When I think about the games I’ve reviewed as part of this series, the ones that immediately jump to mind are generally either the very good ones or the very bad ones. They’re the ones I’ve linked in other reviews, referenced as my ur-examples, and just generally put a lot more thought and energy into than is probably reasonable.

Dimlight Dungeon is neither of these categories. Dimlight Dungeon commits what could be the worst crime a game can commit. It’s just boring.

Am I broken? Is it the graphics? Will we ever know?

Dimlight Dungeon is an action brawler. You play as a red monster, storming into a dungeon to presumably claim treasure and smash guards, and he’s all out of treasure. Whatever story exists here isn’t the point. The point is to charge through a dungeon, smashing and destroying along the way.

The player is provided with three different smash options, though why I would ever use anything other than the punch option is unclear. Each punch stuns the enemy, making it trivially easy to win any fight by spamming the punch button, assuming the stars align and the hit boxes feel like being reasonable, or assuming an enemy doesn’t get stuck in a place where it can hit you without being hittable in return.

Both are, of course, options. It’s exactly as fun as it sounds.

I’m not going over there.

Dimlight Dungeon is not a fun game for multiple reasons, some of which are by design, and some of which I think (hope) are accidental. Its level design is tedious at best. The red monster moves through similarly arranged level after similarly arranged level, spamming punch on identical enemies, getting stuck on the exit door, and repeating the process. There is no real variation, no real challenge, just an exercise in patience. It’s tedious, and it’s boring.

On an unintentional level, the enemy AI is laughably and frustratingly bad. At multiple points, I watched enemies get themselves stuck behind scenery or pits, waiting for me to rush over to punch them. At other points, they got stuck in such a way that they could hit me without me being able to hit them. The game also doesn’t make it clear when the player is losing health, meaning at some points, my only indication that I wasn’t hitting what I thought I was was getting a large message letting me know I’d died and would need to start the entire series of levels again. The enemies getting stuck where I can’t touch them, I can chalk up to accidental poor design. The death mechanics and lack of notification are just generally poor design, and make what’s already a tedious and boring experience an obnoxious one.

You…you doin’ okay there, buddy?

While brawlers aren’t generally a genre I play, I feel confident in saying there is no reason to play this one. Between the intentional poor design choices and the unintentional obnoxiousness, there is very little fun to be found here. Whatever treasures await in the dungeon are not worth it. Instead, I’ll claim the treasure of being able to uninstall this game and do something more meaningful with my time.

Developer: Giga Grunts

Genre: Action, Brawler

Year: 2021

Country: United States

Language: English

Play Time: 30 Minutes

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