Welcome to EXPlay, (Explain & Play) the review series where we care not for scores but tell it how it is when it comes to every game we get our hands on, whilst also taking the time to include some lengthy gameplay, to give you the reader, the chance to shape your own impressions and views whilst watching and reading.
In this explanatory review, we’re covering Super Dungeon Maker by developer FIRECHICK:
Super Dungeon Maker (The Explanation)
Super Dungeon Maker is developed by Düsseldorf based company FIRECHICK. The game is labelled as “a creative pixel art dungeon editor inspired by the best 2D adventure games”. Though it is not officially marketed as such, Super Dungeon Maker is very much a combination of Super Mario Maker meets The Legend of Zelda, which a lot of Zelda fans have wanted a Zelda Maker-type game for years from Nintendo. Since that has not happened yet and the closest we have come to it, is the Chamber Dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, we finally have a game to scratch that itch.
As you may have already gathered, the premise of Super Dungeon Maker is to make your own dungeons. You have your main character, a chicken called Fink and you have a Golden Egg that, once collected, will mark the end of the Dungeon. You are given free reign of the tools provided in the Dungeon Maker portion of the game to design your dungeon in any way you see fit. You can create rooms and fill them with obstacles and enemies. Hid keys to open locked doors in chests or pots. You can even change the aesthetic of the tiles and objects and even expand the size of your dungeon by adding multiple floors to ascend or descend.
How creative you are with your dungeons depends on your own level of creativity. Whether you want to make a dungeon that is full of cunning puzzles or a simple Boss Rush dungeon that has rooms upon rooms of boss enemies to fight, it is totally up to you. If you wish to upload your dungeons to the server however, you will have to prove that the dungeon can be beaten. We will just add that you will need to manually save your progress otherwise you will risk losing all your progress should you accidentally quit what you were doing and go back to the game’s hub world.
On the other side of Super Dungeon Maker is the user created content. You can go online to see a plethora of dungeons that other players in the community have created. There are four categories for dungeons to appear in: Hot, Top, New, and Search. Kind of like In Super Mario Maker, each dungeon shown has two indicators. One that shows how many people have played the dungeon and how many people have liked it. When it comes to searching for dungeons to play. You can put in a keyword in the search bar and you will get results relating to that keyword. If you have a friend who is playing the game, they can share with you their dungeon’s ID code, which will allow you to find it immediately.
When not actively using the Build mode or the Creator Hub, you will be able to explore the hub world freely. There are a number of dungeons scattered about for you try out. One such dungeon is the sandbox that has a group of little chicks trying to make a hideout and request your help to remove walls, add doors and other small tasks to teach you how the building/editing mechanics work in the game. Essentially, these dungeons serve as the basic tutorial portion of the game.
Super Dungeon Maker is still in its early stages and while it is a pretty well-developed game, the developers are still looking to add more features and take user feedback to make improvements where necessary. More content is also on the way to add more objects, themes, and even character skins for Fink. While the game is not without its snagging issues (nothing that a bit of bug fixing and polishing cant solve), It is actually a very good game and works well as a development tool for those learning how to develop video games and level design and that is just as well as the developers open to providing Super Dungeon Maker (pending request review) for free for academic purposes for that very reason. Be sure to check out their official website for more information.
To sum up, it is dangerous to build alone, so take this Super Dungeon Maker and create the best possible dungeons you can… or not. You can simply use the game to play dungeons that other players have created and still have fun. We enjoy this game a lot and can’t wait to dive back into another adventure with Link, uh, I mean Fink.
Super Dungeon Maker (The Gameplay)
Game Specifications:
Developer: FIRECHICK
Publisher: Rokaplay
Platform: Nintendo Switch | Version: Digital
Category: Action, Adventure, Puzzle, Education
No. of Players: 1 (Single System)
Release Date: EU & NA: May 3, 2023
Price: $19.99
File Size: 330 MB
Nintendo.com Listing
