Over the last few years we’ve had plenty of Roguelikes walk the tried and true early access path, and launch in particularly impressive states because of this. From Vampire Survivors to Hades 1 and 2, the success stories of these games that use player feedback to evolve and add content before hitting 1.0 are numerous. There’s another game to add to this list now, because Dunjungle is out of early access and ready to impress all you fans of random runs.
One of my favourite aspects of this particular Roguelike is how quickly you’re thrown into the action. After a tiny tutorial that shows you have to jump, dash and attack, a shadowy figure comes through a portal and sends chaos spreading into the jungle. It’s probably our monkey hero’s job to save the day here, but honestly you’d never really know by simply playing the game. The focus here is solely on the action, and that’s exactly the way daddy likes.
The first game that sprang to mind when playing Dunjungle was Dead Cells, with that blend of action and platforming that just works so well in a Roguelike. In terms of offense our simian saviour has a few options, which you’ll gather on your run. You’ll always have a melee weapon, be it a sword, spear or axe. These all have different special attacks you can charge, but are generally pretty damn easy to use. On top of that you can equip three sub weapons, which have different cooldowns and various effects.
Your introduction to sub weapons comes in the form of a throwing dagger, but that’s just the pointy tip of the stabby iceberg. There are rocks that arc when thrown, shields that block damage, and homing orbs that circle you until an enemy is near enough to target. The best thing about all your weapons though is that you can apply different effects to them, as well as leveling them up to do more damage. That pathetic starting rock might not do much now, but if you make it freeze enemies and level it up to add extra rocks it’ll help a whole bunch.
Runs of Dunjungle feature a nice selection of different rooms you might be faced with, full of various animal enemies. Each room always ends with a couple of rooms to choose from next, with one usually offering more rewards than the other if you’re confident you can take on some extra foes. It always feels exciting to find an unexpected blacksmith monkey or slot machine in the next room, and if you’re lucky you’ll start crafting a run winning build with the right stat upgrades and relics they provide.
More than anything else, the combat of Dunjungle really impressed me. Controlling the monkey warrior feels fantastic, and the flow of combat with all the dodge rolling is a delight. You have to be incredibly careful dealing with even basic enemies though, because they’ll easily chip through that health bar in no time. Bosses are even more of an issue, and with plenty of different ones to face it’ll take a good while to learn how to effectively take them down.
Once you inevitably die to a particularly nasty animal, you’ll be sent to the genre staple hub area to grab some upgrades. Some of these are granular improvements like health boosts, others provide more exciting buffs like extra starting weapons to choose from. There’s also another gem currency you’ll use to unlock more weapon options, and by doing this you’ll quickly make the randomness much more impressive.
These gems have another function too, unlocking new classes. It takes a long time to actually manage this, as each class has an unlock condition as well as a gem cost to pay first. These classes change up the gameplay quite a lot though, with some granting entire new abilities like the vampire which lets you transform into a bat as well as changing how you heal entirely.
One of my biggest issues with Dunjungle involves all these unlockables though, because they just feel more expensive than they need to be. The starting roster of offensive options is a bit pathetic, so you’ll want to spend gems as fast as possible to improve it. Doing this just means you don’t have the cash to unlock classes though, and they’re really exciting too. Outside of this my only other issue was quite how quickly you’ll start to recognise room layouts, which admittedly is often the case with the genre but is on the worse end of the spectrum here.
Dunjungle doesn’t do much to set the Roguelike world ablaze, but it’s a bloody good game that really respects your time. Combat is silky smooth and a ton of fun, and it has plenty of content to devour ranging from extra difficulty modes to an endless challenge. Dunjungle will bring a whole lot of joy to roguelike fans, but will also happily punish those who like to monkey around.
