A roguelike is a game that features perma-death,
procedurally generated environments, and generally focuses on the gathering of
gear rather than the act of levelling and, in recent years, there has been an
upsurge of this style of game being developed, especially by indie developers.
With such a competitive
market, a new roguelike must have some aspect that really stands out, and Crypt of the Necrodancer has two.
Crypt of the
Necrodancer isn’t just a dungeon-crawler, it’s also a rhythm game. The main
mechanic allows the player to make every action to the beat of the game’s
music, or risk wasting a move.
Enemies move on the same beats, and each have
their own movement patterns and attack patterns, making Crypt of the Necrodancer more of a puzzle game than an action game
like The Binding of Isaac. This
sounds rather unintuitive, but it very quickly becomes natural.
There’s also a very creative local co-op mode. Co-op, or
multiplayer of any kind, is a very rare thing to see in a roguelike, but Crypt of the Necrodancer finds a way to
make it work, provided your partner isn’t rhythmically challenged. There’s no
special aspect of the co-op mode. Another character is simply dropped into the
dungeon to help you survive the hordes of undead.
Both single and multiplayer are made infinitely more fun by
the music. The game’s standard music is excellent and does a great job of
setting the tone for each level. The most impressive thing about the music in Crypt of the Necrodancer, however, is
that you can import your own music into the game and it will work out the beats
so that you can play normally.
In an oversaturated market, Crypt of the Necrodancer manages to stay fresh and new without
deviating too far from the tried-and-true roguelike style. Despite being in
alpha, v0.375 to be exact, Crypt of the
Necrodancer already feels like a full game, and makes a great addition to
anyone’s game library.
Image: Slick Entertainment
