The beautiful thing about people that like dungeon crawlers is that they’re all sickos. Every single one of them! This is not a genre that’s for the faint of heart. It is often plodding and methodical and conniving, so focused on stats and character classes that you could drown in the amount of numbers you have to pay attention to. So, how about a dungeon crawler where the battling happens automatically, and all you have to do is a little bit of programming? It’s called Dungeon Automata, and trust me, the programming isn’t as bad as it sounds.
Dungeon Automata is self-described by developer Medium-Rare Games as an autologic, a “new twist to the dungeon crawler genre,” that’s an “auto battler meets logic-based visual scripting, where you control golems’ behavior through programming.” Each of your party members are programmable in the sense that they have various nodes you can link up that will get them to perform certain actions on certain things, be that enemies or other party members. There are even if yes/no statements that let your party members change up what they do depending on things like a party member’s HP levels.
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The whole name of the game is essentially optimisation. You’re trying to figure out what the best combination of tools are that you have at your disposal, which you do through trial and error. This applies to navigating the dungeons too, as you can also use the visual scripting to dictate what directions your party members take. That’s also where the catch is: you have to do all of the programming prior to your adventurers heading out, and once they’re in there, you can’t do anything to help them.
It’s not a roguelike either! Each level is “handcrafted,” so you don’t have to worry about any sort of randomisation in that regard. The game is wrapped up in wonderfully crunchy, black and white pixel art, and even has music legend Yuzo Koshiro, known for his work across Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage, Ys, Shenmue and much more, attached as a composer. Lots of good stuff on display here! And there’s a demo for you to try out if you fancy on Steam too.