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Dungeon of the Endless - roguelike dungeon defense set in Amplitude's Endless Space universe

SuicideBunny

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Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Torment: Tides of Numenera
it's essentially a dungeon crawler tower defense dota crossover and i like the early access so far. also not in any way weaboo related so moving to general gaming.
Seems to have an "Another World" vibe.
uuh.. no.
 
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Blaine

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Grab the Codex by the pussy
This game looks quite interesting (and it's been on my Steam wishlist for months), but frankly, just watching that Let's Play will be enough to tide me over until Amplitude implement tech trees and more than a few levels. I'm almost never watch Let's Plays, but that one was enjoyable, another odd thing.

I do hope the ultimate "feel" of the game doesn't turn out to be yet another gussied-up tower defense game with a gimmick. I'm not really getting that from the video, and perhaps Dungeon of the Endless is fresh and different enough for it not to matter in any event, but tower defense games as a genre all started to feel like I was playing the same game after the first 5-6 of them.
 

Metro

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It looks good and I have it on the wishlist but they're just too many Early Access titles asking for money a year+ out of release phase.
 

TripJack

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game updated & out of early access now

Hi everyone,

We're happy to announce that Dungeon of the Endless has officially released. The [1.0.15] version is now available on Steam.

....

Here's a list of the main additions to this version (* those were not in the previous Branch version):
  • Multiplayer coop mode (with improvements*)
  • HD GUI option
  • New game screen (start, lift, finale…)
  • Journal (highscore, stats)
  • Album*
  • Secret backstories*
  • 3 new spaceships*
  • 6 new items with passive skill*
  • Balancing (heroes, mobs, spaceship, modules*)
  • Steam Achievements*
  • Steam Trading Cards / Badges / wallpapers / emoticons*
  • OST available in the game files*
  • And Mac version (Warning: no multiplayer cross-platform and heroes shortcuts are disabled)
 

Blaine

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I actually did play this in Early Access, and I died and got mad a lot, which is a good sign. The run to the exit is a fucking pain in the ass. That's where the "gotcha" portion of the Roguelike formula comes from in this game, because if you open up too many rooms (or not enough), mismanage your resources/structures, don't turn on enough lights, etc., you're fucked.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
I actually did play this in Early Access, and I died and got mad a lot, which is a good sign. The run to the exit is a fucking pain in the ass. That's where the "gotcha" portion of the Roguelike formula comes from in this game, because if you open up too many rooms (or not enough), mismanage your resources/structures, don't turn on enough lights, etc., you're fucked.
There are ways to deal with that, plus in the later era of early access they changed it so as soon as you pick up the crystal all the doors open so you can no longer selectively open shit to make the escape easier. There are still ideal ways of managing the escape but with the "All doors open" rule it's based more on playing properly than taking advantage of a lucky dungeon floor layout.

I'll probably spew some more garbage about it later but I wanna dick with the launch version some more. The TLDR summary is one of the best roguelike-likes and better than "Pure" paid roguelikes like Dredmor and the Pit. Up there with Isaac. Doesn't have the metagaming knowledge and flat improvement unlocks like either of those games. Unlocks in DotE are just having different heroes available at the start (Useful, but not in the same category as crafting recipes for the Pit for example) and different escape pods (Basically alternate game modes and rules). Character building/management isn't as deep as a full roguelike but since it's just a part of the base building/management and tower defense love triangle it has enough depth to work. Story and writing is just fluff, but who gives a shit. If you like you can pretend the Amulet of Yendor or the Orb of Zot is on the surface. Little bit of party banter too, with yellow lines like this being specific character to character banter. In this case the smoking chick being a criminal caught by spess mehrine chick.

CC5B902ED3A55E196E07C61AA1C8BBA3FA83ED11
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Jack wanted a 4,000 word review by Friday but I'm too lazy for that so I said I'd type up a pile of garbage and a pile of garbage is what you'll get.

Quick rundown of the game, your first choice is your escape pod and difficulty. Essentially game mode/alternate rules. The normal pod is completely vanilla, others will change your starting tech/dudes, others change rules more dramatically like smarter heroes that can't equip weapons, and the "Drill" escape pod makes the dungeon bottomless, another pod is basically just hard mode with tougher enemies, more negative random events, less loot, etc. Difficulties are very easy and easy. You guys can probably beat a game on easy right? It'll be fine.
Your second choice is your starting heroes, 2 (Out of the max of 4 at once) from the list you've unlocked. Get a couple heroes unlocked right off the bat, and unlock additional heroes by either winning a game with that hero, or having that hero in your party and surviving 3 consecutive floors with it. No classes for heroes but they have some slight archetypes which determines their roles. Some healers, damage dealers, tanks, techies (Can repair turrets/modules and "Work" modules for higher income), etc.

Once you're started in the game proper your heroes are in a room with the crystal (Diamond thingy in the above picture) and a few exits. The game is kind of a combination of turn based and real time, "Turns" being governed by opening doors (When you have active abilities on heroes, the duration is listed in real time seconds but the cooldown is the number of turns/doors until you can use it again) and then if monsters show up the action's all real time with pause. The basic objective for each floor is to open up doors and explore the dungeon until you find the exit, at which point one of your heroes has to pick up the crystal and carry it to the exit and everyone has to escape. As soon as the crystal is picked up the shit hits the fan and all remaining doors open and enemies spawn in all unpowered rooms.

What are unpowered rooms? That's tied in to the building side of the game and the basic resources, FIDS (Food, industry, dust, science). Occasionally while exploring and while killing enemies you'll scoop up dust, which is used by middle mouse button (Or ctrl-click) to "Power" a room. You're able to power 1 room for every 10 dust in the tank, and powered rooms both prevent monster spawns (If you have unpowered rooms without a hero in them there's a chance you'll get additional enemy spawns from that location each time you open a door) and allow you to build turrets and modules.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/598161395543677252/804625ECDA825A173394F11C0B986E6391217E65/
In this picture, the large square thing in the center of the room is a module building location (Only a maximum of 1 per room) and the 6 smaller diamonds around it are turret locations. Modules are mostly used for resource collectors (One for food, industry, science) but there are also a few alternate modules like emergency generators (Powers the room without the use of dust) and HUD computers (Floor-wide buff to your heroes). The turret slots are for a wide variety of straight up pewpew turrets and buff/debuff generators. Large part of the strategy comes from managing your resources and how you set up your defenses.

Anyway, back to the resources. Industry is used for all module and turret construction (And occasionally you find objects in the dungeon that use resources, like a dust factory which requires some industry to pop open. Sometimes you'll get a big pile of dust, sometimes you get nothing). Science is used almost entirely on "Artifacts" which you'll find in the dungeon and will give you a list of 1 module and 3 turret class things to research. Almost everything comes in different tiers, so finding the option to research a food generator tier 4 in the first few floors can dramatically shape how you build your run. Research also takes a certain number of turns before you can hit the artifact again for a fresh list of options. Food is used entirely on the heroes. You spend food to recruit additional heroes you find within the dungeon, you spend it to level them up (Cost increasing with each level, natch) and you can spend it during combat as essentially healing potions. Leveling the heroes can be pretty important since you'll unlock passive and active abilities, as well as a healthy dose of HP and a little more damage. No alternate ways to build the heroes (A level 3 Opbot is the same as every other level 3 Opbot, barring gear) but the "Build potential" comes from your party makeup, items on your dudes, and the modules/turrets you have available and how you use them.

And... Uh... That's the not very quick-quick rundown of the game. You keep trucking along like that for 12 floors with increasingly scarce resources and deadlier enemies until you get ded or win. Didn't really touch on merchants (Show up occasionally, buy and sell items, their currency of choice is a random FIDS resource for each merchant), items (Usually just stat bonuses and penalties, occasionally also give passive skills), random events (EMP bursts that knock out turrets/modules for a few turns, toxic gas which slows movement, crystals that provide major bonuses/penalties for a few turns) and the "Character types" (The escape pods are from a prison ship, and prisoners get a passive skill that provides buffs if they're in a room with other prisoners, crew members get a passive that works with other crew members, and natives to the planet don't get any teamwork passives but they're cheapest to recruit and level) and probably some other shit. Since it's a bit of an odd game all this garbage might make sense of the game a little more than IT'S ROGUELIKE TOWER DEFENSE DAWG.

Also most of the heroes are female (If you don't consider the robot male), I don't know what the fuck Blaine is doing playing it. I am taking this damning evidence straight to Twitter.

Edit: Oh, forgot a really important part of that. While food, industry, and science carry over between floors, dust does not. It gets especially dire in the later floors where you start with only enough dust to power a single room. You'll always be fighting off swarms from the darkness.
 
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Angthoron

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Played this last night. A lot. Played the beta as well, but all the extra fluff makes it much more fun.

Unlocked the Armory module (start with 4 stronger heroes, starting gear, can't hire new dudes), and whaddya know, 2 of my party members have a Secret Biography thing going. Interesting, let's see where this will lead...

...Three floors later, one party member kills the second one involved in the plot during an elevator scene. Suddenly I'm down to three! Was a fun little moment. Too bad the "winner" died next floor after encountering a new mob type that seems to give rather few fucks about melee chars.

Game's fun.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Played this last night. A lot. Played the beta as well, but all the extra fluff makes it much more fun.

Unlocked the Armory module (start with 4 stronger heroes, starting gear, can't hire new dudes), and whaddya know, 2 of my party members have a Secret Biography thing going. Interesting, let's see where this will lead...

...Three floors later, one party member kills the second one involved in the plot during an elevator scene. Suddenly I'm down to three! Was a fun little moment. Too bad the "winner" died next floor after encountering a new mob type that seems to give rather few fucks about melee chars.

Game's fun.
That's awesome. Haven't had any payoffs like that from the special party banter yet, (The generic elevator dialog (And the elevator itself) was only added a week or two ago IIRC, and I think the specific character on character dialog may have been held until release) wonder if there are any positive outcomes. Like a bro-team forms and the two party members both get a free level or a unique passive trait or something.
 

Luka-boy

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Wait a minute, I swear I've seen that spaceship before in an Endless Legend video.

Yeah, skip to 00:53.

So this is a prequel?
 

SuicideBunny

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Wait a minute, I swear I've seen that spaceship before in an Endless Legend video.

Yeah, skip to 00:53.

So this is a prequel?

more like they connected those two as incentives for people to buy the most expensive editions so they would get bonus stuff in the other game. note that the vaulter shrine in that video is just a rerendering of a major module from dungeon.
other than that, all the endless games are connected (legend, dungeon, space) and play in the same fictional universe.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Endless continuity is Dungeon of the Endless first, then Endless Legend, then Endless Space. You can figure that out since Opbot is in all three games (Playable character in Dungeon, discovered by the Vaulters (Who are descendents of the crashed ship in Dungeon) in Legend, and a recruitable hero looking to find Auriga again in Space).
 

Angthoron

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Endless continuity is Dungeon of the Endless first, then Endless Legend, then Endless Space. You can figure that out since Opbot is in all three games (Playable character in Dungeon, discovered by the Vaulters (Who are descendents of the crashed ship in Dungeon) in Legend, and a recruitable hero looking to find Auriga again in Space).
You sure? I thought it's Space - Dungeon - Legend continuity-wise.
 

Hobo Elf

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Endless continuity is Dungeon of the Endless first, then Endless Legend, then Endless Space. You can figure that out since Opbot is in all three games (Playable character in Dungeon, discovered by the Vaulters (Who are descendents of the crashed ship in Dungeon) in Legend, and a recruitable hero looking to find Auriga again in Space).

Nah, you got it backwards. After the war in Endless Space the Vaulters crash on Auriga (Dungeon of the Endless). Then many, many years later they emerge from their underground vaults and that's where Endless Legend begins.

On a side note, I tried playing online but it is hopelessly impossible unless you are playing it organized with friends. Numbnuts players kept taking the Power Core to the exit as soon as they found it without scrounging for precious resources by exploring the floors completely which lead to inevitable defeat quite early.
 
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Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Nope.

http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Vaulters

http://endlessspace.wikia.com/wiki/Hero_List#OPBOT_D0t3H01_.28The_Search_for_Auriga.29

It's Dungeon, Legend, Space. In Dungeon he's a prisoner on the ship due to murdering people 'cause he loves surgery SO DAMN MUCH. During the Vaulters questline in Legend you see Opbot swears his undying service to them since they revived/repaired him after they found him all rusted up and dead in the dungeon. He's still trucking with them in Space after they were the canonical winners of Legend and left Auriga before the shit hit the fan with the weather.
 

Hobo Elf

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The links you just posted also agree with the Space > Dungeon > Legend timeline. :M

Edit: Found this quote from a steam thread I posted in:

Lore wise DotE is a prequel to EL and ES in the current timeline.
A spaceship from Endless Space crashlands on a planet called Auriga. From the survivors will be born the EL faction of the Vaulters. The Vaulters then manage to escape Auriga and become the latest faction in ES (curently unlocked by purchasing the founder's pack of DotE).
There are some other minor things: Hikensha, a hero in DotE and survivor of the crash, is a Hissho from ES.
Opbot, a Hero medical droid in DotE escapes the planet with the Vaulters and becomes a recruitable character in ES.
The planet Auriga is also added to ES and is home to a new Galactic Wonder: the Husk of Knowledge, probably the dungeon of DotE.
Also there is reason to speculate that the Necrophages of EL (and common enemy in DotE) will evolve into the Cravers of ES. There are also crystaline enemies in DotE who are in appearance similar to Harmony from ES.

So actually EL and ES are happening simultaneously?
 
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Multi-headed Cow

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The links you just posted also agree with the Space > Dungeon > Legend timeline.
But no!

From the vaulters ES wiki link: "Once based on the planet Auriga, they left the planet when their predictions indicated potentially cataclysmic geo-atmospheric problems." which is the goal of the vaulters while playing EL.
And "Technological savants, the Vaulters are a human civilization who emerged from Auriga's underground warrens and have dedicated themselves to repairing the great machinery of the Endless."

And Hikensha may not be a Hissho since there are already bird people on Auriga. I mean hell, there's a drakken hero, a sister of mercy hero, a necrophage hero and a broken lords hero but no sophons, Horatio, etc. The non-humans (Except the sister 'cause they're weird) are seemingly all Auriga natives.
http://endlesslegendwiki.com/Nidya

And like I mentioned, Opbot's the piece that makes figuring out the timeline the easiest. In DotE he's just a prisoner, in EL if you play the vaulters he's mentioned in their very first racial quest as being an ancient dead robot they found in the caves and repaired and he swore to stick with them, and in ES he's still working with them and trying to return to Auriga after they escaped the shitstorm that's coming in EL.

Incidentally this is the first time I've given half shit about the lore in a videogame series in I don't know how long. I generally don't even care about lore in RPGs but I enjoy the Amplitude fluff.
 

Hobo Elf

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It's pretty interesting stuff. I hear that Endless Space is pretty crappy, but I'm still somewhat intrigued since EL and DotE are so good. Is there any enjoyment in Endless Space?
 

SuicideBunny

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isn't the timeline space -> dungeon -> legend -> disharmony?
 

Multi-headed Cow

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It's pretty interesting stuff. I hear that Endless Space is pretty crappy, but I'm still somewhat intrigued since EL and DotE are so good. Is there any enjoyment in Endless Space?
I genuinely like Endless Space but I'm in the relative minority. It's maybe because I came to it fairly late after they had knocked out a fair number of patches. The combat's still kinda fucky (EL's combat's weird but it's still a good step up from ES card game) but the interface and music is great like EL, and I found the system building/management super satisfying. My favorite part of ES was just leaning back and expanding/improving my systems. Even though I took one of the more warlike races to do it.

Of the top of my head (Been a while) but the biggest issues I remember are pirates are absolutely fucking ridiculous (They stay viable late game by popping up with giant space empire-tier fleets and ruin your day. It's some Paradox-like shit with rebellions suddenly popping up massive well trained and armed armies) and the dust price to revive heroes being insane. I remember losing a high level admiral and the cost to revive him was massively out of my reach. It's also possible I wasn't managing my dust as efficiently as I could have been though.

Edit: I do wanna say Legend's a better game though. Even though I enjoy Space it isn't as well put together as Legend.

isn't the timeline space -> dungeon -> legend -> disharmony?
:flamesaw:
 

Cyberarmy

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It's pretty interesting stuff. I hear that Endless Space is pretty crappy, but I'm still somewhat intrigued since EL and DotE are so good. Is there any enjoyment in Endless Space?

I had good time playing it, especially online with some of my friends but it has many shortcomings, I can only recommend getting it via winter/christmas sale like %75-80. Especially after playing Legends you'll be easly dissapointed.
 

zeitgeist

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...Three floors later, one party member kills the second one involved in the plot during an elevator scene.

Are there any other major storyline interactions like that? That's the only one I found with the default character set (I only unlocked a few additional characters so far).
 

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