Genre: Roguelike
Developer: Gaslamp Games
Publisher: Independent

Dredmor utilizes 3/4 overhead tilesets to convey its action. The overall aesthetic isn't as rich as a good 16 or 32-bit 2d title, but it's also better than what you'd typically find in an amateur'ish community-based game for instance, or the ASCII visuals found in many other roguelikes. Baddie designs aren't particulary detailed, but are at least well animated and expressive.

The game's soundtrack features uncommonly-- for today's game industry anyway-- catchy synth music. Some of the selections are dark, almost Uelmen-like, while others are a more light and jaunty. Like the art, the sound effects sometimes seem a little amateur'ish, but they lend the game enough style for it to have its own character.

Like all titles in the genre, Dredmor drops the player into a level-based dungeon, and it's up to them to make it to the end or die trying. In a game like this the player is only doing two or three actions over and over, so the user interface is all important; Dredmor's is intuitive, but could use some optimization. The control scheme works well enough, and the game's plethora of skills and custom-class building lead to interesting combat situations.

Dredmor is the prototypical roguelike-- there isn't a single convention that hasn't been seen many times before. Given that context, Dredmor should be evaluated according to the "polished clone" rubric. According to those standards, the title is a nice modernization of the traditional formula, but some user interface niggles hold it back a bit.