Super Dungeon Maker from Rokaplay and FIRECHICK offers a colorful tool for creating pixel art dungeons on Nintendo Switch. Learn more in our Super Dungeon Maker review!
Super Dungeon Maker from Rokaplay and FIRECHICK offers a colorful tool for creating pixel art dungeons on Nintendo Switch. As soon as you boot up the game, you’ll get to see a very candid message from FIRECHICK that reads as follows:
ATTENTION
Super Dungeon Maker is still in development. This version is meant to provide a preview of its current state and a possibility for you to provide feedback. Send us your Bug Reports or Feedback
After reading that, your journey will begin once you click Start Playing. Before having you design any dungeons that would otherwise be ready for you to be their maker, you’ll get to play a short dungeon as the large chicken that you can see in the trailer and screens in this Super Dungeon Maker. The character is named Fink. You know, like Link. Did I not mention that this one draws heavy inspiration from the beloved The Legend of Zelda series? Because it certainly does have A Link to the Past vibes.
You’ll control the character with the left analog stick, swinging its mighty sword with the B button. If you press and hold down the B button, you can then unleash a spin attack. You’ll be able to lift objects such as clay jars by walking up to them and pressing the A button. The small dungeon you’re exploring will have a locked door that requires a key. After stepping on a switch that will make an enemy materialize in front of you, there will be nothing left to do but swing at it with your sword. The door on the left side of the screen will open up, leading you to a room with a treasure chest. Open it up, and you’ll find a key!
The next room will have a small gap that you won’t be able to cross. How will you be able to solve this conundrum? You’ll have to proceed deeper into the dungeon, where you’ll find a powerful shield to defend from enemy attacks. Press the ZL button to check out the dungeon’s map so that you can see where you should be heading to. This will lead you into a room where you’ll be able to add a roll to your list of abilities. Maybe this roll will allow you to clear the aforementioned small gaps? Carry on, and you’ll end up finding the giant golden egg that will signal the end of your adventure… or is it?
Once you’re out of the dungeon, you’ll run into the Budgie Brigade, who ask if you could join them in their sandbox so that they can learn about dungeon making. You can switch to Build Mode by pressing the – button. When you do this, a grid will pop up, along with a toolbar on the left side of the screen. You can move the cursor with the left analog stick and move the camera around with the right one. Pressing in on the right analog stick will make it possible to zoom in and out of the area as needed.
You can select from the items and their subgroups with the D-Pad and confirm your choice with the A button. The B button will be a very useful eraser that can be put to good use to remove any item. Pressing the ZL button will allow you to cycle between the different groups of items at your disposal so that you can place a door here, a locked door there, decorate with a torch or a cactus, and add a treasure chest or a key. Maybe you’d like to infest a room with a huge bunch of enemies? You can do that! And if you make a mistake, you can press the L button to quickly undo the last thing.
And it’s then that you’ll run into one of the issues with Super Dungeon Maker: the lack of touchscreen support! With a game like this one in which you can quickly plan a whole floor with a mouse and keyboard on PC, not having touchscreen controls on Nintendo Switch when playing in Portable or Tabletop Mode – or if playing on a Nintendo Switch Lite – is certainly a weird choice. As I mentioned before, the game is still a work in progress, so hopefully, this is something that FIRECHICK and Rokaplay are considering as part of a patch.
The good news is that the dungeons that you build can be uploaded for gamers from around the world to check out… that is, as long as you manage to play and complete your dungeon to prove that it can indeed be beaten. You can add enemies to challenge other gamers. These include the stinky Rotten Egg that is ready to take a bite out of someone; the Sandcrawler, a tricky enemy that hides in the ground before jumping to attack its prey; or maybe you’d like to add a Forkplant, an enemy that carries around a large fork to attack.
Super Dungeon Maker is a colorful dungeon design tool that has been clearly inspired by The Legend of Zelda series. A Link to the Past is the one that will pop to mind right away as soon as you check out the trailer and screens in this Super Dungeon Maker review. You’ll have a sword you can use to attack and to perform a spin attack. You’ll be able to find a hookshot to quickly move around each room, as well as a shield to protect Fink. The hero’s name is even a a handful of letters away from the Hero of Time.
As the devs mention on the first screen shown upon boot up, Super Dungeon Maker is still very much a work-in-progress experience. You can tell that’s the case due to the framerate drops here and there and how there’s lots of potential for the game but not that big of a tile and enemy variety, to begin with. The game offers three pre-made short dungeons for you to take on and be inspired by so that you can then get into the dungeon-making groove and share your creations with the rest of the world or download the ones created by other gamers. Super Dungeon Maker is out on Nintendo Switch at a $19.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Super Dungeon Maker review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Rokaplay.
