You're a carrot warrior in board game-inspired dungeon-crawler Verdungeon

In the Indie GIF Showcase, we dig up the best-looking new and upcoming indie games and explore what makes them special. Are you a developer with a game to submit? Use this form.  

I've never tried to beat someone to death with a leek, but I reckon it would be pretty challenging. Yet Carroto, the protagonist of Blustery Games' Verdungeon, makes it look easy. Granted, he is fighting a slime, the fantasy RPG equivalent of a mosquito, but he's also a carrot. But while being a carrot would normally be quite the handicap, in Verdungeon, a roguelike dungeon-crawler with board game-inspired levels and combat, vegetables are heroes.  

Here's the rub: the procedurally generated dungeons of Orchard Reign have been besieged by herbivores, and Carroto and his vegetable pals (who are also playable characters) have got to sort it out. I dig the garden aesthetic, from Carroto's oversized head to the old merchant(?) picture here, who I choose to name Old Man Raddish.  

Blustery Games describes Verdungeon as Dungeons & Dragons meets The Binding of Isaac, and its D&D DNA—D&DNA, if you will—is most obvious in its love of dice. Its turn-based combat is fueled by dice rolls not unlike the skill checks of the tabletop. After playing For the King, I'm pretty sold on turn-based dice rolls, so I'm interested to see how Verdungeon handles it.  

Verdungeon is scheduled for release in late-2018 or early-2019. You can learn more on its official site. 

Austin Wood
Staff writer, GamesRadar

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.