Deadly Rooms of Death

Even a glimpse of the gameplay is enough to dispel the doubts that arose - yes, despite the unusual appearance and focus on fighting, Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD) is a puzzle to the bone. And, as in any good puzzle, your every move, each keystroke here needs to be considered a dozen times. What do we see on the screen? The dungeon, where the king so graciously locked us ("And do not dare to show yourself until you kill all the monsters!"), Is divided into extensive, ramified levels. Those, in turn, are divided into screens, each of which must be subjected to ruthless and absolute disinfection, that is, to deal with the spiders living there, the notorious cockroaches, bats, goblins and other evil spirits. This evil, sometimes, accumulates on the screen so much that it becomes scary - how much the king waited before resorting to the services of professionals. And now the most interesting thing is that the whole DROD process takes place in a step-by-step mode: if Bitro moves in one of the eight available directions, all opponents located in the visible space are moved to the same cell. The brave Badkin would like to turn the sword, pointing him in the right direction - and again the enemies get the right to walk.

I must say that the cleaner under our control, although hereditary, was clearly not taught the battle technique, therefore, he paves his way with one single technique - exposing himself to a sharpened blade (occupying, by the way, a separate cage) and trying to string on him unlucky reptiles. In turn, all kinds of creatures are trying to avoid this fate and by all means get to Bitro himself - just take one rash step, and now you are on the same cell with a bloodthirsty adversary, which means that you will have to start the passage of the entire screen again. And there is no powerful magic for you, shining armor and omnipotent artifacts - there is only a lone guy with a sword and huge, innumerable and insanely hungry hordes of various creatures, swarming with all your way down.

How, then, to fight if there are many enemies, and our hero is only one, and even so clumsy - even sweeping his sword takes him a whole move? This is where the most furious and intricate puzzle begins, capable of stopping many, many players on the way to their cherished goal. To win, as is often the case, will have to be cunning. And the main trick in DROD is to know the habits of opponents. Take at least the same one and a half meter cockroaches that you will meet in the first minutes of the game. There are many of them, but they are only trained to walk directly - which means that any wall that stands between them and Bitro will provide you with reliable protection and excellent help in luring the moustached directly onto the framed sword. Cockroaches of the Queen, on the contrary, will by all means run away from you, leaving “gifts” in the form of their relatives on the way. Drive them into the previously marked corners, and fishing problems will be significantly reduced. Met a flock of huge, gluttonous evil-eyed? It doesn’t matter - an experienced knight knows that these lazy monsters attack only when the target appears exactly in their line of sight. But with bats, for example, the “divide and conquer” tactics work excellently - these cowardly predators will never dare to attack you alone, which leaves them no chance to succeed.

The variety of monsters in DROD and the dissimilarity of their behavior patterns make exploring each new level an exciting activity. In search of the right solution, sometimes you have to go through and re-pass the same screen dozens of times, spending hour after hour on it and powerlessly asking yourself: “What? What am I doing wrong ?! ”But puzzles are gradually becoming more and more difficult, forcing me to concentrate on dozens of interconnected elements - the movements of several types of monsters, terrain features, which sometimes make moving possible in only one direction ... And what is it worth controlling your own doubles, which in other rooms going to a dozen? And without the help of each of them, you would never open the next door and do not press a securely protected button.

Subsequently, the complexity of the gameplay outgrows all conceivable limits. At the same time, the desire to go through a room that does not give in does not decrease at all, but only increases with each new level, which makes DROD your reliable companion for a very long time. It is incredible, but a fact - even after spending several hours in a row on fruitless attempts to overcome another difficult and cunningly conceived obstacle, you will not feel any anger or irritation. The gameplay here, despite all its obstinacy and rebellion, has a wonderful property to relax and bring unforgettable pleasure. Although what is there to be surprised - this is a feature of any high-quality, to the last trifle, verified game.