Friday 31 May 2019

Dungeon Crawler Mis-genre-ing

Like all things I seem to really enjoy, Dungeon Crawling is one of those niche genres that doesn't have wide appeal but does have an insanely dedicated following of fans.  I'm almost certain that in the past on this blog I've gushed, at length, about how much I love this style of game but for this post I'm here to complain about something that really chaps my ass which is the misgenre-ing (if that's even a word) of games in this genre.

A dungeon crawler is typically an offshoot of the RPG genre that revolves around an individual or group of people navigating a big maze, solving puzzles, killing monsters and surviving with what little resources they have all usually in first person.  Famous titles in this genre include Dungeon Master (Pictured above), Shin Megami Tensei, Legend of Grimrock, Etrian Odyssey and many more.  The real interesting part about this genre is that a large number of titles will require or ask the player if they want to draw their own maps.  Back in the day if you wanted to effectively navigate these dungeons you'd have to break out some square paper and get drawing.  More modern titles have an automap but, for example, Grimrock will ask the player if they would like to turn the map off or Etrian Odyssey actively forces you to draw your own map on the bottom screen of the DS.

You know what isn't a dungeon crawler though? Diablo, Zelda, any of those roguelikes on Steam.  Diablo is the one that comes up most of all whenever I go looking for dungeon crawl recommendations.  I don't have a problem with Diablo, it's a good game, but Diablo is an action RPG loot fest, extremely far removed from the style of game I'm usually looking for.

The reason this gets my back up is because dungeon crawling is an extremely niche genre and it's been mislabeled so much that now, finding a traditional style dungeon crawl is extremely difficult.  If you go on Steam and type in "dungeon crawl", you get a mix of classic RPGs and rougelikes with the occasional actual dungeon crawl peppered in there.  If I wanted a fucking roguelike, I'd search for fucking roguelikes, but I want a goddamn dungeon crawl.

Still, despite seemingly no one know what a proper dungeon crawl is, all is not lost.  There's a website dedicated to enthusiasts of the genre

http://www.dungeoncrawlers.org/

Not a hack and slash or action adventure in sight.  It's dungeon crawling heaven in there, from old to new, so go check it out.

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