Abyss Ring Let's Play: Defeating Monsters, Cooking Them, and Clearing Three Floors of the Labyrinth While Keeping Hunger at Bay

At the entrance to the labyrinth is a blue magic circle for returning to town. The commentator praises this as a thoughtful, adventurer-friendly design. The protagonist is still a novice adventurer, carrying only a flimsy-looking shield, a club, and a bow and arrows. The commentator jokes that they'll probably find good gear on the corpses of senior adventurers before long.

Right after starting to explore, they find a health potion on a shelf. At this point, no threatening monsters have appeared yet. However, traps are set throughout the labyrinth, and a moment of carelessness can leave you riddled with holes in an instant, so the commentator explains that you need to proceed carefully, checking as you go.

The first monster they encounter is one the commentator assumed was some kind of boar. But it stands right up and walks on two legs. The first-person view makes distances hard to judge, but the enemy's attacks don't reach very far. The commentator dodges its attacks and lands club hits during the openings afterward, whittling down its health. The creature they defeat this way is an "Orc," and its corpse yields "Orc Meat."

Upon entering an open room, they hear multiple footsteps. The shield in their left hand looks like it could break at any moment, but it can completely nullify weaker attacks. So the commentator uses the shield against the fast-moving enemies. The "Zombies" defeated here drop money and dairy products. Since your health gradually drains once the hunger meter in the upper left of the screen hits zero, cheese that can be eaten as-is is a welcome drop. The commentator declares a policy of actively hunting zombies whenever they spot them.

The goblin that appears next wields a weapon that looks better than the protagonist's. Unsure whether their feeble shield can block it, the commentator fights mainly by dodging. Defeating it yields no drop, but further on they obtain leather gloves from a treasure chest in a small room and a "Broadsword" from inside a coffin. The commentator names the feeling of gradually building up your equipment as one of the game's great pleasures.

As their hunger grows, the commentator hurries to find the cooking area that should be in front of the stairs leading down. The rest area they reach has a portal, which would let them return to town once to learn magic. This time they decide not to go back to town and to press on as far as they can.

In the rest area they find a fresh cabbage. With the orc meat on hand, they can make either "Seared Orc Meat" or "Orc Tonkatsu." The commentator chooses the tonkatsu for good luck. Eating it grants an effect that boosts stamina recovery the next day, and they head straight to bed.

Having eaten well and slept well, they've risen to level 2. On the second floor, the monsters change as well. When they launch a preemptive attack on a green slime that hasn't noticed them yet, they find that switching from the club to the sword has greatly increased their damage. The "Green Slime" isn't poisonous, so it becomes a candidate side dish for dinner.

Next, two skeletons rise up at once. They hold the same shabby shields as the protagonist. For a brief moment after attacking, their shields drop, but attacking at the same time leaves you defenseless too. So the commentator adjusts their spacing and fights by baiting attacks from both. After taking down one, it becomes a one-on-one fight, which they say they could handle calmly.

Unlike the green ones, purple slimes are poisonous. However, defeating them occasionally yields vinegar. The treasure chest they find further on turns out to be a "Mimic." Mimics are said to taste like high-end crab, and the commentator looks forward to dinner. They have a bit of flour and soy sauce pilfered from barrels on hand. Bringing up "experience from the ramen shop I worked at until last week," the commentator jokes that they might be able to make chilled mimic ramen.

Scorpions sometimes lurk on the ceilings of rest areas, so caution is needed. This time there's no trouble, and after checking their provisions they start cooking. The options are "Seared Mimic," "Ghost Pumpkin Soup," "Slime Jelly," and "Chili Mimic," and the commentator chooses the mimic dish, "Chili Mimic." Remarking that they're almost happier to find a mimic than the contents of a treasure chest, they fall asleep right after the meal.

Thanks to the rest, their level has risen to 5. Regarding the system in which you only level up after a proper meal and rest, the commentator calls it one of the game's charming storytelling touches.

From a treasure chest they find an old shield left behind by a fallen adventurer. At the back of the room they find a device emitting a suspicious glow, with a group of skeletons gathered in front of it. According to the commentator, by this point they had grown used to fighting multiple enemies. They say they had naturally come to sense how close they could get before an enemy would swing its weapon, and how far they needed to back off to get out of range. After dealing with the skeletons, they fill up on bread brought from home, then touch the device and are warped to the boss room.

Arriving at a place that's obviously a boss room at a glance, the commentator judges that the sword and shield put them at a disadvantage. They switch to the bow and arrows they've been saving up to this point and take on "The Labyrinth's Raging Bull, Minotaur."

The basic strategy is to dodge and land arrows during the recovery after its attacks. The hit effect sometimes changes, and from this the commentator infers that arrows seem to have headshot detection. Since arrows are limited, they adopt a policy of aiming for the head as much as possible to whittle it down efficiently. The fast dash can only be used forward. So the commentator repeats a pattern of shooting, baiting the enemy's attack, then turning around and dashing away. They say it's effective if you can start running right after entering the enemy's range.

The commentator also reasons that since this world has ranged magic attacks, the boss must have some countermeasure of its own. Bosses of this type tend to change their behavior based on distance, often charging or using ranged attacks if you get too far away. So after dodging, they close the distance themselves, steering the boss into repeating only monotonous actions.

When the HP bar dropped to half, the commentator anticipated a change in its attack patterns. However, nothing in particular changed, so they kept attacking. Of the dozens of arrows they had, only about 10 remained, but they succeeded in defeating it and obtained "Minotaur Meat." At the rest area, seared meat was also an option, but the commentator chose the "Minotaur Rice Bowl," paired with rice, ate a large serving, and went straight to sleep.

This run wraps up at the third floor, ending after clearing as far as is currently possible. In the commentator's assessment, the game offers the classic joys of dungeon exploration, like battling monsters and finding new gear, while the cooking elements maintain a somehow warm atmosphere throughout, making it a strangely satisfying experience. The game is developed by a solo developer, and the full version is reportedly coming soon. The commentator closes by saying they're looking forward to the day they can defeat and cook dragons and harpies.