Tangledeep Early Access Review

PUBLISHER/DEVELOPER–Impact Gameworks/ GENRE–Rogue-like RPG action/adventure; 2.5D, indie

THE BASICS:

Tangledeep is a little tough to pin down, but the best way I can describe it is a rogue-like, fantasy-RPG-action-adventure-sort-of-dungeon crawler, presented in a 2.5D overhead style. Go ahead; let that sink in for a second. You begin by choosing from three difficulty settings and each has a pretty big impact on how you experience the game outside of just plain difficulty. In Adventure Mode, which is the default setting, the game just shunts you back to town if you die, albeit with a noticeable EXP penalty and the loss of all of your gold and Job Points. Heroic Mode, the intended difficulty setting, employs permadeath, but your town progress and banked items remain intact. In Hardcore Mode, you get the classic Rogue-type treatment if you die; you lose everything, including the town, your bank, and the save file itself. Total scorched earth policy.

 

THE FLOW AND THE STORY:

An idyllic little forest town is being threatened by all sorts of monsters; some sentient, some completely feral, but they’re all brutal. Guess whose job it is to deal with their ferocious shenanigans? That's right, intrepid warrior; time to make a character, decide their starting class and passive buffs, gear up, grab some food and healing potions and wade into the nearest dungeon. And these dungeons are tall, as in, the dungeon floors just keep going up and up and up. The higher you go, the tougher it gets but luckily, the loot gets better as well. How high can you climb before some slobbering monster takes you down? Maybe more importantly, how far will you push your luck, and will it run out before you can make it back to town? On top of the literal climbing difficulty, if you're feeling lucky (or suicidal), you can find and activate a “Pandora's Box” on many of the dungeon’s levels that increases the local monsters' stats and gifts them a buff, giving you more of a challenge or a quicker way to die, depending on how you look at it.

Each time you get to a new “floor,” one day will pass back in town. Your tree garden (if you've planted any seeds) will be harvested for its fruit, gems/shards, and/or spices; the critters you've captured and placed into your monster farm will have a chance to reproduce with one another (making better ones) and grow stronger; new quests and items will also become available at the vendors in town.

 

CONTROLS:

Keyboard (WASD or numpad) w/mouse, controllers, or mouse-only mode are supported. It features an 8-way move in turn-based style. “Move” towards an enemy for a basic attack, numbers from the top strip for shortcuts to special powers and attacks.

GRAPHICS:

Good-looking graphics with highly detailed, sprite-based everything. A bit cutesy at times, but in a way that suits the game and the environment. If anything, the graphical "cute-ness" may lead you to suspect that the game is gonna go easy on you. It doesn’t, and it's definitely a good thing. Just when you're expecting to clear out an area and move on to exploring some new little bonus region, a pack of ninjas and lightning-throwing slimes all show up at once and proceed to teach you some humility. Or, you move onto a new floor, only to find the entrance to a bandit hideout, with signs warning you to stay away and let them conquer your little world in peace. Naturally, your first instinct is to ignore that warning and go kick their asses, but doing so unprepared will yield a swift GAME OVER. Gear up, load up on buffs, come back and maybe...just maybe...

SOUND:

Amazing music all around, from the soothing, gentle tones at the title screen to something a bit more tense when everything’s about to hit the proverbial fan. SFX for hitting enemies, explosions, lightning crashes, etc., are all properly “meaty” as well.

 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

Minimal. XP SP2, Mac OSX 10.8+, Ubuntu 12.04 or Steam OS+ // 2GB Ram, CPU w/SSE support, DX9 or DX11 w/9.3 capabilities


Summary

Tangledeep feels like a solid follow-up to games like Dungeonmans. Great music and atmosphere, straightforward gameplay. Accessible and fun!

Review by: Eric_Kei


Comments:
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2017-11-01 10:41:34... - Ryan

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2017-11-01 00:29:21... -

key please


2017-10-23 05:26:49... - 锦锐

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2017-10-16 11:44:59... -

karnap


2017-10-15 21:17:08... -

KEY?


2017-10-15 08:11:23... -

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2017-10-14 11:57:03... - mostafa

key please


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