Stately Snail's "One More Dungeon" was released at the end of 2015, and is one more entry into the FPS rougelite genre games we've been seeing a lot of lately. Another game picked up in a cheap bundle from Bundle Stars.

They're an interesting genre and tend to have a few flaws that stop me really getting into them. Just like Cargo Commander that I recently played, this one's issue is yet again centred around ammo.

The game boasts that it is a FPS with procedurally generated levels and pixel art graphics. And yeah, technically it fits these statements. Technically.

You're a nameless guy thrown into a dungeon to so... I don't know. I'm not even sure if it has a plot to this one. But there is a final floor and the aim is to defeat the big bad from taking over the world.

The big issue I have is with the 'S' part of FPS. You can fire off about 30 shots before you run out and have to rely on melee attacks to attack the various critters you encounter. Projectile attacks are with your staff, with you start with a randomly selected choice of Fire, Ice, or Green. I'm assuming the green is acid or something corrosive.

But once you run out? All down to weather or not the RNG decides it will spawn/drop extra crystals you can use as ammo with. Most runs I found one or two pickups. And usually for staff weapons I did not have in my inventory. Only once in an hours playing did I find enough of the things to be able to make it to level three. Level fucking three.

Oh, if you get that far you may find a vending machine that can convert the coins you've picked up into more ammo. But only of one particular type. And while I made it this far and was able to use the machine a few times, I was promptly killed anyway in the next room.

So, you no longer have ammo? Well you have a knife, and later on a sword and spear. But the reach on these is abysmal, casing the player to backtrack and stab to avoid getting munched on. While they only take a few hits, you better have that map memorised or can toggle the overlay button while running and stabbing.

Rats as a first level enemy are also HARD. Fast moving, with a leap attack, and higher health than other things on the floor. I had to constantly side-step and walk around pillars to avoid them and most battles ended in my defeat.

Thankfully the blobs and goblins I found were not as bad. But I still did not enjoy the melee combat when required to do so.

While the pixel art is nice and simplistic in itself, rooms do easily get cluttered with various props, blockers, and monsters. The FOV can be expanded, but it is far too easy to peek around a corner and get shot by some critter you did not anticipate. Sometimes, if you are really really lucky, several will hit you at once, causing instant death.

And there are doors too. Usually at the end of a long corridor. Where you have little to no room to dodge incoming bullets as soon as you open the bloody thing.

Games sometimes use the difficulty to their play-style. As you slowly crawl through the levels, learning the various ways to react to the encounters you have sense of achievement in how much further along you get each run.

But with 'One More Dungeon' I'm much more tempted to swear at the screen. At least at first. Eventually this just became an 'urgh' and I would quit for something else to play for a bit.

There's no FUN to this difficulty. Only disappointment and frustration.

I can see what it is trying to do. The game really has some potential in how all of this really should play out. It just needs more for the player to do and the game to be just a touch fairer to the player.

While eventually I was able to make it further into the depths. Each level just felt like a boring reskin of the last. And navigation really requires you to use the map hot-key. Rooms are basically just clustered around each other, with a door or two leading to the next.

This makes the game feel very linear. Deadend rooms are rare and often only a couple of blocks long: Open door, examine hallway, turn and move on. There's no real reason to explore most of these after popping your head in and trying not to get shot by obscured baddies.

There's meant to be 80+ items to collect. A sanity level when using artefacts. There's potions of poison that just hurt you for some reason. But they all do very little. The only special item I found was a thingy that would randomly teleport me over the map. By the time you could reach for the hot key to activate it if in trouble, most likely you are already dead.

Unless there's crafting or some reason to try a collectathon later in the game it just ends up being worthless junk. No reason to keep weaker weapons, duplicate staves, and most of the other crap you pick up aside from the healing and regenerative potions.

The only moment of weirdness and creativity was a dark realm accessed through a space portal. But this are is short, choose a door to collect a single item and hopefully not me killed by a series of traps you had no indication would activate.

Once you unlock some points, you can add run modifiers to change how the level plays. But I could not be bothered trying to unlock them all.

There's better FPS rouge games out there. Ziggurat, while having a stylish and fast paced run & gun 3D over retro pixel look gets far more right. Sublevel Zero is a brilliant take on the 6DOF format. And there are numerous other games in this genre with this pixelated look.

Unfortunately 'One More Dungeon' just can't cut it in its current state. Give me more ammo. Lots more. Or unlimited with a recharge step level. Make the map less dense. Make enemies easier to see in the cluttered environment. And for all that is good in gaming, don't let them insta-kill the player as soon as a door opens.

Do at least that much, and I'd give it a 'buy' vote. But sadly as it stands now, your time is better spent elsewhere.

Game Acquisition: On Sale (Bundle Stars).
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 28 August 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10
Processor: 2 GHz CPU
Memory: 2000 MB RAM
Graphics: GPU with 512 MB Video RAM
DirectX: Version 9.0
Storage: 500 MB available space