Developer: Adventure Islands
Publisher: Adventure Islands
Release: 2015
Platform: PC, iOS, Android (played), browser
Genre: Platformer
In an endless sea of retro-informed platformers, Super
Dangerous Dungeons sets off to a good start by looking the part: the modern
palette helps the crispy pixel art in both clearly communicating environmental
hazards and making characters' sprites shine.
But there are many ways to be retro, and some more
complicated than others; for instance, easing pipelines of the level design
burden can even produce a valuable feature per se in the form of some "infinitely
replayable" face value—even when the rules behind procedural generation
only output a boring level after the other.
Fortunately Super Dangerous Dungeons took the long way—and
succeeded resoundingly in that front. While the gameplay mechanics are as
simple as a platformer can get, it's a masterclass in level design in every
aspect: the learning curve is perfect, the very levels serve as fluid
tutorials, and by the end of the road the player will have mastered even
specific speedrun techniques without even noticing it.
Talking about speedruns, the same levels show their
true handicraft nature when the player realize there are "ideal" ways
to play them to maximize the traversal efficiency—while, of course, raising the
risk/reward stakes and almost turning the game into a whole new beast.
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| Bosses aren't actual battles, but put a bit of a twist in the gameplay—with a lot of style too. |
Not that the adventure is without its downsides.
Rewarding exploration with hidden items would be a plus if those weren't used
to artificially raise the short gameplay length by being mandatory for entering
the final room; hit detection can also be finicky at times—particularly
noticeable when boulders are integral part of a couple level's design. But
perfect or not, Super Dangerous Dungeons is a commendable—even formative—platforming
experience, especially for gamers not contemporary to retro games before they
started being called that way.
