Cursed Loot Hot

It was okay.

Cursed Loot is the new name for last year's Winter Uprising title Epic Dungeon. It's still pretty much the same game, but Eyehook Games have generously added some new features in the form of a new character class and some new unique skills, making Cursed Loot, an already fantastic game, even better value for your 80MSP.
So what's the game like?
Well, Cursed Loot is a rogue-like RPG, meaning that you begin with one life and if you die in-game you have to start right from the beginning again. While this makes the game sound like it's only for the most hardcore of RPG players, this is not the case. A lot of the difficulties associated with the genre have been stripped away leaving behind a very streamlined experience that encourages fun and experimentation rather than grinding. When you die it doesn't feel like a major setback, rather an excuse to try a different approach.
The main premise of the game is to explore and battle your way through a giant 50 level dungeon, finding the exit to each level takes you deeper into the dungeon. Along the way you'll encounter many different types of enemies that get tougher the further you progress. There are no turn-based battles here, to attack you simply walk into your enemies and you'll land hits or receive damage based on your Damage, Defense and Dexterity stats.
You begin the game by choosing one of 5 different character classes, each with their own unique special skill. As you gain experience from battles and increase your character's level you can assign points to your stats, which allows you to refine your own play style. Every two experience levels gained also lets you assign a point to a unique skill (two points if it's your character's special skill), there are 9 of these in total to chose from.
During your adventure you'll collect plenty of loot (beware though, some of it is cursed!). From new weapons and armor to potions, scrolls, amulets, gold, and so on. Gold can be used to buy more items from various shops located throughout the dungeon. You'll also come across some special events in which a short scenario is described and you are given a choice on what to do, the outcome of which is based on your Luck stat.
The graphics are done in an 8-bit style, with crisp sprite visuals that keep the action clear and colorful.
What really makes this game stand out is it's replayability. With the sheer variety of character classes, skills, stats and equipment available, you'll really want to experiment with all the different combinations. Even once you've made it to the end of the game, you'll be itching to try again taking a new approach. The dungeon levels are randomly generated, so you will always have somewhere new to explore, as are the loot drops and the locations of the special events. There are also awardments to win and three difficulty levels to beat.
All in all, I believe this to be one of the best games on the XBox Live Indie Channel. It's short enough to just pick up and play, yet has enough depth to keep you coming back for more.

This game has had me hooked for days. 4 different character classes and 3 different difficulties make this game very re-playable. Here are the RPG basics that made me wonder why games are never made this simple.

Attributes:
Damage: Attack power per hit
Defense: Defense from enemy attacks
Dexterity: Affects whether you land your attacks and dodge enemy attacks
Luck: Affects your loot drops and random event outcomes

Skills:
Health Regeneration: how fast your health regenerates when below 100%
Frenzy: Spin around and hit everything around you
Freeze: Freeze enemies in place
Orb: Summon an orb that fights with you
Poison: Poison enemies around you (they take damage over time)

This combined with the easy to use control scheme makes this game easy to pick up for 10 minutes or 3 hours. You also have a lantern that will run out of oil, which affects how far you can see. This will change your battle plan because with low oil you have to react faster and cannot plan as much. It is very important to have a few spare oils. There is a shop every few floors, always placed on floors that I felt comfortable with. Not to close to the previous shop to make me want to skip it, and not to far away that I ran out of health potions naturally.

The game also has the standard risk-reward system of identifying items, random events, and loot drops. I always loved finding an epic armor piece. The balance of the skills is fine tuned to perfection. You always have tough choices to make that have an immediate effect on gameplay. Same thing with picking your skills to level up. Each class has a special skill that will level up twice with each point you put in as opposed to once. For gameplay purposes I would suggest playing through evenly distributing your points between health regeneration and your main skill to be as powerful as possible. None of the classes seemed weak to me, and none of them have any boosts besides their skill bonus.

If you happen to die, you are dead. This is where the game's short length comes in handy. If you die after an hour, yeah it sucks, but if you make it to that floor again on another character you get an item that your character had. There are also fun little platforming mini-games that will get you a lot of gold if you can get to the end. This is especially cool because the amount of gold you get is scaled to your level. So I never felt over or under payed. Combine this with awardables (achievements just for this game) and you have great replay value.

The graphics are perfect for the type of game that it is, and the music suits the game well.

It is rare to find such a balanced, addicting, and fun game on the indie game marketplace, I highly suggest it.

__Foreword__

First of all, as with most of my reviews, I would like to take a moment to thank EyeHook Games for developing and publishing this awesome game. Below are links to the Epic Dungeon appreciation page and EyeHook Games' Blog:

http://www.eyehook.com/epicdungeon/index.html (Appreciation Page)
http://eyehook.blogspot.com/ (Blog)


--EPIC DUNGEON Review--

With 50 chambers to discover, Epic Dungeon delivers where other games come short: an expansive role-playing based system of equipment, skill trees, and dynamics of strategy found in all successful dungeon crawlers.

Our intrepid hero starts off at level one in the first dungeon vault, and depending on which class you pick (choose from four different designations--Gambler, Barbarian, Tinkerer and Shaman) you get a skill boost respective to your class.

At its heart, Epic Dungeon is an adventure like many other dungeon-crawlers; however it also retains unique aspects such as its random loot system or arbitrary events that can either punish or reward players (depending on their Luck stat).

With an inventory of 36 slots, and armed with a weapon, armor, amulet and a ring, our exemplary hero can smash through hoards of monsters to eventually reach the exit and escape the torturous cells of the dungeon.

Although Epic Dungeon is a low-res game, I find it to be highly enjoyable and even more-so fun because of that very reason; there are no annoying long loading screens or laggy frames; just smooth, quick, and solid gameplay that gradually gets harder and harder as you progress.

What is most enjoyable about Epic Dungeon, to me, is it's unique and unprecedented aspects--which can be quite simple, or complex--such as having to refill your Lantern with Oil every so often or risk having an extremely small light radius, which hampers your success especially on the higher dungeon levels. Another example would be the Max Chain system--with each respective skill (except for the passive Regenerate ability) that allows the hero to use the skill up to four times in a "chain", however the player must be dexterous enough and time their button pressing correctly to pull it off.

Overall, Epic Dungeon is a fantastic game, and it's random item-dropping system as well as random events remind me of the Diablo games--essentially, Epic Dungeon is a combination of great games as well as an original gaming experience that can be enjoyed time and time again.

Skeptical? Try it out for yourself with the FREE Trial Game: http://tinyurl.com/EpicDungeon

--Deeke@XboxLive

This game is very simple at it's core but it has plenty of depth for those looking for a little more. To attack enemies you simply just walk into them just as you'd move around the level. You also have 4 abilities (that are the same for each character) that are mapped to the A/B/X/Y buttons (poison, frenzy, freeze and orb respectively) and you can chain a single spell to increase it's effectiveness. You also have a passive skill you can put points into, regenerate.

Being a dungeon crawler, all the normal things are here. Collecting loot, random encounters, random dungeons and a level up system. Every level you can put 3 points into your stats (damage, defense, dexterity and luck) and every few levels you get another skill point you can use, mentioned above. If I'm a Gambler, who specializes in poison, whenever I put a point into poison it raises by 2 levels instead of 1 so you can level that skill up faster. You can also collect weapons, armor and potions to help you on your journey.

If you die, an item is left at the spot you died so on your next playthrough you can pick it up if you make it there. Death is also a very scary thing because it ends your entire game! Meaning that you must start over from level 1 again. It makes getting to the end that much more enjoyable knowing that at any unlucky moment you could get surrounded, with no potions, and have to start all over.

It's definitely a great game that everyone should check out. My only request for the next game would be to have a little more in-depth customization (like combining weapons, skill trees, etc).

I’m having a lot of fun with Epic Dungeon. I finally got through level 50 and figured it was time I wrote up a review. The controls are simple but work well. Walk into an enemy and automatically attack them. You have one special ability when you start and can unlock up too four if you choose to upgrade that way. These abilities are mapped to the face buttons. Your health potions are mapped to the right trigger for quick access which is nice because if you die there is no coming back. You have to start again at level one. That tension of trying to stay alive without wasting all your health potions is balanced by a regen ability you can unlock after a few levels. Still, make a big mistake and that regen will not save you if you are out of health potions. There is plenty of loot to pick up between the armor, weapon, spells and potions but each category is simple enough that you don’t spend much time with management. Instead you get to focus on exploring the dungeon and fighting.

The retro style graphics work well and I found them quite enjoyable. The inventory system has some nice options like Sort and Sell Junk which come in handy and save a lot of time when you find a shop to spend all your gold at. The music does repeat throughout the whole game but I never really noticed it after a couple minutes so it did not get annoying like some titles.

The level layouts vary by the design but you get a feel for them after the first 10 levels or so. Yes, each one is distinct and different. There are a lot of hidden rooms and secret doors to find if you are careful with your explorations. There are also some really funny encounters when you stumble upon a “?”. Each one is unique and gives you a chance at a bonus or a fight depending in the choices you make.

My only issue with the game is the save/load time between each level is a bit long. It is not so long I'd go get a drink or anything but long enough that it is very noticeable.

It took me just a hair over 2 hours for my character to get through level 50 (not counting the previous characters who did not survive) and I’m already thinking about which character class I want to use for my next run. This dungeon crawler is well worth the $1 price tag with a lot of replay value for fans of the genre.