How many times have you thought, "yes, this dungeon crawler is great, but I wish there was the option to play as a cat"? Well, UnderDungeon, developed by Josyan, might be just the game to fill this retro feline-focussed hole in your gaming collection.
The newest release from publisher RedDeerGames will see you taking on Zelda-inspired dungeons as a delivery driver turned sword-wielding cat. Never mind their lack of opposable thumbs, UnderDungeon's hero is an armed-to-the-teeth warrior (which is exactly how we have always imagined cats see themselves anyway).
This dungeon crawler's unique nostalgic feel comes from its 1-bit graphics and classic-inspired soundtrack (which gives us a bit of an Undertale vibe), both of which look set to send us spiralling back to our earliest gaming memories. Interestingly, UnderDungeon will not appear solely in this top-down style as some sections look set to allow to explore these black and white dungeons from a first-person perspective.
Using weapons such as magical bubbles, a boomerang cannon and a longsword, this cat is packing some serious heat and it seems that you will have to use each of them to your advantage as you navigate complex dungeons and take on intimidating bosses.
Take a look at some of the game's monochrome screenshots below to get an idea of what UnderDungeon has in store:
While there is no confirmed release date for UnderDungeon just yet, RedDeerGames has stated that the game will be coming to Switch later this year. That leaves plenty of time for a cat nap.
What do you make of Under Dungeon? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments 23
If it wasnt monochrome, and you couldnt see through the character some of the time, I might of looked at this, but no thanks
It does look quite different, but this is always going to be compared to Minit. So it seems a really odd choice to make your key art almost the exact same pose and composition and that of Minit.
Why the sudden obsession with making games look old and crap.
I love retro gaming, but leave them in the past and use the power that modern consoles have to showcase what they can do.
@Daz1380 I personally love this aesthetic. I grew up on gameboy and so maybe thats why I am biased towards it but this art is right up my alley. A way I rationalise it is that it feels like my brain fills in the blanks almost like a book vs a film type situation. I know its not for everyone.
@Daz1380 Strong disagree. There's room in my life for games at all levels of graphic tech. If it's fun, count me in. Given that so many "AAA" games these days are designed to frustrate players into making in-game purchases, I am finding myself increasingly drawn to simpler games like this.
It would be interesting if we get a game that properly takes advantage of the monochrome look.
Imagine a film noir point-and-click adventure/visual novel with similar 1-bit graphics to truly enhance the film noir aesthetic.
@Hydra_Spectre
Deja Vu on the Original Mac?
Looks really fun in motion.
@ironcore that is exactly what happens with art styles that are minimalist. Your brain fills in the details, very similar to reading, and it is a brain pleasure I don’t mind getting more of. This was really effective in early CRPGs like Ultima III, IV, and V.
@Daz1380 Plenty of retro style games can still be appealing. Just look at Celeste and Shovel Knight for some excellent examples. Not everything needs AAA state-of-the-art hyper realistic graphics to be good.
If they're not for you, that's another matter altogether.
I'd buy that game for free. This stuff is the type of project that should help you graduate from college. Even then I'd give the kid a B -.
I legit thought this was another game from the Gato Roboto developer. Same graphical esthetic, same protagonist esthetic… either way, I’ll be checking this out!
Day one buy for me
Someone as sad as me please explain if this is really 1-bit due to the use of grey. Is it a white pixel layered over a black pixel (still a literal grey area) or is it all a big lie 😉
I hear 1-bit and I immediately think of this.
https://youtu.be/uFk6z2jX1kE
@nessisonett It's not. A bit is the smallest piece of data, it's a binary 0 or 1, on or off, black or white. If you add a single shade of grey that's another state of data, which makes it more than 1 bit.
However.... back before people were educated about accessibility and photosensitivity, some devs on some systems used to flick rapidly between two colours to create a third colour. I don't know if this was ever done on a 1 bit system, but it was done on 4 and 8 bit and such. Potentially you could do that on 1 bit to make grey and hurt people's eyes?
Nope nope nope
I saw a bit of gray in that video, and what looked like a bit of lighting effect in that dungeon.
The 1-bit effect is invalidated!
Game looks nice otherwise.
Looks a tad schizophrenic, but also very entertaining.
Wouldn't 1-bit be those old text based games they used to have on the very early PC's?
@JayJ
Purely monochrome games, of any variety, can be considered 1-bit because each black or white pixel can be stored as a single bit, either a 0 or a 1.
@Daz1380
A. Because the devs actively want to make retro-styled games and there are enough gamers that actively want to buy retro-styled games to make such an endeavor worthwhile.
B. Because the development of "showcase" games for modern consoles requires a substantial amount of pecuniary and non-pecuniary resources and there aren't that many devs that have the necessary amounts of both.
I dk...looks great to me. Seems like zelda, Gato robots, and undertale all wrapped into 1 package. I'm in.
@aaronsullivan Yeah. Something like the MacVenture games, they actually worked better in black-and-white on the Mac than the more commonly-known colourised ports on NES.
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