Dungeon Survivor II: Dark Tide’s world features ghoulish creatures and a dark fantasy aesthetic — and other parts are left up to your imagination. Leiting Games’s followup to its 2014 title includes elements of text-based adventure, similar to the multiuser dungeons (or MUDs) of yore. The mobile game will be available on iOS and Android, though it doesn’t have a release date yet. Users can register on the website, and Leiting is trying to entice players by offering rewards for those who sign up should they reach certain milestone numbers.
The sequel is inspired by author H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and eldritch gods. In battle and in town, players will get graphics of monsters during turn-based combat and of the dismal village where they’ve set up shop. Dungeon exploration takes place on a map, with small icons indicating interactable items like chests. However, a good chunk of the game is also presented as text, such as conversations with non-playable characters and special events.
Leiting will roll out the game with six classes, though it says it will offer over 50 different subclasses. Players will be able to level up characters, search for loot in procedurally generated dungeons, construct buildings in town, and progress through a tale about a coveted relic that promises immense power. The game has a story campaign as well as player-vs.-player combat.
Along with Dungeon Survivor, the Hong Kong-based indie studio has a strategy game out on app stores called Origin, as well as with other Chinese-language games on its site.
More Lovecraft-inspired games have popped up as of late, perhaps in part motivated by the success of Red Hook Studios’s punishing roguelike RPG Darkest Dungeon. The horror fiction author’s influence can also be seen in text-based games like Failbetter Games‘s Fallen London and Sunless Sea, which are set in a dismal underwater world filled with dark mysticism and uncanny creatures.
