Hello and good morning!
Enter the Gungeon designed by Dave Crooks is a popular bullet hell dungeon crawler that has sold over three million copies worldwide. But is this popularity warranted and more importantly is it worth the 20 dollar price (CAD)?
The Origins of Dodge Roll
Enter the gungeon was developed by Dodge Roll before it was acquired by Devolver Digital and produced by you guessed it Devolver Digital. At the time Dodge Roll was an indie developer team who had just left EA Mythic to start their own company. They had planned to quit in the summer of 2014 but EA shut Mythic a month early during May of 2014, although the dodge roll team was already ready and started work almost immediately.
How the Game Came To Be
The inspiration for Enter the Gungeon was simple, it came from a game called Gungodz. The reason It came from this little-known game is purely due to the soundtrack in which after designer Dave Crooks listened to it he got the idea for the term “Gungeon.” For the gameplay though they took inspiration from games such as Binding of Isaac and Nuclear Throne. The game came together relatively fast for a small team with a game of that size. In December 2014 ( only months after starting development ) a trailer was released for the game, and not long after that in 2015 they started to go to conventions. It was in that period that the co-op feature was revealed for the game. Finally, on April 5th, 2016 the game was released.
The Art
The art is a very recognizable part of the game. Whether it is the detailed halls and rooms or the characters and enemies everything just fits together so well. The cute enemies and the arcade pixel art style give the game its own character which I think is a very important aspect for any game looking to stand out in the sea of games. The way the art style flows from room to room is also astonishing considering it is procedurally generated. A large amount of procedurally generated games occasionally have some problems with generation. But in my experience Enter the Gungeon has had none.
The Gameplay
The gameplay loop in entering the gungeon goes something like this: start by selecting a character then enter an elevator to the gungeon. You next fight bullet kin in a mad dash to find your first weapon. You then repeat this until you find the boss. You then enter another elevator that takes you deeper then start at step two again. Although it seems pretty basic it manages to spice things up with gun synergies and the in-game shops. The gun synergies are pretty unique, what they are is if you stumble upon (most time accidentally) guns that synergize they will combine into a single gun that is more powerful than the two before. Although this may sound repetitive you don't really notice it because of the difficulty level. Each run you are always trying to make it a sliver farther than the run before. There was a lot of effort put into this game the Dodge Roll team tested each individual room, gun, and synergy with each update. Due to that, they were able to find most bugs before each update and patch them out before release. It is with an effort like that that leads to a good game, and a lot of times it is noticeable, especially with the half-finished game we get in the world of modern gaming.
Conclusion
To conclude this post I would like to say this game is a great game not just for seasoned roguelike players but also entry-level roguelike players due to its low complexity and high difficulty. The game's cute art style and a surprising amount of lore, it made the game a whole experience to play. That being said I would highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a challenge and the price of 20 dollars (CAD) is more than worth it. For all the game devs who may be looking up to Dodge Roll for inspiration make sure to put in the effort needed but don't expect your first game to be a hit. It may take even a hundred games to make a hit, so don't be discouraged if it is not on your first.
Thank you for reading good night.
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