[Game Review] Crypt of the NecroDancer

Rating: 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍏🍏🍏🍏

Core Concept: A rhythm-based roguelike with strong UGC and custom game support.

Monthly Active Players: Since its 2015 release, has maintained ~100–400 active users/month; this month averaged around 316Genre Competitors: Traditional roguelikes (Dead Cells, Hades, Slay the Spire) and rhythm-hybrid games (Hi-Fi Rush!, etc.)

Tutorial: New player tutorial only teaches rhythm-based movement. There’s little guided learning, so players are expected to die a lot early on and learn by doing — which is par for the course in roguelikes and encourages deep exploration.

Player Progression: Classic roguelike loop: each run earns you diamonds, which can be spent on stat upgrades and unlockable loot for future runs. New characters are unlockable early on — great for character collectors (also, the skeleton is SO CUTE).Training mode lets players practice enemy patterns — a nice touch.

Gameplay Loop: Fight monsters and bosses → finish a run → use loot to prep for stronger builds. In each run:

• Walk and attack to the beat

• Collect gold

• Find weapons/spells

• Unlock new characters

• Experiment with builds

  
  

Each character offers different skills and builds, though I feel the variation between builds is smaller than in roguelikes like Hades or Risk of Rain 2 (might just be because I haven’t played enough yet).

Design: For a 2015 title, the rhythm-combat fusion was super innovative! Still holds up conceptually.

Art:Key art is charming and memorable — especially the protagonist. In-game pixel art is solid, if standard.Programming:No particularly groundbreaking technical implementations noted.

Social Play:Includes local co-op by default; online co-op (PvE & PvP) available via DLC.Monetization:Classic indie model — one-time purchase + optional DLC.

Target Audience:Mainly young indie game fans who enjoy novel mechanics and experimentation. Aesthetics and game style may be less appealing to older or more mainstream players.

Marketing & Ops:Didn’t see much official promotion — found the game through Steam ads and discounts. Minimal evidence of developer-driven outreach.