For a lot of people our coverage of first person dungeon crawling role playing games may be a little outside of the term “retro”.  The thing is, they are squarely in the retro theme, one of the oldest styles of role playing games was the dungeon crawler (Wizardry leading the way for instance).  Crystal Rift looks to bring this genre into the mainstream with some horror trappings replacing the constant stopping to battle creatures.  Crystal Rift puts you in a dungeon and pits you against that same dungeon which is just as formidable as any group of high level armored orcs ever could be.  Fans need to read on as Crystal Rift needs fans of this genre to show support.

Indie Retro News has called Crystal Rift a mix between Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, two classic first person role playing games that pushed the genre.  I have to agree with that comparison, Crystal Rift is quite distinct in its design while graphically, it is “similar” to other games in this genre.  Visibility is ambient low level and really gives the feeling of loneliness and emptiness that you are facing.

The reason the atmosphere is so well designed is possibly due to the hardware that Crystal Rift is designed for, first and foremost, which is 3D headsets.  No, these are not the 3D headsets that we saw being touted for the Atari Jaguar or in old arcades with huge bulky, not to mention heavy, low detail setups.  3D headsets today are more streamlined graphically thanks to more power under the hood but they not done a lot with the actual design (they are boxier looking if that helps while in the past they were more “sleek” looking).  The 3D headsets of today though blow the old ones away thanks to the sheer horsepower pushing the graphics.  Gone are things like Dactyl Nightmare where you can count the polygons on the screen.

The developers are promising to keep things up to date via offering fans a built in level editor that will allow creation and sharing of levels.  This is one thing that helped propel the likes of Doom and Quake to the stratosphere of popularity- level editors and the ability to share those levels with both strangers and friends.

Crystal Rift is currently resting on Steam Greenlight waiting for support from you, the fans.  If you want more of these types of games available, show some support, a simply click could push Crystal Rift onto Steam for more fans to check out.

Source: Indie Retro News

Carl Williams

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