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Tunnel of Doom is a tactical action rogue-lite game with tower defense elements.
[h1]Battles[/h1]
Each time a battle takes place, an indicator shows where enemies spawn from and the UI shows you how many and which. You then have unlimited time to prepare for the battle. You can build barricades, traps, and towers through resources that are so limited that you can't use towers in every battle.
When you're ready, you can start the battle. Be careful: You can't pause and build during the battle, it takes place in real-time. Enemies will spawn one after another and go for you, other miners, or towers. You can attack them with rocks, your pickaxe, glass, wood, and guns. All of your resources are strictly limited aside from your pickaxe but this is also the most dangerous weapon since you have to be in close range. When you beat the level, you can go deeper into the mine.
[h1]Mines[/h1]
A mine has dozens of rooms. You get a map in the beginning and can decide which way to go. Your goal is to reach the end/next level. If you die, you have 3 restarts. If you use them all up and die again, the run is over.
Aside from battles, you can find chests, resources, guns, weapons, fountains, events, and a merchant. Fountains will give you either random things for money or bless you for money (like recover some health, get a blessing (+1 attack to guns, etc.). Chests are often locked and you need a key to open them through it is not advised to open all chests. Sometimes the key is more expensive than what is in it.
Merchants let you buy useful things such as traps. Go for them each time you see one!
[h1]Resources[/h1]
Gold is the main resource to get new things. What's more important are resources to attack/build traps, barricades, etc. Without them, you're almost done in later levels. You won't stand a chance with just your pickaxe against 20 enemies.
Wood is there to build barricades or traps out of wood. You will need 4 of them to build one barricade, etc. How do you get it? In each room, there are barrels, rocks, etc. With your pickaxe, you can destroy them and collect the resources out of them.
[h1]Strategy[/h1]
Through this is an action game and mostly takes place in real-time there is much strategy involved to get to the end. This is a hard game. You probably won't win your first run, even with 3 restarts. You need to carefully examine each room to get the most resources possible, study monsters to know who's your enemy and their strengths as well as weaknesses. Placement of traps, turrets, and whatnot is also just as important because you won't stand a chance facing them without these - But don't use them all up. Through you get the resources back when they don't get damaged or at least some of them, if they got damaged, you won't come far if you use everything up the moment you get it. This is especially important when it comes to towers. They will eventually break or get destroyed. If you don't have any left, it will be so much harder.
[h1]The Good[/h1][list]
[*]The gameplay loop is fantastic. While I wasn't as addicted to going in and playing for hours without a break, I wanted to come back after every pause for sure. The game is fantastic, the concept is great.
[*]The mix between action and strategy is perfect. It's never easy to make an action game that is also tactical. But they did it. I nearly never play action games and I was in love with it because the tactical aspect is so good.
[*]Traps, turrets, weapons, resources. Many possibilities to beat monsters and win a battle. Through it IMO gets restricted in later levels (read more below) there is enough for everyone.
[*]The atmosphere is great. The graphics and the music perfectly fit into the "story". It's creepy and I love it.[/list]
[h1]The Bad[/h1][list]
[*]There should be events like you know it from other roguelike games. Like, real events. The game is predestined for having unique characters waiting for you in the mines and you don't know what they do there, what they want from you, or what you CAN do for them/with them. Sadly, I only got to see one. These characters could give you events, be mysterious, you could just attack them and see what loot they get, etc. similar to Dark Souls/Demon Souls and the likes. This would fit the game perfectly!
[*]Conversely, the above (rather, that nothing of the above is in it) makes the game a bit predictable and monotonous.
[*]The balance. While I feel that the game is rather fine, I think people will easily see what works well and whatnot. Turrets for example. They are very strong but limited which is fine. You can easily defend them against monsters on stage 1, going into stage 2 (or even at the end of stage 1) flying monsters will be added. They can easily fly over barricades/do long-range attacks. You can't defend your turrets against them. This also means that turrets are rather useless from then on since it's not worth it (cost-benefit factor). This also means traps, etc. are rather useless later and you can just leave them be and use the resources to attack monsters (throw stones, etc.). I already got that in my second run and saved up resources such as glass/stones for later levels.
Another thing I got early on is that spending gold at the merchant isn't worth it when you don't really need turrets later. Rather save your hard-earned gold and use it at the fountain to heal back up/get more hearts. Which is my next point on the list.
[*]Fountains are OP. When visiting the end boss I had 13 hearts. I used almost all my gold at fountains. What you get is random but you will eventually get more hearts or heal. I had 1k gold, spent all of it before going into the last battle, and had 13 hearts + over 10 lying around the fountain for later use. I couldn't possibly die this way. If I get this after not even 2 hours of playtime, others will get it even sooner.
[*]The game is short in total. I won my second try on normal difficulty (the others need to be unlocked first) without needing any of the 3 retries. I clocked in less than 3 hours at that time. I don't think I'm that good at such real-time strategy games so I guess others will win even faster. Also, there isn't much new to see after playing through it.[/list]
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
Tunnel Of Doom is not perfect and it has its flaws. Don't be irritated because "the bad" looks like there is so much wrong with the game: There isn't. Most of this can be broken down into two things: 1. the balance is a bit off and results in being a tad bit too easy and 2. more that could be added to the game. Which is a good thing. I wouldn't suggest adding more or X/Y/Z when it wasn't good. The opposite is true.
Tunnel Of Doom is a fantastic action roguelike game with tower-defense elements. Though they don't advertise this as being a strategy game first, this is more tactical than many other strategy games I've played this year. They really did great and mixed these genres very well together. I'm in love with this mix.
I definitely want a sequel with more enemies, traps, turrets, weapons, and mysterious creatures waiting for me to talk to/deal with/give me events or something to decide.
I definitely recommend getting this gem!
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