Dungeon crawlers is a genre that is integral to the history of role-playing games and indie games. Even predating video games, dungeon crawling has been a thing in tabletop games such as the infamous Dungeons and Dragons games.
These games later evolved into the world of digital gaming with titles such as Wizardry and Ultima, which further influenced games like Dragon Quest in Japan.
We have been discussing the wonderful space of independently developed games in a lot of lists, and this one is no different, except it’s going to be about the best indie dungeon crawlers that you should check out.
Best Dungeon Crawlers by Indie developers
Touhou Artificial Dream in Arcadia
Touhou is a famous bullet hell video game franchise created by Junya Ota, known as ZUN. The series revolves around the realm of Gensokyo, where strange incidents are constant. Investigating these is the job of our main characters, and Touhou has a colorful cast.
The franchise is well known for lending its license in support of fan games, and the Touhou community has produced some incredible fan games over the years. One of these is Artificial Dream in Arcadia, created by the indie developer Bar Holographic Otaku.
The game is a classic dungeon crawler, fully inspired by the Shin Megami Tensei games. You move through levels in a first-person dungeon crawler perspective and collect allies by completing a bullet hell mini-game in classic Touhou fashion.
Lunacid
Developed by KIRA LLC, Lunacid is a throwback to first-person action dungeon crawlers of yesteryear. The creators of this indie game have explicitly cited the old King’s Field dungeon crawler series by FromSoftware as one of its biggest influences.
The game’s story kicks off the player character into the world in a very Dark Souls fashion. You start off after getting dropped into the pits of the Great Well, where all the undesirable beings are left.
You navigate through the depths of this hellhole, combating whatever comes in your way, equipped with melee weapons and spells you find on your journey.
Void Stranger
One can say that Void Stranger cannot be considered as a typical dungeon crawler, as the main focus of the game is exposition through solving puzzles. But it still follows the basic structure of the player character navigating through dungeon-like level designs.
Void Stranger is developed and published by the indie developer System Erasure, and it is one of their most successful games ever created, garnering popularity from playthroughs by a lot of popular streamers.
The plot of Void Strange is slowly revealed through exposition-based storytelling. So we will not be discussing that as it would involve talking about spoilers and ruining the fun of learning it through the game.
The Binding of Issac: Rebirth
Dungeon crawlers and the rougelike genre go hand in hand as a perfect game recipe, and one such example is the popular indie title, The Binding of Issac: Rebirth. Developed and published by the people at Nicalis Inc.
The Binding of Issac: Rebirth follows the story of Issac, whose mother has been hearing the voice of God demanding sacrifices. Issac escapes from home to face randomly generated dungeons populated by hordes of enemies.
The general gameplay involves Issac shooting through enemies in a top-down view, while also coming across treasures that allow for upgrades. The game helped popularise the roguelike genre and influenced a lot of new indie games.
Crypt of the Necrodancer
It is no news that Crypt of the Necrodancer is definitely one of the most fun and popular indie rhythm games ever created, but it also deserves to be in this list because, at the end of the day, the gameplay involves traversing through levels like a dungeon crawler.
The game was developed by Brace Yourself Games with an incredible soundtrack written by David Baranowsky, who was also responsible for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
Crypt of the Necrodancer’s combat should be lauded for its genius game design. It works sort of like turn-based combat, but with reactive rhythm-based tile management, which makes it highly addictive.
Vaporum
When we purely think of dungeon crawler as a video game genre then what comes to mind is a game that lets you navigate through maze-like level designs in first person, and that’s exactly what Vaporum is all about.
Developed and published by the indie studio Fatboat Games in 2017, Vaporum is a classic first-person view dungeon crawler with grid-based gameplay and real-time combat.
The game is set in a steampunk world where the player character finds themselves stranded in an unknown tower. Now you must progress forward to find answers about what is going on and who you are.
Legend of Grimrock
Legend of Grimrock is developed and published by Almost Human Games, and is a franchise that is very popular among the fans of dungeon crawler games. It is also one of the biggest influences for games such as Vaporum, which we have already talked about.
This dungeon crawler puts the player in the shoes of prisoners who have been acquitted for crimes they may not have committed. Now this group of misfits must band together and find their way out of the dreaded dungeons of Mount Grimrock.
A second Legend of Grimrock game was also released in 2014 for PC, after it was very well received by fans, adding a dungeon editor for players to make their own challenges.
The Quest
Inspired by old Elder Scrolls dungeon crawlers, The Quest transports us to a beautifully hand-drawn game world that looks like it was developed for a computer from the early 90s, but the game was actually released in 2006.
Set in the medieval fantasy lands of Monares, this game is an open-world title with a day and night cycle and all sorts of things to do beyond just regular dungeon crawling, including being able to access a playable card game in the game’s inns.
The game was created by the amazing indie developers at Redshift Games after acquiring the independent publishing rights in 2015.
Path of the Abyss
Outside of the West, dungeon crawlers have been huge in Japan over the years after they were popularised by game franchises such as the Wizardry series, and other JRPGs in general. One such indie title that is a really good dungeon crawler is Path of the Abyss.
The game was created and published on Steam by a solo developer named Suzuki Suzuzou, and the absolutely beautiful hand-drawn art served as the basis for the game’s main attraction.
Path of the Abyss involves the player traversing through classic dungeon designs with a customizable party, facing all sorts of enemies in a solid turn-based combat system.
Fear & Hunger
We have talked about this game before in a different list. Fear & Hunger has to be one of the most nerve-wrecking indie dungeon crawler experiences to ever exist.
Created by Miro Haverinen, Fear & Hunger throws the player into a merciless game where players will find themselves dying over and over in the span of the first five minutes. But for those that will stick around, it is going to be a beautiful horror game experience.
Even though at first it looks like a simple sprite-based indie game made in RPG Maker, Fear & Hunger stands tall as a testament to what independent game developers are able to achieve if they have insane ideas for game design.
