My delight with Underkeep was immediate, when I was still very early in the game’s first dungeons, I killed a worm creature and it dropped what looked like a wheel of moldy cheese. This is one of my overriding memories of playing 1987’s Dungeon Master, a game to which Underkeep owes a great debt, even if its outdoor zones perhaps are more reminiscent of 1993’s sequel, Skullkeep. Or, if you’re not a million years old, think Legend of Grimrock. Wait, that’s 13 years old? [crumbles into dust]

Underkeep is a very straight take on the old-school “blobber,” an RPG in which you move your party of multiple characters as a single entity or “blob,” and it is deeply welcome. Since Grimrock so successfully revised the adored format (best exemplified by games like Wizardry, Eye of the Beholder, and the aforementioned Dungeon Master, among many others), very few have followed in its tile-based steps. Underkeep very much does, and while I have a few reservations, it’s kept me enormously happy for the last week.

At the start you pick your four characters, created by mixing races and classes, then adding a profile picture, and are then immediately plonked into the woods. You need to reach the Village of Underkeep, but there are monsters, dungeons, and puzzles in your way. So off you go to do some classic adventuring, with a party of four taking it in turns to unleash their attacks on enemies you encounter. As such, you’ll want to pick your four characters sensibly, with tanky fighters up front and rangers and spellcasters in the rear.

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