Those who have been paying attention to independent games these past few years might have noticed a trend. The market has been flooded by “Roguelikes.”
There’s been quite a few of them released on a variety of platforms in recent years—“Rogue Legacy,” “Risk of Rain” and “Crawl” just to name a few—and for the most part, they have the same basic premise of exploring randomly-generated environments, collecting treasure, killing monsters and eventually dying horribly. “Crypt of the Necrodancer,” from Brace Yourself Games and Klei Entertainment, has all of those components but with one major twist—and that twist makes it one of the most interesting and addictive games in recent memory.
The plot is pretty standard RPG stuff. Players are thrust into the role of Cadence, out on a quest to find her father. After falling down a hole and dying, she gets resurrected by the titular Necrodancer, who steals her heart in return. Cursed to remain in the dungeon, she sets out to find her heart and rescue her father. Despite being a fairly boilerplate RPG setting, it works well to set up the stakes and provide an excuse for the game’s gimmick.
In “Crypt of the Necrodancer,” combat and moving through the environment are set to a beat, a rule that applies to both the players and the monsters inhabiting the dungeon. Fighting to the beat generates a coin multiplier that increases the amount of money slain enemies drop, allowing players to buy more expensive and more useful gear—until they get hit or move off the beat, which resets the multiplier. Enemies have set patterns and move with the rhythm—understanding these patterns is crucial to surviving. Get it right and it’s possible to get through a given level without a scratch.
Scattered throughout the levels are diamonds, hidden in walls or just out in the open. Collecting these diamonds is crucial, as they unlock new items and permanent upgrades for the player. Also scattered throughout the levels are shrines that throw out random effects, portals that take you to hidden vendors and combat zones, merchants to buy better gear from (and who will contribute to the game’s soundtrack by singing when the player approaches) and traps that’ll bounce the player around, speed up or slow down the tempo or send players to another floor.
The difficulty level is reasonably high, even for players with any sense of rhythm. Though the individual components are simple—combat is standard-issue “run into the bad guy” fighting and the rhythm game component is based on how well the player can tap the arrow keys to the beat—when they’re brought together the game can be quite difficult, compounded by having to remember each enemy’s movement and attack patterns. But like most games of this type, dying is not only inevitable but an important part of the flow of gameplay. When the player dies or completes a zone, they get taken back to the lobby to spend the diamonds they’ve (hopefully) been picking up. Those upgrades are very important—so much so that the game will warn the player if they have unspent diamonds—and getting through the game without them is no mean feat. Make no mistake—this game rewards perseverance. Every time the player heads back into the dungeon, a little more progress is made, and if they stick with it, they’ll reap the rewards. It’s this aspect that makes this game so addictive and fun. There’s a definite “one more time” factor at play—as players find more diamonds, unlock more upgrades, items and vendors and better learn enemies’ patterns, they go further and further into the dungeon and eventually prevail.
For a game with such a musical focus, the expectation is that the soundtrack would be one of the major selling points. Players won’t be disappointed by the music guiding them through the levels—it was created by Danny Baranowsky, whose previous credits include “Desktop Dungeons,” “Super Meat Boy” and “The Binding of Issac.” The music is fantastic, blending “traditional” RPG music elements with dance music. There’s also an option to use custom music.
“Crypt of the Necrodancer” is currently out for PC through Steam. It’s an Early Access game, meaning that it’s still technically in development but there’s still plenty of content there. It’s unclear if the game will be released on other platforms. The standard version with just the game is priced at $14.99, while a second version that comes with the game and the excellent soundtrack comes in at $24.99.
