Ex-Fable developer behind popular free Ultima-inspired RPG introduces a massive 100-floor dungeon for just $5.

Back in October 2023, former Bullfrog chappie and Fable developer Dene Carter sidled up out of nowhere and released Moonring, a terrific open world RPG in the Ultima tradition of top-down, tile-based bump-attacking. It had crisp neon sprites floating on seas of arcade cabinet black, an enticing mythology, elusive magic systems, procedural dungeons and dialogue based on remembering or deducing keywords. All this for free – statistically my second favourite price tag after the developer actually paying me to play the game. Which does not happen as often as you might think, you tinfoil hat-wearing scalliwags.

Now, Moonring has some DLC. It’s called Moonring DLX and consists of the Egg, a 100 floor megadungeon “with the vague promise of a silly boss and a prize”. Yes, the dungeon looks like an egg. Unlike Moonring and like most eggs encountered in daily life, the Egg costs money – $4.99, €4.99 or £4.29.

If you have that amount of change to hand, and you’ve sunk tens of hours into Moonring, you might consider buying the DLX edition just to say thank you. I can’t think of a way to make that not sound like guilt-tripping, so here’s a video of the game instead.

I myself am still scratching at the upper levels and opening sanctums of Moonring’s eerie universe. I still haven’t worked out how to cast magic, a carrot dangled early on that seemingly requires a fair amount of investigation and questing. The highlights, for me, are those procgen dungeons, which string together traps, spawns, chests, locks and hazards in mildly broken ways. I wouldn’t say no to another 100 floors of such shenanigans.

Even if you don’t plump for the DLC, you might want to revisit Moonring. It’s been updated a fair bit since October 2023. Read more on Steam.