#oneaday Day 823: Diggin' Dwarves

Been playing a bit more Deep Rock Galactic both with friends and solo recently, and I like it a lot. The procedural generation side of things makes it a whole lot more appealing than more "static" co-op games such as Vermintide and Left 4 Dead, and the varied objectives keep things interesting, too.

There's also a good sense of progression that just feels like it offers you more options rather than making you "better", which is ideal for a group of players who can't necessarily play the game the same amount as one another over time — no-one gets "left behind" as such, they just have fewer ways to supplement their basic abilities.

I'm particularly impressed with the fully destructible levels. I've played several missions recently where victory was determined by just saying "fuck it" to finding an "easy" way to an objective, and instead tunnelling through a wall. It's not always the most efficient approach — particularly when playing solo, as I found out to my cost earlier this evening — but it's impressive that it's even an option. Plus sometimes digging off in a random direction can net you some goodies — though it's worth remembering that this isn't Minecraft.

You need to play quite a lot before you start unlocking some of the interesting sounding progression mechanics and longer challenges in the game — but I think that makes a lot of sense, since all of those are geared towards people who are taking the game semi-seriously. For more casual players, it's dead easy to just boot up the game, pick a mission type and jump in — with missions generally lasting 20-30 minutes each (maybe a little more if you're playing solo), you can have a decent amount of fun and feel like you've achieved something even if your available time to play is relatively limited.

I think that's why it's resonated with our group of friends so well — we all have very different schedules and commitments, and this caters to most of us in one way or another. I'm glad I jumped on board with it, because I'd been skeptical to begin with — we've left a trail of abandoned multiplayer games in our wake. This one seems to be sticking for the moment, though, so I'm looking forward to playing a bit more.