Ever since I got my Switch console, I’ve had my eye on a game called RPG Maker. It allows you to create a mini, classic RPG-style game that you can then publish for everyone else to try. Of course, I’ve played a butt-ton of these kinds of games, so in my mind, I was the right person to be able to create the perfect RPG. The issue with RPG Maker is that the game has a hefty price tag attached and to create a complete game, even with all the assets and help provided, takes a whole whack of time. At the time I had to put my game-making dreams on hold, that was until I got my hands Super Dungeon Maker.
The title screen alone had me sold, that cute, fat chicken, never mind the awesome pixel graphics that the game had on offer, as well as the potential of making my very own “mini-game”.
Before we dig into the review, a quick disclaimer, although the game is listed as a “full game” over on Steam, it’d be better if you thought of it as an Early Access game. Even before you start the game, you are shown a message stating that the game is still a work in progress. The devs wanted to release the title on the Nintendo Switch platform, and as such, they have to push the game out of “Early Access” and into a “full release”. That means that there are bugs in the game that are, hopefully, being addressed. The dev team does post regularly onto the Steam page, so there is hope, but if you’re not into the whole early access thing, then maybe wait it out for a bit.
You start the game off as Fink, the cute, fat chicken from earlier, in a very old-school Zelda-esque dungeon. You slowly make your way through it as it demonstrates what the game has to offer by letting you play through it all. It’s not a terribly difficult dungeon to get through, but it does get me excited to see the different elements I can play around with for my own future dungeons.
As you complete this dungeon, there’s a small little town that you can explore. This town serves as the hub of the game. There’s a kiddies sandbox that teaches you everything the game has in detail, there are townsfolk who offer a little bit of character to the game, there is a building that allows you to try out other people’s creations, but most importantly, there’s the building that allows you to create your own dungeons.
A little out of town, there are a few premade dungeons made by the game developers, but after going through all of them and then thinking to myself, “Hmmph, did I just finish the whole thing in an afternoon?”, it finally clicked that Super Dungeon Maker is just that, a dungeon maker, duh. The real meat and potatoes are situated in building your own dungeons and playing the dungeons that others have created.
While formulating my most evil plans, I gave a few of the other makers’ dungeons a whirl. Some are pretty tough, and I failed a few times; some have bugs by the fault of the dungeon maker, but that should go without saying, and some are just plain silly. It is fun to see what other people have come up with, and you can “upvote” a dungeon if you enjoyed it, but the real joy comes in creating an absolute disaster of a dungeon for people to try and figure out.
At the time of writing, my dungeon maker toolbox had the following inside of it:
- Four different biomes to choose from. (unfortunately, you can’t have different biomes in the same dungeon, but the dev team have added this to their update list)
- Seven types of doorways (two of them are up and down stairs, one is just a doorway, two need different types of keys, one is a secret blow-up hole in the wall and triggers control the last one)
- Fourteen action objects (I call these action objects because these are objects that the player can interact with. These range from pressure switches and one-off switches to bollards, levers, pullies, pushable blocks, invisible trigger zones and surprise spawn locations; this list of objects is where the real action of the game lies)
- Twenty-four décor objects (These are the things you use to pretty up the place. Rocks, mushrooms, trees, grass, wall-hanging vines, these all live in this list. What is nice to note is that each biome has a slightly different look for these 24 objects, so the carpets do match the drapes)
- Twelve “treasure” objects (I prefer to think of these as pick-ups. This list holds two different kinds of treasure chests which can hold the other 12 objects, the pick-ups. Each of these offers a special ability to the player. This can be anything from learning how to swim or learning a gap-closing dodge roll. Keys to open the doors and chests are also in this list as well as health pick-ups, bombs and maps to help players navigate the dungeon.)
- Sixteen enemies (The enemy list holds the standard uglies that you need to defeat; ranged fork throwers, annoying flies and shielded spikey-boys amongst others. You also get the static traps in this list; of the 16 objects, there are six traps to choose from. Spike traps, fire traps, laser traps, thirst traps, ok maybe not thirst traps, but there are many traps. Three of these enemies are bosses and can be pretty annoying to deal with in a fight right at the end of a dungeon)
While almost everything in the “action objects” list is “scriptable” by the player, the AI for the enemies is pre-scripted. The most you can do is set up a trigger to spawn the enemies. The game offers ten triggers per room. Initially, I had thought this was ten triggers in total, but later found out it’s a bit more substantial than that. By trigger, I’m referring to object A/B/C affecting object D/E/F. Trigger 1 is “clear all the monsters in the room,” and then something will happen, like a door will open, or a chest will appear. The other nine triggers are chosen by the player. You could set up six thousand switches on trigger “2” that all need to be pressed before the door connected to “2” will open etc. This allows for quite a bit of tinkering in the game, but since it is restricted to a per-room basis, it does make it tough to make doors open on the other end of the dungeon because of what you managed to accomplish in the very far, east wing. There is a global trigger that affects all bollards in the dungeon, so there is potential for more intricate things to be made.
I spent a good couple of hours trying to create a pretty tough dungeon, and as I went through it, I came up with more and more ideas for my next one.
While the ideas were overflowing, I was often frustrated by the bugs that would pop up while making the dungeon. Often the triggers needed to be deleted, and I would need to either create a different trigger set before coming back to the original one or save, quit and come back before the bug would clear. Sometimes I would want to remove a piece of floor, and I would explode the whole area into an un-editable glitch; luckily, by this time, I had realised I needed to save often as reloading was the only way to fix this. If I had not saved, it could have been potential hours of dungeon-making thrown out the door and the Switch getting an un-warranted squeeze of anger. Being as cool, calm and collected as I generally am though, a deep breath in and out usually got me through the bugs. Understandibly, I can very easily see them causing a lot of anger to other people out there.
The other downside to the game is the amount of stuff in the toolbox itself. Yes, reading the list above does show a whole heap of things to play with, and, when used in different combinations, can lead to the creation of many, many dungeons, but the more I built into my dungeon, the quicker I could see how some things seemed a bit repetitive. I used almost everything you could in my dungeon, and I was pretty happy that it had a classic dungeon feel with some annoying and tough puzzles to solve, but I would have to re-use some of the ideas from the first dungeon if I were to make a second or a third. Personally, I’d like to see the addition of different bosses. While the ones in-game aren’t bad, they just feel like slightly tougher versions of the regular guys. I’m also missing the ability to put down signs with messages to trick or direct players to certain locations. I’d love more work to be done on the trigger system, it’s quite a lot of fun as it is now, but there are instances where my idea was a little too complex, and I had to settle for something else. Floor level mapping needs a bit of work as well; sometimes it can be hard to see where you might fall if you fell through a hole.
Another cool aspect that would be nice to see is the ability to tell a story. Perhaps this might be swinging a little too far into the RPG Maker realm, but at the moment the dungeons are just small, arcade-like mini-games that a player has to work their way through. Once done, that’s the end. I have seen a few attempts at people re-creating the dungeons from Zelda or an even more ambitious attempt at trying to make the caves from the Pokémon games, but these don’t tell any story; they’re just really large dungeons.
As the game is in a weird state of Early Access, and from the regular dev updates, it does seem like there will be more and more to do, make and puzzle your way through as time goes on, but even before that, there’s still a heck of a lot of dungeon making to do here.
If you can look past the glitchy bugs, there’s a fun maker game sitting here, waiting for you to make things, but if you’re not, perhaps it’s best to hang tight and keep your eyes on what news and updates the development team pushes out there. There’s a good chance I will be creating a few more dungeons after my first, and I will definitely re-visit the game after every big patch update.
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*TREASURE ROOM*
If you already own the game, on the Nintendo Switch or Steam, I have created my own dungeon in Super Dungeon Maker. It has been dubbed “The Torture Chamber XI”. The first person to send me the secret message in the final room of the dungeon will earn themselves a sneaky little prize.
To enter, simply email me at cody[@]nag.co.za with the secret message. Don’t forget to comment below or on the social media post where this review was posted.
Terms and Conditions:
- This competition is open to South African residents only.
- The competition closes at midnight on Wednesday 31 May 2023.
- The winners will be the FIRST person to deliver the secret message.
- Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash.
- The judges’ decision is final, and no correspondence can be entered into.
- NAG is not responsible for entries not received for whatever reason.
- NAG reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice.
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- The winner(s) will be announced in the comments section of this post and that of the social media posts where it was originally shared. If the winner cannot be contacted or does not claim the prize within 14 days of notification, NAG reserves the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.
- It is the responsibility of the winner to ensure that the correct address, dimension, and direct contact details (email/ cell number) are given.
- Prize delivery will take two to four weeks from the time the winner has been notified.
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