It’s very rare that I play rogue-like or rogue-lite games, simply because I tend to not enjoy the idea of randomly generated infinitely replayable titles, vastly preferring the hand-crafted games with a definitive end to them (that I can simply replay if I liked them a lot). However, there have been a few titles that despite all odds got me invested. And somehow Undermine joined their ranks. I’ll try to understand why.
Undermine is a rogue-lite with room-by-room exploration in a layered dungeon, isometric view, permanent upgrades and jumping as means of dodging attacks and also exploring. It’s biggest influence seems to be The Binding of Isaac (which in turn has been influenced by the original The Legend of Zelda dungeons) and most of the basic ideas are the same. Each dungeon zone has several floors (4 to be precise). Each floor is divided into rooms that take up the entire screen and are connected to other rooms, sometimes directly, sometimes via a door requiring a key and sometimes via wall that must be bombed or destroyed by an enemy. Additional secret rooms and items might be hidden under/inside rocks that can be bombed or also destroyed by enemies. Rooms often include enemies, in which case the doors to other rooms get locked until you kill all of them, sometimes additional hazards, sometimes only hazards, and there’s almost always a shop somewhere in the level. Oh and also every floor has a Relic, which is a special upgrade item that stays with you until the end of the run, while in very few exceptional cases you might also find permanent items called Artifacts, or upgrades. Also, there’s lots of gold everywhere which you should mine to get upgrades in the starting hub.
Most of what I’ve described is almost exactly the same as it was in Isaac, except now focusing more on melee attacks and almost entirely devoid of bullet-hell-like sections. Additionally, you can avoid all damage if you’re jumping as whatever is dealing damage passes under you. You will still take damage if you land on the damage dealing enemy or hazard, but, interestingly, vast majority of enemies in the game don’t deal contact damage and have attacks with clearly defined tells. Oh and, of course, the permanent upgrades are also a thing that clearly differentiates this from Isaac, as your starting area contains several kinds of shops that provide either upgrades, or new kinds of relics, potions, blessings and other kinds of things that you will encounter during the run.
None of this is specifically fantastic, I must stress. The combat is pretty simple, though you do get to learn some tricks as you play, as you realize how to better use the melee and throwing attacks and how and when to jump or use bombs. Or get better at using the relics you find, blessings you get or even detrimental curses to your advantage. But it remains quite simple, as do the levels, bosses, enemies, hazards, “puzzles” and other things you encounter. You get more of everything as you play, but most of it doesn’t become much deeper. Yet… something about this simplicity clicks. At least it did with me. And the permanent upgrades and unlocks are often a good enough hook to keep you invested even in a run where you’re clearly going to die very soon.
It also helps that both the visual style and the soundtrack are very nice. Also the story, as simple as it is, is doing what it needs to do. And the characters are cute. All of this is also not specifically fantastic, but simply very very good. And for those who like rogue-lites more than I do, there are even more additional things and run modes and unlocks that you get after you complete the game once, that I didn’t particularly care about, but you might.
So, despite the fact that some of the enemies in the game are more annoying that anything. Despite the really visually inconsistent way you can fall into holes. Despite the fact that some rooms are poorly thought out and some are super easy to accidentally exit from before you collect everything you want. I really-really liked playing this game. And might even play it again in the future. And some of the music tracks are definitely going into my main playlist, even though at first I found them really silly. Undermine isn’t a game that’s really great, or striking, or memorable, or anything deserving an extreme kind of praise. But it’s really good and it’s very fun to play. And sometimes that’s exactly what you need.