The return of the game book and its digital derivatives has been one of the most interesting phenomena of recent years: starting from the re-editions of the old Lone Wolf by the late Joe Deaver up to new exciting videogame experiments based on them, the genre has returned to limelight and managed to gather around him a large group of enthusiasts. To the digital games that are riding the good wave, today there is a title that could make some old school fans prick the ears: Deathrap Dungeon, one of the classics of the 80s fantasy game book, is in fact back and did so in the guise of a interactive filmgame of which we tested the PC version in early access.
The result will have been a 'unforgettable adventure or a normal side quest? Let's find out together!
"I have a story to tell you"
As you may have understood, due to its literary origins, talking about Deathtrap Dungeon does not only mean talking about the video game we are dealing with today, but also delve into the story of the narrative game (digital and analog) and go back through the annals until 1984, the year of its first incarnation.
This is the sixth game book in the series Fighting Fantasy, one of the most important labels in the sector, and one of the undisputed protagonists of gamified literature of those years. To give the idea of his fame, the author of him, Ian livingstone, is still considered one of the most important and prolific of the genre, slightly inferior to Joe Deaver (pioneer and author symbol of an entire medium).
Given the importance of Deathtrap Dungeon, it's not surprising at all that Branching narrative, development studio and publisher of this digital version (not the first: da DD was also made into an action adventure way back in 1998), wanted to re-propose it in a new guise, riding the wave of revival of this peculiar means of entertainment.
To do this, however, the developers opted for a very peculiar format. Unlike the latest transpositions of Lone wolf or of our own Between darkness and abyss, that they proposed to the player of the real digital hypertext versions of classic librigames (the only variation of the first case: the presence of turn-based tactical combat in 3d), this version of Deathrap Dungeon chooses a completely different path, risking a lot.
Walking around the dungeon
When Deathrap Dungeon begins, the cinematics of which it is composed do not make us find ourselves in the gloomy labyrinth of Fang (the deadly dungeon that our alter-ego will have to face to obtain glory), but in front of a nice and inspired narrator who, collapsed in an elegant armchair in his study, he will begin to tell us our story. It will be only his words, accompanied only from time to time by beautiful illustrations from the original book, to lead us into DD's wonderful world of deadly challenges. This means that, if you are looking for a game in which the visual aspect is king, perhaps you should take Deathrap Dungeon with caution: the whole adventure is in fact set up to give us the perception of sitting in front of our " master ”to listen to his words.
As in the best tradition of the interactive story, as the game evolves we will be able to decide how to face the adventure through simple multiple choices, while the fights will be solved in dedicated sections in which we will have to challenge the monsters. throwing virtual dice and making a good score. The exploration of the dungeon between one challenge and another will instead be made possible by a navigable map, in which we will not have to do is navigate between one location and another (locations that will also represent the checkpoints that we will encounter during the adventure) .
This is the basic structure of the game, an experiment that will take us away from two to three hours of play, in which both its strengths and its limits lie.
As for the former, the setting of Deathrap Dungeon is original, immediate and made pleasant especially by the narrator, British actor Eddie Marsan (seen in Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious - Hobbs & Shaw), beautifully cast in part e true showman able to hold the whole work on his shoulders. The result is a 'really enjoyable experience, which will not fail to snatch a pleased smile from lovers of storytelling.
On the other hand, the price tag for this is a gameplay that greatly limits the player's freedom of action, especially if we refer to the regulatory standards of fantasy librigames. The biggest flaw of all will in fact be the fact of having a large equipment / arsenal of adventure available, but not to be able to customize or equip him in the slightest to make our character more competitive.
Matters of luck
What does this mean? Simple: that for the whole adventure the success of the actions we will perform will be linked to our luck with virtual dice, giving us the idea of never having complete control of the situation. An impression made even heavier by the presence of some of those that can be defined in the technical jargon of the game book “instant death”, or situations of real danger that can lead to unexpected deaths and without appeal if the dice tell us wrong. We find certain to mitigate the situation the intelligent automatic checkpoint system to which we referred before, which avoids the danger of having to start all over again, but is not enough to take away the idea of having a game in front of us that does not allow us to really plan the way in which to face the many challenges that we will face during the adventure.
Another element of doubt, which however will undoubtedly be revised by programmers, is the construction of the battle sections, with graphic elements such as the boxes of the statistics of the characters that overlap the area dedicated to the dice rolls making it difficult to read the result. A fact that, as you can imagine, makes the experience frustrating at the moment.
In conclusion…
Valutare Deathrap Dungeon it's not easy: on the one hand it is a game that inherits a immediate but strongly archaic game system, which makes of the random element the only real system for resolving situations without being allowed to intervene to improve the performance of our alter-ego. On the other hand, the originality of the setting, with a surprising ability to immerse yourself in an almost unique atmosphere thanks to the narration of a hypnotic and charismatic actor and the beautiful illustrations, it could easily satisfy those who are waiting for nothing but a pleasant opportunity to get lost in listening (literally) an exciting old school dungeon adventure able to take us to other worlds, in search of fantastic adventures and priceless treasures ..
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