Rating of
3.5/5
A Kinder, Gentler Dungeon Crawl
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 07/08/16
“Coldfire Keep” (“CFK”) is the latest Indie development project by Australian programmer, Steve Jarman, whose previous work consists entirely of iOS apps and who apparently couldn’t be bothered to come up with a cute name for his group of seven folks who make games. “CFK” was presented to me by the ‘Grid-Based First Person RPGs’ Steam group, and at a bargain price that I couldn’t pass-up. I have been a fan of this style of RPG since the original “Dungeon Master” was ported to the SNES, and am always willing to give modern iterations, like the two ‘Legend of Grimrock’ titles, a chance to win me over.
Presentation
“CFK” isn’t a terribly ambitious game from a presentation perspective. It is built in the Unity engine using a relatively small number of 3D assets. The dungeon walls and floors all look alike, with only minor variations on any given grid tile, and there are less than half a dozen different monsters to fight. The camera has an annoying fisheye effect at all times, which distorts environmental objects depending on the angle from which the player views them (pits are never actually square, for example). Enemy design is good enough, but never particularly exciting or extraordinary, though the two female NPCs that run a shop and an inn on the first floor of the dungeon are appealing in a simple way. The character portrait selection for the player’s party is rather limited, but adequately diverse and of high artistic quality.
The audio is fairly bland in “CFK.” Like the original “Dungeon Master,” most of the background sounds are just ambient audio of water drops or monsters gurgling to themselves in the distance (or inside the walls). There are no occasions, such as in the original “Dungeon Master” where a jazzy little tune kicks in out of nowhere, which is unfortunate, as “CFK” doesn’t require nearly as much concentration as older, nastier dungeon crawls.
Technically, “CFK” is solid enough for a game made by 7 people, most of whom weren’t even involved in the programming aspect. However, it does have a few annoying little glitches. Reloading a saved game while in-game causes the party to become paralyzed and unable to move until the player opens and closes the main menu. The auto-map, while incredibly useful in this genre, contains a number of small mistakes that become more prevalent on deeper floors of the dungeon. The in-game timer runs at approximately double speed. The game does not run in full full-screen mode, which causes all sorts of unfortunate issues with controller mappers like Xpadder and Controller Companion (though, thankfully, the Steam controller works flawlessly). Finally, the controls themselves are somewhat poorly designed: There is no hotkey to open the main menu without clicking its on-screen icon and there are horrible gesture-based movement controls that cannot be disabled. The game never crashed on me, though, so that’s saying something.
Story
Long ago, the town of Newsettle was built up around the ruins of an old keep. During a monster raid upon the town, the settlement’s only knight, Sir Janec, took a magical McGuffin called the Coldfire Crystal deep into the old keep in order to draw the monsters away from the rest of the townsfolk and trap them within using the crystal’s powers.
Decades later, a howling hoard of monsters pour forth from Coldfire Keep and sweep through Newsettle, causing havoc leaving destruction in their wake. A group of four friends, being the closest thing Newsettle has to adventurers, decide to brave the unknown and investigate the sudden failure of the Coldfire Barrier that has kept the monsters contained for so long that the events surrounding its creation and the noble sacrifice of Sir Janec have become legend.
Upon entering the keep, our adventuring friends discover a pair of sisters who have opportunistically setup shop at the top floor of a dungeon that baits the brave to venture into its depths in search of wealth and glory. The dungeon also seems to offer an easy way out, via a magical wand that allows those who hold it to operate the dungeon’s teleporters and pass through the Coldfire Barrier uninhibited (hence the monsters).
“CFK” doesn’t have a particularly gripping narrative. There is some well-written banter between the characters, and the main mystery of the dungeon and the crystal are revealed through scattered journal entries left behind by Sir Janec so long ago. The confrontation with the ultimate foe at the bottom of the dungeon and the ending sequence are, however, incredibly underwhelming, ending the game on a decidedly flat note.
Gameplay
Any grid-based first person dungeon crawl RPG is only as good as its puzzles and combat. “CFK,” as I mentioned previously, has a helpful auto-map feature that ensures that the winding corridors of its 16 floors never become frustrating. The game also features a large number of mandatory puzzles alongside optional secrets.
Unfortunately, the puzzle aspect tends to re-use a few ideas over and over, such as assigning numbers to switches and tasking the player with some first grade addition in order to come up with a target sum. Another frequently-used puzzle gimmick is a set of switches which only activate in a given order, yet have no clues and no penalties involved in the process. Then there’s the room full of levers that need to be in opposite positions on opposite walls, which was a clever warm-up puzzle the first time, but felt tired by the third. There are some good puzzles in “CFK,” and I was never once completely at a loss for how to proceed, so the dev was at least on track there, but I would have liked to see some more diversity.
Combat in “CFK” is incredibly slow-paced compared to other modern takes on the “Dungeon Master” formula – specifically “Legend of Grimrock 2” with its insanely fast-paced and crowded battles. “CFK” almost never presents the player with more than one enemy at a time, removing the need for ‘The Dance’ that is an unfortunate staple of this style of RPG. In fact, “CFK” seems to distinctly want to avoid the player doing The Dance, as the party cannot move and attack simultaneously; instead the party can only move when all of its members have their action icons cooled down. Of course, the slow pace of combat still allows for cagey players to do The Dance (very, VERY slowly) in order to defeat difficult enemies with little effort.
The player’s party can consist of any mix of four characters selected from Warrior, Rogue, Caster, or Shaman classes. Warriors are about dealing melee damage, Rogues are about finding hidden traps and picking locked chests (rather poorly, I might add), Casters are about offensive magic, and Shamen are about healing and support magic. Magic itself is greatly simplified compared to the crazy rune-based systems of both the ‘Dungeon Master’ and ‘Legend of Grimrock’ titles. Instead of finding new spell combinations scattered around the dungeon, Casters and Shamen simply gain access to a new spell at each level-up. The Caster’s ability to use the Stun spell to force enemies (even the final boss!) to skip a number of turns is absolutely game-breaking, and goes a long way in explaining why The Dance is irrelevant.
One feature of “CFK’s” combat that is fantastic, and should be adopted by every such RPG, is the presence of shortcut keys that allow the player to simply tap the 1-4 number keys to make the respective party member use a default melee attack. The way combat is implemented in “CFK,” though, I only ever found myself mashing 1 and 2, while my backrow spell-spamming Caster and Shaman required me to pick their spells from a list each turn (the ability to set a default spell instead of weapon attack for the back row would have been nice, but alas…).
Overall
“Coldfire Keep” is a great way to ease modern gamers (or rusty old gamers) into an old-school RPG sub-genre. This is the type of user-generated content I would like to see more of in the ‘Legend of Grimrock’ Steam Workshop, but it’s understandable that putting the time and effort into a quality free mod isn’t as appealing as putting the time and effort into a stand-alone game that can be sold for money (even if the underlying engine isn’t as good). Developer Steve Jarman is apparently happy with the response to his initial dungeon crawl endeavor, and is currently 95% finished with a sequel, called “The Deep Paths,” which made its way through the Steam Greenlight process. I’m certainly looking forward to it!
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 3.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
