There was once a dark time when truly retro dungeon crawlers—especially those descended from the more action-oriented Dungeon master—seemed practically extinct. But ever since Legend of Grimrock, they’ve had a resurgence and we’ve been spoiled with choice. The latest indie challenger to the real-time looting and levelling crown is Tower of Mask, from Japanese solo developer Papertip Studio, and despite being a lower-budget production, it might just have The Juice, plus a bit of FromSoftware inspiration going on.
If you’ve ever played Grimrock or one of its successors, this is a game you can dive into without a hint of tutorial. There’s a big mysterious tower, and you’re a hopeful adventurer out to uncover its mysteries. Unfortunately you came without any equipment (or friends), and it’s packed to the gills with murderous weirdos wearing animal and demon masks.
Puzzles and mazes are genre standard, with some clever bits like hidden switches only visible in the dark, and smaller objects that can be thrown through barred paths, activating pressure plates out of reach. I am also fully braced for the obligatory teleporter maze, although I’ve not yet encountered one of those in the little chunk I’ve played. The dungeon is pretty handsome-looking too. Simple chunky stone architecture,
but with deep shadows cast by torchlight, and the enemy models—while mostly humanoid—are surprisingly well animated.
What makes this one special is the combat. Even the first few enemies you meet are more agile and wiggly than the denizens of most dungeon crawlers, bobbing and weaving and even exploiting your weapon’s reach to hop in for a quick poke and retreat. Depending on their type (denoted by their mask) some even behave surprisingly like a human player. Likewise, the combat’s a bit more action-focused on your end, with manual aiming and charged melee attacks with precise hit detection, so you’ve got to bring some FPS skills to the table despite the grid-based movement.
While I don’t want to call it soulslike, there’s a bit of FromSoft’s high-tension precision to the combat, and perhaps in a nod to the offbeat Shadow Tower Abyss, there’s firearms in the dungeon too, for when you’ve had enough of a wizard and just need to blast him with a deagle.
If there’s one unfortunate wrinkle to the game, it’s a brief mention at the bottom of Tower of Mask’s store page that there’s a little bit of AI usage in the game. Most curiously for ‘reference of map images’, but also for translation. Given that the entire development team is one person, using it for translation is understandable and we’d probably not have an English version at all without it, but your mileage may vary. Either way, the game is out now on Steam for £9.29/$10.99, with a 25% debut discount running until November 16th.
