Deathflood: Dungeon of Doom (2022)

 

Deathflood: Dungeon of Doom is a brand new C64 game (freely available from Windigo Productions here) that concerns a lone thief, either the male barbarian or an amazon, who investigates the allegedly abandoned stronghold of a powerful necromancer with the intent on looting its treasures. Locating the stronghold reveals that it's not entirely abandoned because the necromancer's experiments are still shambling about the crumbling halls, and the bulk of it is actually beneath the mountains in which it's situated. Penetrating to the bottom, the thief finds the remains of the necromancer but when attempting to seize the corpse's priceless jeweled crown, the foolish thief sets off a trap: the entire complex is now rapidly filling with water.

The game itself begins with what would be the breakneck finale of most stories, as the player has to escape the dungeon while evading the necromancer's undead minions, grabbing as much treasure as possible, and staying just ahead of the ascending waterline. This is much easier said than done because some of the rooms can get complicated as the player has to climb up and down ladders, searching for keys to unlock doors to reach the room's exit, and the player character doesn't move particularly fast in any direction, leaving very little room for error or wrong turns before the water catches up. Falling beneath the surface isn't an instant death because the player has a limited amount of air to keep them from drowning, but of course you're now slogging through water, and the water rises relentlessly, so you need to go farther up every second to regain your breath. 

Graphically, it resembles the classic Bruce Lee a little bit, with relatively small characters and giving a good overview of the surroundings. The sound is pretty basic, with expected swishes for the sword strikes and the little dings that signify a treasure has been grabbed, but the music provides some frantic melodies. Falling under the water's surface causes all the audio to become muffled in a nice touch.

The controls take a little bit of getting used to in that the character needs a good few paces to pick up speed for long jumps and dismounting from ladders or going up stairs can be weirdly cumbersome. So while it maybe looks like Bruce Lee, it's not as fast or nimble as that game. But that's how the game is made and it doesn't take long to get acclimated. There are multiple endings to the game depending on factors such as how much treasure you snatched on the way out. Pick up enough and you might be able to buy your own kingdom. It's well worth playing and replaying to better your performance.

Elderborn (2020)

 

Elderborn is described by its Polish creators, Hyperstrange (Jupiter Hell, Crossbow: Bloodnight, Blood West), as "a Metal AF* Slasher with brutal FPP melee combat and souls-like/RPG character progression. In the times of legend, barbarian tribes need a new dark messiah. Be that merciless slayer. Uncover ancient secrets in the city of doom. Forge your own destiny! *Action Fantasy." The terms "souls-like" and "dark messiah" are particularly notable because the game takes heavily after Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Dark Souls.

As with Dark Messiah, the game is a first-person melee combat game in which you break through enemy shields by kicking them, although Elderborn lacks Dark Messiah's complicated physics and magic systems. You can at least kick weaker enemies off high ledges to kill them. And like Dark Souls, enemies leave behind experience that can be picked up and cashed in for skill increases at special  respawning locations (mostly fountains instead of bonfires). If you're killed, you'll have to trudge back to where you were snuffed to gather up all the experience your previous life had accumulated, but you lose it entirely if you're killed again.

The premise of the game is suitably Howardian. As a member of a barbaric tribe, you're tasked with making a pilgrimage to the golden city of Jurmum, which has fallen into decadence under the "guidance" of its corrupt priesthood and the exploitation of strange technology that powers the city, and by pilgrimage it means you're supposed to kill everything you see there, but few have ever returned from the city. You're given a choice between a male or female warrior (no real difference between them) and in the game's opening you have to slay the other option in an arena before setting out on your quest. You begin in the catacombs beneath the city, then move into the city itself. Along the way you'll battle various types of undead warriors, homicidal lepers, giant scorpions, and Lovecraftian fishmen. Note that many of these enemies aren't friendly with each other and it's often easy to get them to fight each other. There's some unintentional comedy in sometimes walking close enough to trigger an enemy into moving only to see him turn around, run the opposite direction, and start attacking another group of enemies.

Getting good at the combat mostly involves unceasing movement (often utilizing the game's quick-dash ability) and mastering the game's parrying system. A successfully timed parry will stun the enemy and leave them vulnerable to an extra-high damage counterattack. You can also fully heal yourself with a special injection up to three times before needing to kill more enemies to refill the injections. Unlike Dark Souls, there is no stamina meter that forces you to be conservative in dodging, blocking, or attacking, so the game is quite a bit faster than current-day "souls-like" games. Instead, you'll be contending with potentially large mobs of enemies at particular points in the game, racing from one opponent to the next, whittling down their numbers as you go. There are also some minor puzzle-solving aspects, mostly to do with operating some of the peculiar machines in the city.

For a "Metal AF" game, the soundtrack is adequate. It's suitably hard-driving and enhances the mood in parts but it's also not especially memorable, especially with several games today being accompanied by heavy soundtracks, such as Mick Gordon's work on the new Doom games. The graphics are quite good, but there's a certain lack of color to them. The catacombs are heavy on the blue while the city is a lot of brown (see the game's title card/poster above). It's tough to equal masters like Frazetta in nailing a sense of foreboding and violence while still being very colorful.

The weapon selection is varied enough to cover just about any playstyle (I settled on the spears), and there aren't too many games that allow you to unlock the ability to rip a corpse's head off and use it as a projectile.

The most unfortunate thing about the game is simply how short it is. There are essentially two levels, albeit long ones, and then a relatively brief epilogue. The game seems to end right as it's getting going, leaving a sense that you just completed the opening episode of a shareware game only to realize there's no more of it left. Hopefully a more substantial sequel will come some soon.

COVER ART: Gods (1991)

Another standout from Simon Bisley.