Super Dungeon Maker review for PC, Nintendo Switch

Platform: PC
Also on: Nintendo Switch
Publisher: Rokaplay
Developer: Firechick
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: yes
ESRB: E

Super Dungeon Maker is built around a simple โ€“ and incredibly appealing โ€“ idea: apply the principles of Super Mario Maker to 2D Zelda. That was the gist of the gameโ€™s Kickstarter pitch, and it was enough to not only get the game funded, but also to get a Switch port for it.

And, to the gameโ€™s credit, itโ€™s what it delivers here. If youโ€™ve ever wanted to create 2D dungeons to your heartโ€™s content, you can do precisely that in Super Dungeon Maker. Switches and chests and monsters: theyโ€™re all available, and you can lay them out however you want.

Whatโ€™s more, you can also check out the dungeons other people have created. While some arenโ€™t that great and are kind of broken (case in point: I entered a room and promptly got stuck when my character happened to be standing on the spot where a block was also supposed to be), you can also see some impressive creativity. You can even find some of the Zelda-inspired levels that were probably the impetus for creating the game.

My problem with Super Dungeon Maker is that while there are some neat tools here, there isnโ€™t much else. You get a few tutorial levels to start, and, again, you have access to community dungeons, but itโ€™s not like youโ€™re getting a proper game with a story on top of that. And, as someone who vastly preferred Super Mario Maker 2 to the original Mario Maker precisely because it offered a Story Mode on top of the create-a-level mode, I canโ€™t say that this barebones approach appeals to me all that much. I certainly like the idea, but the execution feels like itโ€™s missing a little something.

Still, I totally get the appeal of Super Dungeon Maker if youโ€™re the kind of person who loves building their own game worlds. It never claims to be anything more than that, and there seems to be a solid community in place to help the game continue to grow. To me it feels like thereโ€™s still some work to be done on fleshing it out, but as it stands, thereโ€™s definitely some potential here.

Rokaplay provided us with a Super Dungeon Maker PC code for review purposes.

Grade: B
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