Pocket Gamer's recommendation-a-day advent calendar: Dungeon of the Endless
One more cracking game from 2015
Every day, as we count down to Christmas, we'll be sharing a brilliant and essential game from 2015 that didn't quite make our game of the year list. We'll reveal the very best iOS and Android games of the last 12 months on Christmas Day
December 18th - Dungeon of the Endless
iOS (£3.99 / $4.99)
Dungeon of the Endless is a cross between dungeon crawler and tower defence that somehow manages to feel fresh in a pair of crowded genres.
Your ship is crashed, and you need to take the power-core deeper into the dungeon in the hope of finding your escape. It's a roguelike and if your characters die or the power-core is destroyed, it's over.
This process has two stages: tentatively exploring your dungeon, setting defensive traps and creeping ever forwards. Once you find the exit you pick up the power-core up and everything falls apart. Monsters charge out of the darkness towards your defenceless carrier and you move at a painfully slow speed through the half-lit dungeon.
While you're doing this you have to worry about top level decisions like gear, levelling characters, and researching new towers or immediately decisions like which rooms to keep powered and which turrets to build with your meagre economy.
Early on it feels like pure carnage, but Dungeon of the Endless is at its best when you've learnt it's machinations and the game opens up in front of you - when you learn how to control the monster spawns and level your characters up for the long haul the game is compelling, asking you to make life or death decisions every minute with no margin for error.