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Dungeon Clawler Launch Trailer - YouTubeWatch On
Dungeon Clawler Launch Trailer - YouTube
Dungeon Clawler Launch Trailer - YouTube
‘You can’t always get what you want’ is great life advice—it is also what I have been repeating to myself, through gritted teeth, while playingDungeon Clawlerthis afternoon. Objectively, the concept of “what if Slay the Spire, but you barely control the hand you play” shouldn’t be working as well as it is for this early access roguelike, but thanks to some savvy game design, it super does.
I actually played a bit of this gameback when its demo was out. At the time, I thought it was pretty neat and novel, though the limited scope had me wondering if developer Stray Fawn Studio would be able to layer on enough sauce to make it work. Even just having tinkered with it for a short while, I can confirm it’s done so.
In case you’re unfamiliar, Dungeon Clawler is a roguelike dungeon crawler with a clever twist—which is a turn of phrase I hate, but the twist really is significant, and it is genuinely quite clever. Instead of playing cards from a deck, your moves are all dunked into a claw machine, where you get (typically) two tries to adjust your claw and pull out a good turn.
For example, in one of my most recent runs, I played Scrappy, whose second claw is a big magnet that pulls metal-typed items from my basket of goods towards itself, and gives him a Strength buff if he pulls in at least five.
Image1of4(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
Image1of4(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
Image1of4
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
(Image credit: Stray Fawn Studios)
These laws of physics can quickly turn against you, though. In another run, I grabbed an item that sticks other items to it, which should’ve, in theory, made it easier for my claw to snag some big turns. I hubristically chucked quite a few of these into my deck, thinking it’d have a similar impact to that magnet build, then wept as my basket turned into a lovecraftian mass of swords and shields my claw couldn’t get a handle on.
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