Dungeons of Aether is an RPG spinoff of Rivals of Aether with Roguelike elements, with development headed by ampersandbear
and a story mode written by Ian Flynn.
Dungeons of Aether stars four new characters, who venture to Julesvale in search of priceless treasures hidden within its mines, especially an ore with strange properties called Amsidian. However, there is a sinister agenda behind this Amsidian rush.
In Story Mode, the characters venture into the mines for short quests, while gathering gold to spend on upgrades and equipment, under the guidance of the mysterious Randall. Map layouts are fixed.
In Challenge Dungeon mode, players pick one of the four characters and run through all of the game's biomes in a single run while trying to get as much gold as possible. Level layouts are randomized in this mode, making it closer to a Roguelike.
In both modes, combat revolves around a dice draft, where six randomly-colored dice are rolled, and the player and enemy take turns picking and assigning them to their stats before choosing a technique to use. Attacks only deal damage if the attacker's Attack (red) stat is higher than the defender's Defense (white) stat. Accuracy (green) determines the number of moves available at one's disposal. Speed (blue) determines the order in which moves are executed. Any die greater than one can be assigned to any stat, but if it doesn't match the stat, its value is reduced to one. The exception is yellow Stamina dice, which can give their full value to any stat. Players and enemies also both have a limited Stamina resource that can be spent to increase any stat, if they barely fall short of what they need.
The game released on February 28th, 2023 on Steam. Its official website can be found here. The developer preview can be seen here.
Dungeons of Aether contains examples of:
- Breakable Weapons: The weapons themselves don't break, but the gems that can be added to them will after being used too many times. A grindstone can be used to restore the gem's durability.
- Colorblind Mode: Since matching colored dice to their corresponding stats is a core game mechanic, the options include a setting for alternate colorblind-friendly color schemes, including deuteranopia, tritanopia, protanopia, and Okabe-Ito.
- The Corruption: The stores of Julesvale can be upgraded by giving shopkeepers orbs of Amsidian. However, these upgrades cause the shopkeeper's skin to turn purple and they gain yellow Glowing Eyes of Doom.
- Crystal Landscape: The Mineral Deposits are full of large crystals.
- Defend Command: Each character's second ability grants +2 Defence for this turn, which can save them from taking damage if they can outspeed their opponent.
- Drafting Mechanic: At the beginning of each battle turn, six dice of random colors are rolled, and the player and enemy take turns assigning them to their stats. Dice with a value of more than 1 can be assigned to any stat, but its value will be treated as 1 unless it's assigned to its matching stat, unless it's a yellow Stamina die.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Fleet and Slade made their debut appearance as rival cards in Creatures of Aether a year prior to the release of Dungeons.
- Fishing for Sole: Useless boots can be found while fishing in the Underground Oasis.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The four main characters include two females (Fleet and Artemis) and two males (Slade and Hamir).
- Hearts Are Health: Hitpoints are represented by hearts, with the player characters having a total of three, regular enemies having either two or three, and bosses having four.
- Lethal Lava Land: The Lava Tubes are flooded with lava. The main gimmick is the presence of rooms with lava pits that can erupt, damaging your character.
- Randomly Generated Levels: Challenge Dungeon has randomized levels.
- Socketed Equipment: Gems can be added to the player's weapon to provide extra effects. Some automatically activate, while others need to be manually activated. Each gem has a limited number of uses before it breaks. A weapon can only have one gem at a time, and it cannot be removed without permanently destroying it.
- Stealth Prequel: The mid-credits scenes reveal that this game takes place before Rivals of Aether, as Artemis is ordered by Loxodont to assassinate Zetterburn, Slade sails home to Merchant Port just in time to smell Zetterburn burning it down, Hamir and Olympia are tracking down the source of the Black Root with Kragg's help, and a meeting between Fleet and Ayala about what to do next is about to be interrupted by Elliana.
- Wicked Weasel: The Thief, the most basic enemy type, is a knife-wielding weasel.
- You Dirty Rat!: The Graverobbers in the Julesvale Crypts are large humanoid rats.
