My delight with Underkeep was immediate, when I was still very early in the game’s first dungeons, I killed a worm creature and it dropped what looked like a wheel of moldy cheese. This is one of my overriding memories of playing 1987’s Dungeon Master , a game to which Underkeep owes a great debt, even if its outdoor zones perhaps are more reminiscent of 1993’s sequel, Skullkeep . Or, if you’re not a million years old, think Legend of Grimrock . Wait, that’s 13 years old? [crumbles into dust]

Underkeep is a very straight take on the old-school “blobber,” an RPG in which you move your party of multiple characters as a single entity or “blob,” and it is deeply welcome. Since Grimrock so successfully revised the adored format (best exemplified by games like Wizardry , Eye of the Beholder , and the aforementioned Dungeon Master, among many others), very few have followed in its tile-based steps.…