So I spent my lunchtime on a quest to rescue her from the marshes. Didn’t have any anti-drain armlets and my sword wasn’t plated so I rushed through the final coupe of floors, but I managed to save her without mishap.

Also spent a good long time sorting out my warehouse, which is now full of storage jars full of weapons, shields, scrolls and staffs.

That was the only proper run I did today. Did a lot of rescue runs and quite a few puzzles.

My wife died on level eight. I tried to rescue her three times and failed each time. I can’t fail to reach level eight three times in a row!

But I did.

Still, that was my second-best game ever, which ain’t bad.

After that, my wife needed rescuing. She’d died on level three but had already found some cool stuff, so wanted reviving. She sent me a request using the DS wireless connection and I went off in search of her. Found her limp body surrounded by monsters, but managed to kill them all and revive her. That done, it was back to the main menu to send her a revival scroll. Job done.

Later, though, she died on level thirteen, again with a whole bunch of cool items, and asked my help again. That’s a long way down, so I grabbed all the items from my warehouse and set off. I didn’t find a single weapon until level eight, but I was doing okay, until I reached level twelve. Went down the stairs and found myself in a tiny room surrounded by monsters. Five of them. I killed three, but a couple of tanks brought me down. Dead.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it was one of the most intense bits of gaming I’ve ever had. Just knowing that death lurked around every corner, having to use every item at my disposal to make it to the next floor and then – bam! – dead.

You get three tries to rescue someone. So all was not lost.

On my second try I died on level one. Level one! That never happens!

And on my third try… I died on level one. Again. The game obviously had it in for me.

Oh well, I did my best to try and rescue the damsel in distress. I guess it was not to be.

Ended up getting turned into a rice ball – yes, turned into a rice ball – and killed while trying to run away. Apparently, rice balls can run.

I was slightly worried, I must admit. I very much enjoy roguelike games, but the only one I’ve tried from this developer was Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, which I found tedious in the extreme. Luckily, this one is a lot better. It’s a proper roguelike, in that when you die you lose all your items and experience and get sent back to the beginning of the game. I like that. You can store items and weapons in special storage areas and people in towns remember you, but everything else is reset.

In my last run last night I was carrying around two really good weapons, just hoping to bump into a courier who could take one of them back to the warehouse, but died, thus losing them both. (I was really hungry and had no food, so I wasn’t being as careful as normal and ran into a couple of hard enemies who proceeded to kill me quickly.) My lovely Katana + 2 is now gone forever. I’ve got nothing in the warehouse in the starting town now, so it’s going to be hard getting started again. But good hard.

I played for about three hours, so it’s getting things right, even if it isn’t as deep as many PC-based roguelikes.