Again in 2022, I spent quite a lot of time taking part in the Dome Keeper demo on Steam and I actually loved it however I by no means acquired round to totally reviewing it which is why I wished to speak about this sport that I’ve been taking part in rather a lot over time.
Developer: bippinbits
Writer: Uncooked Fury
Style: Indie, 2D, Roguelike Tower-Protection Administration
Launch Date: September twenty seventh, 2022
Reviewed on: PC
Obtainable on: PC (Win, mac, Lin)
Copy was bought.
Dome Keeper (previously generally known as Dome Romantik earlier than they modified their title for copyright causes) is a Roguelike-Technique sport that’s all about time and useful resource administration. You spawn on an alien planet in a dome to mine sources and uncover a relic.
This relic could be very highly effective which is why you danger your life to retrieve it… however the native fauna on this planet you’re on isn’t too proud of you not simply touchdown right here however primarily exploiting their planet.
As such, you’ll spend your time throughout so-called “cycles” mining sources and bringing them again to the dome. Then, spend these sources on upgrades to your defences and higher mining effectivity as a way to seize sources much more simply. On the finish of every cycle, you’ll defend your dome towards an onslaught of alien attackers that come at you with all the things they acquired – and extra per cycle you spend on this planet. It will get tough.
It’s a really modern sport that mixes core features of the roguelike system, specifically useful resource administration and decision-making, with a reasonably totally different method to gameplay.
The sport will get fairly tough rapidly, particularly in higher-difficulty settings, the place your abilities and purchased data get their time to shine. As you go deeper, it takes longer so that you can mine blocks and sources would possibly change into scarcer. Thus, you develop methods to your character, attempt to optimize your mining habits, make the most of sources nicely, and take a look at to not get too grasping.
Fight itself is comprised of your dome dealing with assaults from the sky, the west aspect and/or the east aspect. You usually have an assault button and a few motion choices – and should you dig up corresponding dietary supplements and devices, you would possibly even have additional lively skills or gadgets to assist you in battle. It’s fast-forward and easy however provides a ton of tactical gameplay.
Moreover, every dome comes with issues they’re good at and issues they wrestle towards.
The default “Laser Dome” struggles towards teams of enemies however performs rather well towards singular enemies, particularly attributable to its infinite vary – in the meantime my absolute favorite dome, the Sword Dome, is outstanding in melee fight however struggles towards flying enemies attributable to its reliance on charging up a “stab” assault and likewise touchdown it.
Every dome may be upgraded alongside numerous paths to both compensate for weaknesses, bulk up defences or additional concentrate on particular instructions. Be it a second laser because the laser dome, wider explosions or increased influence injury on the artillery dome, an agile shock blade versus a gradual heavy blade on the sword dome, and extra.
There are quite a lot of choices to actually customise your expertise and maybe even cope with particular person challenges as you please.
I discussed devices earlier than. They’re important gadgets you decide up as you go deeper into mining sources. You would possibly encounter these 2×2 blocks of tech that, when dug up, grant you a capability of types to additional improve your capabilities. A number of the tech applies to the cellar of your dome, permitting you to develop performance-enhancing shrooms or produce very risky mining bombs.
Different devices would possibly enable you to with gathering sources – just like the raise that transports sources upwards into the dome or the scanner that helps you find stated sources within the mines. There are quite a lot of them and every considered one of them may also be upgraded within the useful resource tree.
Dome Keeper is a fairly easy sport at first look nevertheless it has a shocking quantity of depth, and I haven’t even talked about two comparatively totally different characters that the sport options, the assorted major devices you possibly can take in your journey, and numerous sport modes which can be accessible for play.
All of that is accompanied by a splendidly serene soundtrack that actually enables you to chill out in between the vicious waves, in addition to a superbly crafted visible type comprised of comparatively detailed pixel artwork, numerous color palettes and “alien world” backdrops & designs, in addition to small particulars, like little critters and numerous vegetation inhabiting your mines as you dig deeper.
The expertise does wrestle, nonetheless, to maintain issues contemporary in the long run, in my expertise. I’ve performed, on the time of writing, sixty hours over time, which is an efficient period of time spent on a sport like this, in fact, however I do play in sporadic bursts reasonably than quite a lot of it at one time, and that’s for a purpose.
When you’ve tried all of the totally different builds, you’ll simply find yourself taking part in the sport with no matter feels finest for you on the time. You optimise the expertise based mostly in your acquired data and the runs do get fairly same-y. Sure, the procedural era, particularly with the considerably random distributions of tougher and extra brittle rocks does help in making runs extra various however they solely assist a lot.
Actually, that final half is one thing that I additionally discover a bit tough, personally, as there are occasions the place you would possibly simply wrestle to seek out the precise sources on the proper time, or in any respect. I’ve had runs that have been suffering from an absence of water and therefore utterly missing particular upgrades, particularly for all the devices. I’ve had runs that have been misplaced attributable to an absence of devices… and searching on the timelapse afterwards, I wasn’t stunned to see that there weren’t any sources I wanted wherever near the place I used to be.
The procedural era may be fairly punishing at instances however the greater challenge right here is the repetitive nature of the sport that doesn’t get mounted by different core mechanics of the rogue-like style. Particularly, The Binding of Isaac, a really totally different sport, retains issues contemporary both by way of the introduction of recent characters or by way of the various, many, many alternative gadgets within the sport. Dome Keeper’s listing of things is pretty restricted compared. There are additionally solely two characters within the sport and the Assessor feels simply odd to play.
The sport does, nonetheless, additionally characteristic a status mode that performs a bit in another way, in addition to the various “Guild Assignments” that present distinctive and extremely fascinating challenges, to not point out modded content material that you may add fairly simply to get the sport and modifiers you possibly can apply to your runs for extra customized experiences.
All in all, I do love the sport. I spend a very good chunk of time right here, in spite of everything… however I can’t assist however generally drift away from it to then not play it in any respect for a lot of moons earlier than finally returning again to Dome Keeper. I believe that’s nice for roguelikes. For many video games, that’s the way it’s imagined to be performed, in a method, and truthfully, I’m glad that the sport continues to be getting updates even so lengthy after its 1.0 – to not point out multiplayer being within the works.
For those who do like distinctive gameplay experiences which can be straightforward to get into, extremely addictive and comparatively relaxed even with the harder waves of enemies in a while, I extremely suggest Dome Keeper.
For those who’re a aggressive individual you would possibly take into account racing towards different individuals on the status mode leaderboards the place you need to discover loads of individuals to compete towards and should you’re extra laid-back, there are many “pets” to gather and you’ll even disable enemy waves altogether to only chill out within the mines.
Dome Keeper is a sport that I do return to on occasion. It’s distinctive sufficient in its premise that I simply get an “itch” for it every time I don’t play it for some time. There haven’t been too many video games that hit that exact same “itch” to at the present time, so that is some nice reward, for my part.
Therefore, I’m undoubtedly recommending the sport to followers of roguelites and tower defence video games of any sort, particularly should you do get pleasure from a way of company, even when the procedural era can at instances screw you over a bit.
On an unrelated notice, should you’d prefer to see me make foolish errors on this sport, be happy to take a look at my playlist of assorted runs over right here. Been getting again into importing content material extra commonly on my channel and figured it will be a pleasant extension to opinions like this one in case individuals wanna see a few of the gameplay and never simply learn in regards to the sport.
This submit was initially written by And digested from Indiecator.
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