Dungeon Crawlers

Regular Dungeon Crawlers forum-goers might be aware of this roguelike, but for those who aren't, Incursion celebrated the release of version 0.6.9A on Sunday, May 14th -- and was ported to the Mac and Linux on Tuesday, May 27th. I kept putting off this review, but enough is enough!

Incursion is, in a word, a mechanic-based roguelike. Well, okay, that was four words. Anyway, where the typical learning curve of most roguelikes is learning a huge number of ways to die by experimenting with things you don't quite understand yet, Incursion takes a different approach: most of the numbers in Incursion are exposed, meaning that you get to see the die rolls you make and the target rolls you are up against. The feeling is indescribable, and you'll either love it or hate it. Myself, I love it.

The current release of Incursion is the module "Halls of the Goblin King", which is a 10-level single-dungeon adventure. Julian Mensch, the game's author, has expressed an intention of releasing other modules of the game, including an overland mode and multiple dungeons to explore. As it is, however, you probably won't get bored of the current module. Not only is it diverse and entertaining just as it is, those 10 levels will last you for many hours just to get to the bottom, and barring that you'll still have opportunity to try many playthroughs.

Most of Incursion's mechanics are based from the d20 OGL system released by Wizards of the Coast. However, many creative liberties were taken with reinterpreting this system for a game context, including adding a time system (instead of forcing every action to take a whole minute) and totally hacking out and slapping in a brand spanking new magic system. As a result, people familiar with d20 will be pleasantly surprised by the game, while people unfamiliar with d20 will be able to pick up most of it just from roguelike experience. As I said on the forum, "It takes many of the good parts of d20, and replaces the bad parts with its own unique brand of awesome."

Novice delvers beware, however: Incursion is not for the neophyte. You can be tempted to spend upwards of half an hour designing your character in the very beginning, only to encounter a nasty claw zombie and end your career in a most spectacular fashion just three minutes into the game. This is a trap of the game. With practice, you'll learn to spend less time experimenting with your character in the beginning and start to come to terms with the one unique difference between Incursion and every other roguelike I've played: planning. In Incursion as in D&D 3.0+, you receive perks every few levels; careful selection of these perks gives you a character worthy of its name, but not without a lot of hard work and planning for your future. It is not merely a good idea in Incursion to plan, it is necessary strategy. The fact that Incursion is so open about its mechanics allows you to perform this planning intelligently instead of in the form of blind, dumb luck. For that, I am very thankful!

One complaint, if I had to make any, is how powerful magic and subterfuge are when compared to brute force. Though you might ordinarily be inclined to try a Warrior in Incursion, since in most roguelike games they are the easiest classes to start with (and then become progressively more difficult than the other classes due to their magic-related handicap), in Incursion it just isn't so. The easiest way to beat Incursion is to play as a stealthy rogue or ranger, because you can then pick and choose your battles at will. This is refreshing in a way, since it encourages intelligent gaming; unrefreshing in another, since it encourages a slow pace.

When that is pretty much the only negative thing I can say about the game, that really says something. All in all, Incursion is a masterpiece which I highly recommend, and I eagerly await its continuation -- and maybe a BYOND game which can do it justice!

If you want to try out Incursion, visit its homepage at http://www.incursion-roguelike.org/