Chris- 0 Comment
- March 21, 2022
Tunnel Of Doom takes you on an action-filled dungeon-crawler roguelite with tower defense elements thrown in.This is a cool combination of genres, and I am always glad to see a mix of genres to give me that feeling of something fresh and new.
" Story Trouble "
You take the role of Angel, a woman from the local town, whose husband was in the mine. The town has bordered up the mine for safety reasons. So you take matters into your own hands, you can not see these people suffer and leave your husband in there. The mine is currently overrun by monsters and creatures, so you will have to fight your way through.
Sadly though this is pretty much the whole story, There is a “Main” character that we will not spoil of course but there is literally no interactions with the characters or miners really, I could count them on my hands on how much story was giving to me. It is a shame i get that there was heavy focus on the gameplay aspect, but crawling through a dungeon with no meaning, or reason behind it can feel kind of dull.
When it comes to Tunnel Of Doom, the game offers the player mechanics from both roguelite and tower defense games. The notice of roguelite elements are the first things prevalent if you are familiar with dungeon-crawlers like The Binding of Isaac.
" A Blend Of Genres "
Your Main goal is to collect resources and clear the rooms of enemies. Each room can contain resources,enemies, altars(for perks) and your shop to spend the coins from each room. Scattered throughout the rooms are keys to open chess and hearts to increase your max life.
The game however is played completely differently than your “average” dungeon-crawler, simply because of the tower defense mechanics. In each room that involves combat, you will be introduced with a warning on your screen that lets you know this is a battle stage. During a battle stage you will get time to set-up, So when I got to see how the tower defense mechanics worked, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how simplified it was. You just click on the traps and cannons(towers), you want to set them down and point them at the incoming waves.
You can really feel that there definitely is more emphasis on the tower defense mechanics, rather than the roguelite combat. I personally did not find this enjoyable at all with the fidgety controls and enemies coming at you diagonally, making for a hard time when you can not aim at them and practically have to line yourself straight up to kill them, either with melee or ranged.
" Variety Is the Spice Of Life "
If you want a good roguelite or even tower defense game for that matter, it is all about variety. Without variety the game can become very numb quickly as it feels repetitive and a chore. Tunnel Of Doom seems to lack it in either department.
While the game itself is appealing if you are a fan of pixel art style, it can only hold you for so long when you have only a handful of different enemies, and a few tracks that are on loop in the background. I found that out the hard way during my playthrough. I really like the aesthetics of this game. I find them quite pleasing and the art direction matches the theme of the game. I can get over the fact of seeing a few different enemies, like in traditional tower defence games that usually is the case. The problem still remains for the slew of traps and cannons you can use, and the weapons on the rouglite side, I think if the developer spices things up by adding more weapons and traps for us to try It would greatly increase the retention rate of the game.
Tunnel of doom is very shortly sadly, and you can easily complete normal mode in a few hours. You have multiple different difficulties that add a harder challenge, but it still feels like the same gameplay. Once it came to re-playability, it was kind of sub-par as once you have 3-4 cannons you will be able to cheese your way through the game in a breeze.
Do not let this take away from your own opinion of this game, the developer has done a great job trying to incorporate multiple genres to try something new. If you are a tower defense fan i think this would suit you for a new way to try out the levels, but as for roguelite i was left wanting more in that department. The developer is also adding updates so we hope to see the game evolve because the foundation is there just needs to be tightened up in a few places.
- A Mediocre Mashup6
" Tunnel Of Doom is not bad per-Se. The focus of multiple genres in one game, makes it feel lacklustre in both rouguelite and tower defense, It just misses the mark to be a great title. The concept is awesome and the foundation is there i would just like to see it tightened up in areas "
