I’ve got eleven hours into this autobattler and it continues to kick my butt. Still searching for my first win. And yet, I keep itching to try again.
The Dungeon Beneath is lane-based, with three lanes. A hero character sits on the back column while the two columns in front can have up to four (usually) allies, plus summons. The enemy field is set up similarly, including an enemy hero in each room. You can rearrange characters before each fight and move between rounds of a fight, but most characters will become exhausted (can’t attack that round) if you move them after combat starts. Characters and enemies have a speed stat which determines the order of attack. Most will attack the closest enemy in their lane. Hero characters can be hit in any lane (the exception being effects that target entire lanes).
Once you get past the tutorial, your hero will start with a relic. Your party always starts with two generic cultist types plus one other character. The cultists can’t level up, so you will generally ditch them quickly. Battles drop xp pots, which can only be given to allies that survived the fight. All allies will be healed fully for the next fight, but hero damage persists.
Between fights, you may have the choice of visiting a campfire to recruit new characters (note the level of characters you recruit increases, so if you pick one up late, they will be max level). There are also item shops, potion shops, and an item transformation npc. There’s also an npc that looks like a mind-flayer that gives the option of challenges for the next fight for extra gold.
Each character can hold one item per level. Some are just stat boosts. Some have effects when you kill an enemy, or when you took damage but survived, or when any character dies, or just at the end of each round. I can see the combinations: a guy that attacks whenever he gets armor. Another guy that gives armor to an ally in their lane. Another guy that heals everyone in the front column. But I simply haven’t been able to put a full working build together. It’s much more difficult than with something like Astronarch.
I’ve done close to twenty runs now, and I’ve reached a final boss one time. On my second run after the tutorial. If I had given the last item I bought to a different character, I might have had a shot. Since then, I haven’t gotten close.
There is some progression when you fail, including ally and hero unlocks. Some of the ones you unlock seen better than the basic ones, others just different.
I wanted to bring this to everyone’s attention because I’m having fun with it. And maybe someone can help me figure out how to git gud.
Oh, I almost forgot, the synthwave(?) soundtrack is limited, but fantastic. The pixel art… looks better than Astronarch.
Also, this works great on a tablet over steam link. The only thing you can’t do with left-click is remove items