#Dungeon Crawlers

[prokopetz]

I love the current trend toward rules-light dungeon crawlers that put some serious thought into what makes the mechanical gameplay loop of a dungeon crawler tick rather than just subtracting random pieces from Dungeons & Dragons and saying "it's better because there's less of it", but with that serious thought seems to come the impulse to make one's rules-light dungeon crawler be About Something™, and in the spirit of perversity I feel moved to try my own hand at the genre with the explicit goal of writing the dumbest fucking rules-light dungeon crawler you've ever seen.

[90sfantasyanimestuff]

Brandish VT

[sequentialplanet]

Video Game Review: Labyrinth of Zangetsu

  The Switch is a safe haven for dungeon-crawler fans. The genre is known for hardcore RPG play and being somewhat inaccessible to new players, so the hybrid console makes dungeon-crawler much easier to pick up play than the other available consoles. This has led to many remakes, remasters, and new dungeon-crawling games for the hardcore crew to sink their teeth into. Labyrinth of Zangetsu is the…

[zehecatl]

list of upcoming dungeon crawlers i think looks neat, for no real reason :]

Psychopomp GOLD, expanded version of Psychopomp, also releases really soon (25th October!)

LURKS WITHIN WALLS, horror dungeon crawler, with art by the guy who made Sirenhead (Trevor Henderson)

They Speak From The Abyss: Zenith, originally intended as a short(er) prequel, it seems to have very much grown into its own thing

UTTER INVERSE, incapable of describing this one, gets too excited every time i see a screenshot

Labyrinth of the Demon King, dark and crunchy, and set in a horrifying feudal japan

Navicula Meatus, dark and surreal meat puzzler

Hibernaculum, gorgeous pixel arts and a nasty-looking sci-fi setting

REPOSE, surreal sci-fi horror, done entirely in black and white

[firstdraftblog]

Dungeon Crawlers - 3

The family moves through the forest, whacking a few ankle biting monsters as they travel along the path to town. Some of the monsters turn into gold coins after being hit. Tempo picks one up and turns it over in his hand, examining it.

Tempo: "Why do some of them turn into coins and stuff when you hit them?"

Dad looks over his shoulder: "They're monsters! It's just what they do!"

Tempo: "You mean you've never wondered?"

Dad: "Not as long as towns keep letting me use the coins for payment!" He laughs raucously.

CUT TO -

The family is in town and dad is trying to buy something.

Shopkeeper: "You can't use those coins for payment."

Dad: "What? Why not?"

Shopkeeper: "Oh well you CAN but you'll need a lot more than that. Adventurers have sacks full of those things. Caused all the prices around here to go up a bit. You'd be better off paying will jewels. One jewel is worth like 50 of those."

Dad: "Well why didn't you say so!?" he happily begins fishing jewels out of his satchel when mom stops him.

Mom: "Before we go spending everything, do you happen to know if there is an armorer or blacksmith who can appraise a sword? We have one we're looking to sell."

The shopkeeper points a clump of houses just outside of the city center market.

Shopkeeper: "That's Bandit Alley. Not as scary as it sounds - their family name is Bandit. But they ARE crooks so Billy who lives in the one with the big sword stuck in the door WILL buy that off you but his pricing can be... special." They raise their hand slightly and off to the side. Through a clump of market stalls there is a little path that leads to another group of houses. "Thieves guild. Now they actually aren't crooks - "thief" is an official job class you can get for being able to sneak in and out of dungeons successfully. That whole clump of houses there belongs to a group of dungeon crawlers. Thieves, all of them, in the official sense. If you want something dungeon related, even to buy and sell gear, that's your best bet."

Tempo overhears and speaks up: "You're not all crawlers in this town? - I thought every settlement that popped up around dungeons was full of crawlers."

The shopkeeper raises a brow: "Your daddy didn't teach you the history? Settlement was here first. Most of us don't want anything to do with the dungeons but they popped up on our land and we don't want to move, so as adventurers and crawlers moved into the area we adapted. Well sell food, clothing, potions and offer lodging. Keeps our pockets full of jewels and we remain safe."

Dad: "Well we're gonna clear the back acres before the pests spilling out of those old dungeons become a problem for you folks."

Shopkeeper: "Oh yeah? Well if you don't get eaten or something, come on back sometime. I may not be a guild merchant but I got some robes and cloaks I bet you'd love."

Dad laughs as he and Mom turn towards the Thieves Guild pathway: Mom: "Then we'll see you around."

Tempo stays where he is. He's examining the fabric of one of the cloaks. Tempo (almost to himself): This material isn't normal...

The shopkeeper smirks: "Neither are half of the fruits and veggies at the stalls around here." They lean in and whisper conspiratorially. "The dungeon provides."

From a short distance away, a young woman in a hooded cloak watches the family go about their business.

[omercifulheaves]

A Dark Journey Through Shadow Tower - Series Retrospective by Majuular

[strange-house-art]

Age of Rot is a haunting exploration of forgotten stories, doomed kingdoms, and the struggle of surviving in a world of rot and decay. Through fragmented tales, cryptic dialogues, and hidden truths you'll be able to navigate the delicate balance between the rot curse and your own fading humanity.

Disclaimer: This game doesn't exist.

[iasmelaion]

I have been afflicted with a terrible curse: tearing through a book series, and upon finishing, seeking out the fandom only to find that most of that fandom appears to be reading an entirely different series than I am, lol. I brought this on myself, to be clear. I think a big part of the mismatch is that it's a genre I'm not that familiar with and that I don't care about/for in and of itself, so I'm coming at it from a different perspective. Also, maybe I'm reading into things too much! But what can I say, a girl needs enrichment in her enclosure, and there's enough meat on this bone that I will be occupied for a while.

All of which is to say, I read through all seven books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series that are out to date (thanks, free Kindle Unlimited subscription!), and now I have a lot of thoughts and no one who cares about them ;____; I played myself ;_______;

This series is such a hard sell in general, because on the surface it looks like male power fantasy garbage, it's litRPG, and there's a decent amount of mildly obnoxious dude humor at first. But a) it's only slightly male power fantasy garbage, b) it's not tedious litRPG and in fact the genre evolves and shifts into more straightforward SFF the further in you get, which is clever on a meta level and also a relief, c) to the extent it is litRPG, it mostly isn't boring and annoying about it (no stat nonsense for the sake of stat nonsense), d) the mildly obnoxious dude humor is often genuinely funny and to the extent it is obnoxious, there's some in-universe reasoning for that.

Anyway, the premise is as follows: Earth is suddenly and devastatingly mined for its natural resources by aliens. This results in the death of billions: everyone who was indoors is instantly killed. Anyone who was outside gets a chance to enter the "dungeon", which offers a chance for the remaining humans to compete for an alleged chance at freedom and sovereignty if they reach the bottom floor, but it's basically The Hunger Games: a propaganda exercise that's meant to earn money for the aliens running it as a game show, only this is a dungeon crawling RPG rather than a Hunger Games/Battle Royale situation. No one has ever reached the bottom floor. The best result most achieve is to reach the tenth floor, where they can take a deal for some variety of indentured servitude.

Enter Carl, our hero, a former (late 20s? early 30s? don't recall his age, but somewhere around there) Coast Guard technician who is outside when it all happens because he chased after his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, a best in show tortie Persian cat. Carl and Donut enter the dungeon, Donut eats a magic treat and becomes a sapient talking cat, and the books follow their struggle to survive and fight back against the cruel and inhuman system they've found themselves in.

Tonally, the series is interesting in that it manages to balance a very bleak, dystopian premise with genuine hilarity and moments of legitimately heart-wrenching emotion. Also, this is not a "lone heroic super cool guy saves and fixes everything" kind of story. This series is interested in teamwork and community in dire circumstances, and the found family of it all is genuinely moving. As a whole, it's just bonkers entertaining. I love when I can tell the author is having a blast, and you can absolutely tell that Matt Dinniman is having an absolute blast.

Anyway, a list of things I enjoy about this series and/or a list of general thoughts, some of which include mild spoilers:

PRINCESS DONUT. i love her. this cat is amazing and hilarious. She's exactly like you'd imagine a prize-winning Persian cat named Princess Donut to be. also, to my delight, she gets to be a fully rounded character. like yes, she's hilarious and often comic relief, but she's also taken seriously, and Carl is absolutely Insane about this cat. He fuckin' loves this cat, and the cat loves him. Also, hilariously, she has higher stats than Carl at the beginning. (In fact, she mostly has higher stats than him throughout, so she's technically the party leader. Which is why their party is called the Royal Court of Princess Donut.)

Donut has A+++++ insulting skills. On multiple occasions, I have lol'd in horror and delight at her savagery. A favorite:

Rezan: Why does that cat always type in all caps?

Donut: WHY DIDN’T YOUR MOTHER DRIBBLE YOU BACK OUT ONTO THE TRUCK STOP BATHROOM FLOOR, REZAN?

lest this give you the wrong impression, Donut is a classy lady. She is a princess, after all. but also she is savage.

Carl! The books are mostly in first person POV, so we're in Carl's head for most of them, and he is a great example of an unreliable narrator. He'll seem fairly generic at first, but stick it out through, like, the first third of the first book and onward for the slow and steady reveal of his Tragic Backstory and also such exciting psychological and emotional issues as: Insane about Donut; claims he "doesn't like drama" while in actuality he is clearly Repressing Everything; secretly an idealist who wants to believe the best of people; deeply committed to protecting people; full of revolutionary, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian rage; holy abandonment issues batman; simply Does Not See It when various ladies basically throw themselves at him; generally Barely Holding It Together at all times.

people on reddit, mostly: Carl's stats!! blah blah blah power stuff. me: okay, but why is Carl Like This. let's deep discuss that. Also let Carl have a little breakdown. As a treat.

these books are so wildly, delightfully anti-capitalist, lol. I poked around Reddit and tumblr a bit, but didn't see anyone discussing this series' politics, but that aspect is super interesting to me. The series is very, very concerned with revolution and resistance and the form those things take when very few options are available to the oppressed, plus the ethics of revolutionary violence.

The dungeon AI! This thing is Way Too Online in a gross dudebro way, but frankly, it's still funny with it, and the evolution of the AI's character is fascinating. Also, I regret to inform you that I do find it extremely fucking funny that the AI has a thing for Carl and his feet. This is wholly hypocritical of me: if Carl was Carla, and the AI made the same comments, I'd have bounced. But what can I say, comedy is about subversion, I guess.

PREPOTENTE. MY PRECIOUS WEIRDO GOATMAN CHILD. Prepotente was a goat; upon entry into the dungeon and eating a magic pet treat, he becomes a goat man type thing, and he spends much of the series as one of the most dangerous and skilled dungeon crawlers, along with his "mother", the shepherdess Miriam Dom. he's a total fuckin weirdo who screams a lot for no reason and i love him. he better fucking survive the series, i swear to god.

one running theme of the series that I love so much is that Carl does not give up on people, and he does not write them off. He often runs into fellow crawlers who, if he was being bloodlessly practical about things, he should have bailed on. They're people who aren't prepared, who haven't leveled up enough, who aren't likely to survive much longer. But he doesn't abandon them, and he doesn't assume they can't get better. He sticks with them and helps them, and they help him. It's about found family ;____; they all love each other so much ;______;

MORDECAI!!! he's a changeling skyfowl and the team's game guide and later manager, and is a former crawler who took a deal. This is supposed to be his last season in the crawl, before he's free of his indentured servitude. he is Dad Shaped. automatic dad. there is in fact something quietly devastating about his Dad Shapedness.

There's a whole super interesting thing going on with the dungeon NPCs, and how we start out assuming most of them aren't "real". unsurprising spoiler alert: they may have been created by/for the dungeon, but many of them are very much real, and once they realize the position they've been put into, they're pissed.

i truly have no real idea where the series is going with its running theme about parents and children, and the protection or lack thereof of children. Our most heroic characters are consistently shown protecting and caring for the NPC children, even when it's at great cost to themselves.

everything to do with the Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, the secret book with writing from prior crawlers that Carl is given, makes me Emotional. I'm honestly shocked the whole Cookbook was never planned, and that it was a result of Patreon votes. It's hugely important in the seventh book, not so much on a plot level--I can see how Dinniman could have gotten to some of these same plot beats without it--but on an emotional and thematic one. There's something so affecting here about the continuity of resistance, of finding hope and strength in the people who came before you, of planting seeds you water with blood and that you may never get to harvest, and the sheer, furious love of the whole thing.

so apparently Dinniman is a pantser when it comes to writing. Clearly, he's having fun, and it's more or less working out so far, but it does make me concerned about his ability to stick the dismount. I saw in an AMA that he likened it to building a spaceship with legos versus building it with a plan, and that he has fun writing himself out of corners. That's all well and good, but some of the things I'm most interested in this series are the overarching themes, and it makes me wary of those themes not getting a proper payoff. I guess I should just enjoy the ride, and accept that there will almost certainly be many loose ends.

On a meta level, I find it very funny and ironic that when I took a look at the reviews for the seventh book, I saw some people complaining about the absence of the more "entertainment" and "game" aspects of the series: no interviews with the outside, no "character sheets" for Carl, fewer big fights for Carl himself to take on, the AI taking on a more active 'deus-ex AI' role. Because in-universe, the dungeon crawl is no longer entertainment. At this point, the crawl has become an actual war, and the game genre it takes on--4x strategy--reflects that. Carl and the crawlers' choices have increasing ramifications outside the crawl, where actual war is breaking out at least in part as a result of their actions. The AI intervening more and more often to put its finger on the scale is part of the conflict; it's fighting this war as much as the other characters are, if with still inscrutable motivations.

This is in fact one of the central conflicts of the series: to what extent is this still a game? Has it ever only been a game? The crawlers and NPCs are in fact fighting for it to not be a game: they're saying "my life is real, my suffering is real, and if you won't acknowledge that, then you're coming in here with us to fight and die too. Not just a game anymore, is it?" And on another side of the conflict, you have the AI insisting that this stay a game, something with rules and a narrative and at least an attempt at fairness, however much the AI manipulates those things.

It seems like there's something of a genre shift going on with this series. As a reader who's not particularly interested in or invested in litRPG in and of itself, I'm fine with it shifting to being more straightforwardly SFF, and in fact, I think that's an interesting and fun choice on a meta level: the more the crawlers and the AI break and change the game, the more the genre of the series itself shifts.

[inkary]

Grand Champion, Breed Winner Regional, National Winner Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk

[ineedlelittlespace]

So, this seems to be the plot of every Dungeon Crawler Carl book so far. I love it.

[eggsgrubsandpumpkins]

Dungeon Crawler Carl floors 1-3: TeeHee! This big buff guy has a cat named Princess Donut! Dungeons & Dragons! Action/Adventure! Raunchy gore!

Dungeon Crawler Carl floors 4-onward: "Comrades, synchronize your watches. Tonight is the night we light the sparks of the revolution. Tonight is the night we die for our freedom."

[nyrlthtp]

this is how the System AI gives advice

[krippe90]

Found Family

[bolloxtothat]

Wizardry 6-8 classes but Kobolds! Who would you bring to your party to the stars and into the Cosmic Circle?

[firstdraftblog]

Dungeon Crawlers - 2

Inside the house the family gathers around the dining room table.

Dad unravels a huge tattered cloth, revealing a number of items and pieces of equipment that was rolled inside. Among the items are a few pieces of light armor, a large, intricate cutlass , a small shield, some bottles of colorful liquid and a slingshot.

The twins eyes sparkle at the sight of the cutlass but dad interrupts their covetous thoughts by whapping them on the head with a rolled up map, like a pair of misbehaving puppies.

"No," he says firmly. "No swords. Carrying something like that is more trouble than it's worth."

Harmony (twin 1): "But it's so shiny!"

Tempo (older brother and our main character): "So thieves and bandits will try to rob you for it."

Cadence (twin 2): "But i can feel it's power from here!"

Tempo: "Which makes you a threat to anyone or anything you encounter. Dungeons creatures won't ignore someone carrying that thing and out there it's good to be ignored sometimes."

Dad smiles brightly and claps his son on the shoulder: "You've been listening! Good man! You get to choose first!"

Tempo looks at the items disapprovingly: ."..but it's all junk."

Dad seems annoyed for a moment and then laughs hard: "Dungeons already have all that you need within them. You start with this stuff and you'll find better stuff inside."

Mom: "Inside? I thought you said you were just clearing the land."

Dad: "We won't go deep. Just get a lay of the land any see if there is anything useful on the first floor."

Mom gives him a look and then looks at the items on the table: "Tem is right. You don't know anything about these dungeons. Not their level or anything. You can't just go in there with this junk." she picks up the cutlass. "Sell the sword in town, buy some better supplies before you head to the fields."

Dad: "Whoa now... sell the..."

Tempo interrupts with a heavy sigh: "Well I guess if we HAVE to do this I would prefer to see if anyone in town has any local monster manuals or guides."

Dad: "Guides!? We don't need MANUALS!"

Mom turns a colorful bottle over in her hand. The iridescent liquid swirls. "And maybe get some health potions. I don't know how long these have been in here."

Dad: "But...!"

Mom: "No buts. We can all go. I'll get the twins some treats and see what the market is like. Check out the competition." she smiles.

Slinging a bag over her shoulder, Mom leads the way out of the house and Dad follows his family, grumbling under his breath: "Potions don't go bad. It's supposed to be that color.... so what if it makes you a little sick after drinking it..."