Deadly Rooms of Death

DRoD... Is it a puzzle game? Yes. Action game? Not really, but there's a lot of action. Adventure-ish? Yes. Watch as I review...

(Note: This review is for the latest version, The City Beneath. Multiple other versions exist, some you can even get for free.)

GRAPHICS
8 / 10
Yes, I know they're two dimensional. But they're really detailed and good-looking. They have a light engine and everything. I think it at least has a unifying theme. If you don't like them, make your own and put them in the game.

SOUND
7.5 / 10
DRoD's music consists mostly of what we in the business call electronic music. There's some minimalistic techno/trance shit going on. It's awesome. Some of the tracks are awesome but others are merely adequate or even annoying. Most of them are keyed to a specific design theme (for example, ice worlds will play tinkly synthesizer).

GAMEPLAY[b]
9.5/10
This is where DRoD really shines. The game consists of your character, Beethro Budkin, going around exterminating vermin and stuff. The individual rooms are comparable to levels, and most contain a single puzzle for you to solve. For example, this puzzle comes from a room in Journey to the Rooted Hold:
A superintelligent thing named the 39th slayer is chasing you from a hallway into a room. He comments on how there's no way to escape, to which your character responds "You talk too much." Efforts to kill the slayer are futile; his AI has been perfected to a point where he's unkillable. The room consists of going through the bottom half, freeing roaches from chambers to kill them (complicated, of course, by the slayer's attempt to kill you). Killing all monsters in a room triggers a green door to fall, which allows Beethro to escape into the hallway.
As you can see, this game is a strange blend of action, puzzle and adventure that I have not seen performed well on any other game so far. Words don't do this game justice, I advise downloading the demo and playing yourself.

[b]STORY
9/10
Another strong point of this game is its plot. Beethro Budkin is a smitemaster, which in the world of DRod (the Eighth) is the equivalent of an exterminator. In King Dugan's Dungeon and Journey to the Rooted Hold, he discovers a secret door in a dungeon and investigates. It leads to a whole new dungeon, where his nephew Halph is kidnapped by goblins. You have to venture deep into Rooted Hold to retrieve him and face the dark mystery of the Mothingness. In The City Beneath, he finally reaches the Empire, the totalitarian society that built Rooted Hold to acquire knowledge. My main motivation for each level is to find out more plot; that's how good it is.

REPLAY VALUE[b]
10/10
This game is very difficult. I mean really difficult. I've been playing Journey to Rooted Hold and City Beneath for about a year and a half now, and I haven't made it to the end of either game. Even once you beat the game (or get stuck), there's a thriving community at www.drod.net where people use the included editor to create their own puzzles, worlds and stories. Many user-made holds are available and more are being made by the second.

[b]TOTAL SCORE
9/10 (not an average)

So go out and buy it now. It's worth so much more than $20.