On the face of it, the roguelike and rhythm-action game genres are not obvious bedfellows. The former is about grinding through endless dungeons, hacking and slashing at enemy monsters, the latter is about hitting buttons in time to music. It’s hard to think of two more opposing video game styles. Maybe first-person shooters and sports management sims? Or massively multiplayer fantasy games and match-three puzzlers?
Whatever the case, a small Vancouver studio named Brace Yourself has picked up the, erm, “rhythm roguelike” gauntlet and ran with it.
The result is Crypt of the Necrodancer, the unlikely lovechild of proto-RPG Rogue and rhythm game Dance Dance Revolution. From one parent we get the basics: a sprightly adventurer, Melody, delves into four randomly generated dungeons, collecting items, battling monsters and digging for treasure, all in a delightful 2D aesthetic most immediately reminiscent of Link to the Past-era Zelda; if the enemy designs and top-down viewpoint don’t summon that to mind, the (usually empty) heart containers in the top right will.
But from the other parent comes the flair: Melody, and everything else in her world, can only move to the rhythm of a pounding chiptune soundtrack. The world pulses to the beat, while a multiplier stays in effect for as long as you can keep moving without standing still or miss-timing an action, pushing you to get into, and stay tuned with, the flow of the game.
The effect is mesmerising, and from a gameplay point of view, it heightens and intensifies the puzzle at Necrodancer’s core. All the enemies move according to predictable patterns: slimes bounce back and forth every two beats, minotaurs charge directly towards you before hitting a wall and collapsing if you dodge out of the way, while golems advance inexorably every four beats and will crush you underfoot for an instant kill.
Without the beat, the game would be a merely methodical challenge, with enemies moving every time you do, and all the time in the world to plot out the best line of attack. It’s not unpleasant – you can actually pick to play the game this way, with a different character – but it’s also nothing special. Rogue was doing this thirty years ago, after all.
But with the music, the puzzle suddenly gains a time pressure. It’s not as simple as the ever-falling blocks of Tetris, but it’s enough to mean that you rush into situations without spending time thinking them through; and even when you don’t, you’ll still end up with your character hopping nervously from one foot to the other, as though wanting to burst out dancing but afraid of embarrassing themselves in judgmental company.
It means that whenever you die (as you will, a lot, because the game doesn’t go easy on you), you can see exactly what you did wrong, and how to do it better next time. And then you’ll go and panic in another way instead, jumping into the path of a dragon’s breath or spending too long near an exploding mushroom.
But that puzzle effect could be done in other ways. After all, the levels have a time limit that serves to push you forward, and predictable yet dangerous enemies are a staple of games such as Bloodborne and the rest of the Souls series, showing they can be pulled-off in real time.
What can’t be done in real time is the mesmerising flow of the game. Crypt of the Necrodancer pulls you into the zone, that state of mind where play happens automatically, unthinkingly and perfectly, faster than anything else I’ve played. Even Super Hexagon, the undisputed king of instinctive rhythmic gameplay, takes longer to get properly absorbed in than this.
Of course, that flow does require you liking the music. I’m a fan of the chiptune soundtrack, but not everyone is, and if you’re the sort who plays games with the volume off, this may not be the one for you. The optional ability to play to your own custom music, with the beat automatically determined, may make up for it (particularly if you like music with a clear, simple rhythm; math rock fans need not apply), but you’ll be missing out on some of the nicest touches of sound design in any indie game, from the shopkeeper who sings along, to the ice-and-fire world with production that shifts from metal to electronica depending on the temperature.
While we’re stating the obvious, it also helps if you’re a fan of roguelikes. The genre has entered something of a renaissance recently, largely due to the influence of break-out hit Spelunky, and it can be hard to find an indie game without some mixture of randomly generated levels, copious item pick-ups, and a gruelling difficulty level.
And so many of the standard criticisms of roguelikes apply here: sometimes it can feel like success is down more to finding a great weapon in the first chest you hit than any actual ability on your part, and the die-rinse-repeat loop appeals more if you’re a fan of chasing high scores than if you just want to play a game start to finish.
But to its credit, Necrodancer innovates with its handling of that traditional core, too. It would be easy to have come up with “roguelike plus rhythm” and end there, but tweaks to the model include compressing the game into four distinct worlds (so you can achieve some progression even if you don’t beat the game first try), adding new characters who change the structure (one has no weapons; another cannot pick up gold) and breaking out boss battles to a separate level entirely.
Sure, this is not the first game to attach rhythm dynamics to a “hard core” genre – the superb smartphone title Beat Sneak Bandit, did a similar thing with the stealth adventure. But then Brace Yourself’s game also has a conga-dancing gorilla, local co-op and a DANCE MAT MODE. So there.
Crypt of the Necrodancer may not be for everyone, but if the idea of a steamy love-in between two seemingly incompatible genres turns you on, you’re gonna love it.
Brace Yourself Games; PC (version tested)/Mac/Linux; £11; no age certificate
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