Fidel Dungeon Rescue
Review

Fidel Dungeon Rescue (2017) is a path-finding battle where you guide your puppy hero through a dungeon of monsters. You play by picking which direction to move and who to attack. Enemies only move when you do and you can rewind whenever you want. It stands out for offering an approachable puzzle game with monsters, treasure and secrets but without the usual grinding and fetch-quest busy work.

You progress through each level by getting from the entrance to the exit without losing all your health. While you can move where you want, you can't cross the path your extendable lead makes or revisit the same tile twice. Each level is self contained so you can see everything, but presents a challenge of route finding, sequencing and battling. It's turn based so there's no time pressure. Also you can always rewind your moves if you make a mistake.

As you get further there are more things to interact with. Levers, equipment and other monsters that move (when you do) extend the puzzle in novel (head scratching) directions. Special items you can collect and use add to the complexity further while also offering more ways to solve each level. Each room you meet on a run is randomly selected, which means there's a new challenge each time you play. And even though a single run through the game is relatively short, there are lots of secrets to discover which really open up the game to investigation.

The result is an exuberant puzzle game that not looks great but presents really cleverly designed puzzles. It's the sort of game where you spend a long time on each level, often seeming to be stuck, only to find the solution and feel like a puzzle game god.

Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Fidel Dungeon Rescue 12 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 10 months ago.