decade but a unique take of the dungeon crawler. Third-person physics based combat with a very interesting dark fantasy setting. 0.9 Update was just released a few days ago and might be worth checking out if you haven't previously.
Wow! "Islands of the Caliph" by its atmosphere reminded me two other games from more or less close genre, I'm talking about "Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire" and the next part of the same series "QfG III: Wages of War". Yes, they were not three-dimensional dungeon crawlers, but they were the ones I made associations with.😉
Very cool video that showed me some awesome games. I have recently started playing AMBERLAND I on Switch and just love the overflowing nostalgia of that title (having played all M&M games back in the day). So, thank you for making me aware of more dungeon crawler goodness!
of u like darker games have a look at Undernauts, it's great. Also Kowloon High-School Chronicle has been released on switch and maybe on steam too I am not sure and that's an old classic with a dark atmosphere. Undernauts tho is also a game set in the 70s so not the usual high fantasy thing but more something a la Ray Gigant and Experience is the biggest player in Japan when it comes to 1st person dungeon crawlers
wow this just shows how many grid based dungeon crawlers there are out there. Honestly I wish there were half as many non grid based dungeon crawlers. Less classic might and magic, more Ultima Underworld.
For people who like touhou and/or classic shin megami tensei, Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia is a really interesting game. The game has a demo on itch but it's way way behind what the dev has been showing on their Twitter. Seems to be close to finished too
Yeah, the demo is pretty lacking imo, it's a very old build. The dev pulled the demo from the steam version and is apparently working on a new one for before release tho
My problem with the Grimrock series certainly wasn't the real time combat, but rather that the games didn't do anything to connect the gameplay to the story. Especially in the first part, which I played more than the 2nd, I really could have enjoyed the setup a lot. Playing prisoners sent down into a vast dungeon from which they have to escape is one of my favorites. Yet, Grimrock stopped giving me that vibe, after level 1 or 2. At a certain point it only felt like a tile puzzle game and nothing more. I assume that's a general problem I have with *tile-movement* dungeon crawlers, cause things somehow always revolve around that specific game feature, as if that's the reason why people play these games, rather than the *adventuring* set in a fantasy or sci-fi theme. I believe the game world should always be more important and emphasized than the movement feature or combat system...but I seem to be alone with that opinion.
Loved both Grimrocks but I stopped playing Grimrock 2 when the game degenerated into a race to keep my characters from starving. There is not enough food. The mushroom men did not drop new mushroom pieces when I killed them and the fish stocks ran out. I am not a fan of "food" in RPGs but when it is done, it should only be a challenge for young characters of low experience...not for high level characters. I should not be starving to death when I am of a high level. I blame the inclusion of the "Farmer" class for this, a silly gimmick.
@@kevinfisher5492 I generally think that "day/night cycles" and "food", as gameplay features, are mis-designed concepts that, for some reason, all developers keep adopting without thought or care. It's the idea that, if the game has either of those, they need to cause a challenge that's hard to keep up with. Like the player needs to be kept busy and struggling, by any means. My personal opinion is that these features often just get added to veil the lack of an engaging gameplay loop. You might not notice how empty the game actually is, if it keeps you running for your survival all the time. But, certainly, some games should only add hunger and sleep to deepen the atmosphere and immersion, rather than to punish players.
I want to like the 7th Circle and Inferno. Ive tried to play them numerous times. Im an old and really into RT gridders and blobbers. I love 68ks aesthetics and art style. But holy crud those games are obtuse AF. Its not even the difficulty. Im a child of the 80s. I can handle "80s difficulty", but I at least want to know how stuff works. Ludus Mortis looks amazing. But Im afraid its going to be more of the same, the game throwing stuff at you full force before you even understand how anything works.
Nothing heard about Skullstone for more than a year, didnt even get an answer from the DEVS regarding any lifesign or a possible release date. It was supposed to get released 2022 already.....
While it is cool that Amberland is trying to give us a dose of Old School M&M Nostalgia.... I'd have to say, that I really wish someone would try to give us a game like Might and Magic 6-8. Such uniquely awesome games, those were. Free movement instead of grid-based, and a unique blend of real-time and turn-based combat that you could change at any time, seamlessly. It made for a set of games that had really good flow, games that I replay over and over again to this day and to this day, the only way to get new M&M6-8 experiences is to play random peoples' mods that are of varying quality. I'd rather someone just make an entirely new game of similar style for modern computers.
I did a stand-alone preview vid on it as my first video, and I mentioned it in another indie dungeon crawler list I did. It’s fantastic. Glad it’s finally fully released!
This was about upcoming games that weren’t released at the time. Lunacid was already in early access. It’s covered in another dungeon crawler list I did and in its own video on the channel 👍
I hope the developers of Island of the Caliph add a full-screen mode and also an option to disable the ugly CRT filter. Really, CRT filters don't make the games look good, as though you were using a CRT tv. CRT tvs make games looks fantastic, filters are a poor imitation that only makes it worse.
Why are there so much fewer real-time dungeon crawlers? Why so much less love for the subgenre ? People get so many Wizardry-likes but games like Legend of Grimrock are few and far between
seems like labrynth of the demon king took a lot of ideas from monolith with Condenmed 2 Bloodshot in terms of combat/movement, obviously not Artstyle. It has a bit of a weight to it even just by looking at the video and not playing it myself which is a breath of fresh air still. Am I slightly dissapointed, sure? but at the same time at least little by little games are taking inspiration from mechanics from PS2-PS3 Era. PS3 was not a terrible era only idiots believe so, slow movement is not slowmovement nor tank controls, its simply the idea of everything has weight,value, animation behind it. DL2 was a shit game that they took off the little weight they had in DL and just crushed 2 completely.
Can't stand the Grimrock games, just think they're terribly designed and way overrated. Would like to see one that's actually good, so may give that second one a go
None of these games are worth Checking out I am afraid. If you want to play really! good Dungeon Crawler Games check out Mods for Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2
