Dungeons - upcoming Dungeon Keeper-style strategy game

Quick overview.

WARNING! This is only a brief description and is most probably inaccurate in parts.

This is only based my my experiences in a short period of time. I'm only on the 3rd level so don't take this as gospel. Spoilers are probable.



Compared to DK:
  • Dungeon hearts: Tick
  • Creatures: Tick
  • Heroes: Tick
  • Spells: Tick
  • There's no tile claiming for territory, instead there's an "area of influence" what can be expanded by placing Pentagrams.
  • These Pentagrams seem to spawn creatures on them. You can place different Pentagrams that spawn different creatures depending on what animal lairs you control. For example if your area of influence had a bat cave inside, you can have a bat Pentagram and bats spawn on it. So there are no portals with a creature limit.
  • From what I can gather, you cant move your creatures away from the Pentagram. I may be wrong but this is how it seems. So there is no picking creatures up and dropping them.
  • From what I can see you cannot build specific rooms. There are just preexisting rooms that you capture with your area of influence.
  • What rooms you have determine what creatures you can spawn.
  • You have imp-like creatures that are used to break down walls and collect gold etc
  • The main thing I noticed is that you don't feel in control. Let me explain: In DK you were some huge hand that hovered over the battlefield. You could slap creatures, pick them up, drop them etc There is none of this in Dungeons. Instead you have a character who walks around your dungeon, and you use him to do your hero and enemy creature killing. Because you have to command this dude, no picking things up etc, you don't seem in control. That is one of the main things I liked about DK.

Gameplay:
  • There's something called prestige which is used to unlock certain items and creatures. So for example you might need 40 prestige to unlock the skeleton creature.
  • You get prestige by placing objects such as lamps, coffins and skulls within your dungeon. These objects cost something called Soul Energy.
  • To gain soul energy you need to kill happy heroes. These heroes come out of gates within your dungeon that you need to open. Once one is open, as far as I can tell, you cant close them again. And so there is an invasion of heroes at regular intervals. In order to make them happy you need to let them steal your gold. When they are full with gold you kill them. The happier they are, the more Soul Energy you get basically.
  • It seems to follow a loop of:
    1. Wait 5 mins for heroes to appear
    2. Wait for them to steal your gold
    3. Kill them
    4. Collect Soul Energy
  • At the moment there doesn't seem to be any rival keepers who you need to kill, you just get instructed to do things by the game. There is an objective list that you need to follow.

I'm struggling to summarise the game now in a short concise sentence. Aspects of the game seem silly and pointless and at times feels more of a puzzle game with a set agenda. The graphics are pretty and are something which I would have expected a DK3 to look like if it was made. The are aspects of DK but a lot is different. For this reason, I don't think the developers were aiming for a DKish sequel, and it does seem a little unfair to compare the two. However, a part of me wishes they had made it more of a sequel.

Slightly disappointed at the moment but I hope that if I begin to understand the game better, I shall enjoy it more.

Off to play some BF:BC2 now instead though!
 
It seems to follow a loop of:
Wait 5 mins for heroes to appear
Wait for them to steal your gold
Kill them
Collect Soul Energy
Click to expand...
Imo this is what destroys the games, they should've had it so if an enemy takes your gold you lose money and soul energy and u have to stop them.

I found the game to be extremely poor because of a number of stupid ideas from the developers, sure i would've liked a Dk clone but letting enemies steal ur gold for more soul energy doesn't make sense
 
Demo has been up a few days now.

It's absolutely nothing like Dungeon Keeper in terms of gameplay, and when I say nothing, I mean absolutely nothing.

It's more like Evil Genius, which is a game I never got along with. Hence I won't be dropping £30 on this, it just seems overcomplicated for overcomplication's sake.
 
Lemin said:
Well done that troll
Click to expand...

Too much truth to be troll I'm afraid.

To satiate you however, I will contribute something. I gave the demo a try and approached the game with an open mind. If the game was good on it's own merits I would be happy to ignore the similarities to DK. The verdit? It's, not bad. Not my cup-of-tea but I would be lying if I called it a bad game. It's got a certain charm and looks pretty-enough. It's just not as good as Dungeo K... Damn, I failed. The biggest problem for me is the price though. It feels more like a £15 game than a £30 one.
 
Well the mechanic seems to fall on it's face fast. I mean there's the whole "let heroes in, they steal gold, you kill them" mechanic. But you can't move creatures, you can only place them. So you can't set traps for the heroes as they leave, instead you have to run around like a headless chicken yourself killing heroes and dragging them off to prison.

The only real use for the creatures is to protect the dungeon heart, the rest is up to you to do.
 
Neil79 said:
It seems to follow a loop of: Imo this is what destroys the games, they should've had it so if an enemy takes your gold you lose money and soul energy and u have to stop them.
Click to expand...

If the hero escapes you lose gold and don't gain soul energy, however, it's messy and overly complicated control system makes it less than fun to play.
 
Tries to be constructive (deep breath)

Overpriced (its a single player indie/rts hash)
Incomplete/buggy release with weak AI
Gameplay is just repetative after the first few levels

I'd sooner fork over £30 for a remake of dungeon keeper 2 with fixed compatability + improved AI than this pile of rubbish

Kalyipso should stick with tropico, this release was a huge step backwards for them... the fact Steam happily asks people to pay for this game without even offering a Demo (theres one available on the net) should be enough warning

Yea its negative... but I really did hope they'd get something good from this release as I absolutely loved DK to bits
 
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