Things are not going well for Angel, protagonist of Tunnel of Doom. Her husband has gone down into the mine outside her town, and, for no reason, the mayor closes the mine down. Unsatisfied with this result, she picks up a pickaxe and breaks into the mine, only to discover ghouls within.
This sets up the gameplay – a top-down, 2-D dungeon crawler with a roguelite and tower defence mix – in which Angel is armed with her trusty pickaxe and wooden bolt turret and moves from screen to screen to find the exit. Each area is littered with resources and gold but also the chance of an attack from enemies. If this occurs the player has a preparation phase. The game indicates where the enemies are going to appear, and the player must setup defenses to try and corral them. This is smartly designed with wood being used to build low walls, glass for spike traps and the aforementioned turret to shoot from afar. Depending on the enemies and the spawn points, it is possible to funnel enemies down corridors across the spike traps, while being pummeled by bolts.
However, the Tunnel of Doom does a good job of throwing curve balls over the course of its three main story dungeons. There are ghosts that turrets don’t shoot at, blobs that can jump over low walls, and skullbats that can fly anywhere which cause problems. The game balances this by offering up new turrets (glass throwers, stone cannons, and fire turrets), high stone walls, guns, stat boosts for the player, and health upgrades.
Further twists are added by having innocent miners that need to be defended, hidden tunnels under rocks and creaky bridgeways, and special rooms with increased resources/treasure chests.
I was impressed by the way my play style diverged based on my personal stat upgrades. One run I had an excess of wood supplies and stone canons that could knock back enemies, so I would litter the entire area with low walls and then set up 4 canons to push all attackers back. In another I had an ability that would return my turrets, unscathed, to my inventory upon hit; at that point I didn’t bother with walls and just had turrets and decoys.
Each tactic is viable and it is a testament to Tunnel of Doom that flexibility is not only encouraged but celebrated.
The story mode is relatively short for a roguelite, I was done in around a weekend. On beating story mode, though, there is a harder mode and an endless mode for those that want more from the game.
If I had any complaints, it is extremely minor. The hit detection seems fiddly, with the character model taking up more space than makes sense – ranged shots will connect when it seems like they would go behind Angel. There is a prompt that appears each time the player reaches a new dungeon that notifies the player that their starting upgrades are increased, this isn’t true after the first time the player reaches that level.
These are so minor I am only including them to show how well done the game is.
Conclusion
Tunnel of Doom is a tight little package that has found a flourish on the roguelite formula that feels like more developers should be paying attention.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox Series S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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