Review: Dunecrawl, Is It Worth It

Indie games hold a special place in our hearts. They often have meaningful themes, are usually affordable, and most importantly, they’re made by developers who are still willing to take creative risks. But even now, many indie developers continue to experiment and surprise us with fresh ideas or at least clever twists on familiar ones. That brings us to Dune Crawl, an indie title from Alien Trap.

Dunecrawl

Dunecrawl is an open-world action-adventure game made by Alien Trap. You play as a crab keeper where you have to control a massive crab crawler, which has weapons, shields, etc., and fight the enemies while collecting loot and completing quests.

Co-op and World Size

The game is set in a big desert area filled with enemies, resources, side quests, and upgrades for both your character and dune crawler. You can play as a solo or as a co-op; as the game is designed around multiplayer, it is advisable to play with other players. You can play the game in offline and online modes.

Settings in Dune Crawler

The game gives you options for video settings, audio control, and changing your controls. You also have options to change your difficulty level anytime during the game. You can use both your keyboard and mouse or a controller to play the game. It is advisable to use the control as it makes it easier to change the characters’ movements.

Story in Dune Crawler

The starts with a short cutscene introducing Sandy Hill – a small village in a desert that is under attack by a big enemy crawler. You need to defend the people of the village and restore peace across the desert. The story is a little bit small and under development, but the world itself is interesting. The dialogues are decent, and there are some side quests you can find in the desert area. The narrative is not bad, but it is not big to play for longer periods.

Gameplay and combat

You can fight the enemies both on foot and or a Crawler. You also need to break crates to collect weapons and loot, and explore the dungeons. There are a lot of weapons to choose from. This includes guns, bows, swords, axes, and bombs. But the combat doesn’t feel really good. Aiming with the bow is difficult as it sometimes shoots the arrow towards a different target.

And some of the melee weapons will leave you wide open, and it makes it easier for the enemies to deal damage towards you. The combat doesn’t feel fun but rather difficult to perform. In the game, there is a lock-on system, but it only helps a little. You will find loot everywhere, and managing it is easy, as you can sell the loot to the vendors and earn some gold. The navigation is very clear in the game as it has waypoints and maps.

The crab crawler 

The crab crawler is the main reason many people will play this game. In the crab crawler, one player drives the game, and the other player loads and fires the cannon and heals the crab. The cannons are very slow, and you need to manually load the cannons with cannonballs to shoot them. The crab crawler will take a lot of damage during combat, so you need to constantly heal it, which you can do by using the bug sack on the crab crawler platform. 

The developers have done a good job in using teamwork, but it doesn’t feel smooth or exciting, as you have to do repetitive actions. You can raise shields and upgrade your crab crawler, but it isn’t fun to drive it, as we were told by the developers. If you play as a solo. You will get an AI companion, but it is not very helpful as you need to constantly tell it what to do.

Performance issues 

Dunecrawl has many performance issues. There are many bugs and glitches while doing the quest. While using the crawler, it is difficult to operate as it freezes in the game. The FPS sometimes drop, and it becomes so low that it makes the game unable to play.

Visual and Sound Design 

This is where dunecrawl has worked hard on it. There are very beautiful environments on the menu. Strong creature and character designs. The environment has bright and vibrant colours. And the sound design is excellent.

Final verdict 

Dune Crawler is a creative and beautiful game. But unfortunately, it is not very fun to play the game for a long time. The combat in the game needs to be optimised, and the story is too small, but the developers have dragged it out. The dune crawler is not defined to be used as we were told earlier, and needs to be fixed. Performance issues slow down the experience of playing the game. If you are looking for a co-op game to play with your friends, you can give it a try.