Atooi’s Knights of the Rogue Dungeon follows carefully within the footsteps of Q*Bert, the favored isometric platformer from the golden days of the arcade. The objective of every randomly chosen degree is to easily hop onto each single tile (altering its colour) whereas avoiding any of the roaming enemies that randomly drop onto the stage as you discover.
Although you possibly can select to sort out every stage any approach you’d like, you’re incentivized to plan out a route the place you contact the identical tiles as few occasions as attainable. Not solely does your rating multiplier enhance when you can constantly land on contemporary tiles, however after hitting a set threshold, you’ll activate ‘Knight Energy’ which allows you to flip the tables and immediately kill any foes you contact. Nonetheless, each the rating multipliers and Knight Energy will disappear when you step on a tile you’ve already touched.
There’s a tense rapid-fire tempo to clearing every stage, which ought to solely take you a minute or so. It is advisable plan a number of strikes forward to make sure you can maintain your streak going, but enemies continually stress you to maintain shifting, and these foes typically foil your plans resulting from being within the incorrect place on the incorrect time. It’s actually pleasurable to constantly make snap choices on the fly and deftly maneuver round them—typically every part simply falls completely into place and it feels wonderful while you land on that final tile.
Naturally, you’re susceptible to make some errors, and all it takes is one contact to finish your run completely. Fortunately, roguelite components add metaprogression to lower the issue over time. You get cash from beating enemies and touchdown on sure tiles, and after paying a ‘dying tax’ the rest is added to your financial institution to spend on upgrades akin to additional tries or faster entry to Knight Energy. We loved what this store system brings to the desk, because it provides extra tangible objectives to pursue than a easy excessive rating.
All that is effectively and good, although it bears mentioning that the worth for Knights of the Rogue Dungeon feels a bit steep for what’s on supply. Ten bucks appears loads for what quantities to a enjoyable, however shallow arcade-style expertise you’ll have completed in an hour or two. Extra importantly, that is primarily based on a free iOS recreation known as Knight Fright, which options just about the identical expertise sans the improve store. True, navigating by way of an analog stick feels rather more intuitive than faucets or swipes on an iPad, however all the identical, it’s robust to disregard you could primarily get the identical recreation at no cost on an Apple gadget.
In case you’re in search of a easy, enjoyable, considerably shallow arcade-like recreation to your Swap, Knights of the Rogue Dungeon is certainly one thing that’ll fulfill that want. It is over shortly, however that is an general pleasurable expertise—although we’d advocate you attempt the iOS recreation first to see if that is actually for you.