Hands-On Preview: Fight the Dragon
Hack and Slash RPGs are a staple in the indie games community. There is a special visceral element to grinding out levels, gaining customisation over your blank-slate character, and swimming in piles of loot from countless dungeon crawls. Fight the Dragon is the third game by indie developer 3 Sprockets, who previously designed Cubemen and Cubemen 2 for Steam. The game is a self-proclaimed “Diablo meets LittleBigPlanet”, which allows for diehard rouge-like enthusiasts and content creators to join in building a breadth of adventures for other players, as well as the developers to enjoy.
Fight the Dragon, is a classic Hack and Slash RPG, which lets users create their own dungeons and adventures that others can play and evaluate through the Adventure Creator Kit or ACK, producing the majority of the random adventures that players must conquer to continue progressing. The game allows players to create a male or female adventurer and specialise as one of the following classes: Fighter, Fire Lord, Ice Wizard, or Black Rouge, all of which diverge from the basic adventurer every five levels. Each class has distinct special attacks that are impressive and expand upon the differences between each class. Along with specialisation in specific weapons, the classes feel different past level five and open up many play possibilities within the dungeon crawling nature of the game.
The title of the game gives away the main antagonist, a monstrous dragon starting with one million health! Though insurmountable to other monsters in the game, Fight the Dragon players deal persistent damage to the dragon over time and earn one shot at the dragon per adventure they beat. In addition to offering a serious challenge, the dragon offers very powerful reward loot for damage dealt to it, scaling to higher amounts the more damage you put onto the beast. Taking down the dragon may seem impossible, but with the help of other players joining in through online and split-screen co-op, it gives players a real chance to do serious damage and eventually take down the mighty beast.
Fight the Dragon is currently available in Steam Early Access, allowing players to experience the game despite developers needing to do some fine-tuning. Steam Early Access lets developers stockpile many player created maps and cut out dungeons that under perform while still promoting the interesting and exciting content the players design. This illustrates the game’s future goal of creating new adventures, while insuring the quality of their content. Through Steam Early Access, players can experience Fight the Dragon on Windows, Mac, and Linux while adding to the growing community of players who create their own elaborate dungeons for £10.99/$14.99.
