Bring the lube.
One of your new minions! Meet the "Dark Mistress".
Holy fuck, you've stumbled upon a good game! Dungeon Keeper has inspired Minecraft, Dungeons, A Game of Dwarves, Impire, War for the Overworld and surely more to come. Let me explain what is going so you can have some idea of what you've been missing.
Dungeon Keeper and its sequel Dungeon Keeper 2 is a strategy micromanagement video game published on the PC for win95 to Vista, but it works fine on wine for the Linux inclined. Just Avoid the IOS/mobile version- we'll get to that in a bit. Dungeon Keeper 3 was in the works, until EA ran over bullfrog and cancelled it. Fuck EA.
Dungeon Keeper 1 was released June 26th 1997, while its sequel was released June 30th 1999. Both games were developed by Bullfrog, the first game being managed and led by Peter Molyneux (remembered for his shit fest of a series Fable).
The game puts you in the position of the unnamed, omnipotent being known as the "Dungeon Keeper". As a dungeon keeper, you're expected to raise up an army of evil minions and help your friend(?) the horned reaper reach the surface world, for him to reign down terror onto the humans that populate those lands.
But wait, there's more! while you're working on your evil fortress of doom the knights, elves, fairies and all those other boring lawful good characters you play in every other fantasy game on the face of the planet will come in to try to kill you. It's your job to take your army of minions, catch all of them you can (kill those who resist) then turn them over to the Dark Mistresses for "reprogramming". With the enemy army now under your control, it's easy to take the overworld for yourself! See? Those pointless elves are good for something after all!
In order to do that, you've got to keep an eye on your gold, your mana, the position of the enemy player, your weak points (unfortified walls), your rooms, what your minions are up to, where to strategically place traps, and more. As a Dungeon Keeper, you're expected to build rooms that will attract certain types of minions (and allow for all sorts of other things, like converting enemy minions or heroes). Rooms cost money, so you'll have to mine yourself a few gold veins to make bank. These veins run out however, so you do have a time restraint even if there isn't one present. However, in some maps, there are gem blocks, which are an infinite source of wealth. This is important if you need time to level up your minions before a big battle.
There's also the fun challenge of having critters with no qualms about murder living together. Sure some conflicts are obvious like the fact that giant spiders will naturally eat your fly population, but knowing some of the less obvious ones will be key in preventing an in-dungeon massacre. Protip: Give the Horned Reaper his own private quarters with reinforced walls, his own hatchery, and his own training space. Put it where adventurers can find it and heavily boobytrap and double barricade any corridors leading to it. You'll thank us later.
At the end of the first Dungeon Keeper, the boss battle is with the "Avatar", which is just a straight up sprite rip from the Persona 4's Avatar. Who cares? Beating it's ass with an army of leather and steel clad badasses is still one of the most fun and challenging experiences in strategy gaming. Your move, Keeper!
Don't buy Dungeon Keeper 2014[]
THIS thing is a "Dark Mistress"?!?!
See those squares that say "17h". They literally take 17 hours to mine.
Over 200,000 people signed the petition for a new Dungeon Keeper, yet EA still shoveled out sports games instead of listening to what people want. That is until a brand new Dungeon Keeper game was revealed in 2014! Electronic Arts has finally decided to stop being cunts, get off it's ass and let Mythic Entertainment create a new Dungeon Keeper game!
Wait, don't rejoice yet. This game sucks. In true EA fashion they took something beloved and wiped their ass with it in the name of getting more money.
It's "free to play" and made for mobile systems (iOS, ect). By free to play we mean "pay to make the game run at any pace any sane creature would find acceptable". You do this by using real life money to buy "gems".
Want to mine a block of gold? Wait 4 hours. Of course you could always buy the gold that would have come from that block of gold with gems instead. It takes over two real-life days to build a 4x4 room without spending gems. Now, a 4x4 room is so tiny only a couple low level flies can live there. It's pretty much worthless! You could pay gems to build it in seconds, though! Now you need to buy three more to have a decent starter lair. Seeing the problem?
And then there's the character designs. Look what they did to our lovely Dark mistress as just an example. See that fugly thing in the back? That's an imp. The art must have been bought off DeviantArt in exchange for a brand new set of markers.
Oh, and they turned combat into a turret defence style game that happens on cue, removed random attacks, have a VERY linear plot, made it so the game requires an internet connection to run and there are very few levels to play. This game also yells at you for not playing. As in literally YELLS through your speakers even if you have them on mute or have no internet connection and can't play.
I know, you're probably screaming that it's just us saying that, so here are a few reviews for this "game" and some of the "praise" they have for it:
- I started trying to dig out a 4x4 room two nights ago. Two nights ago... and I am not finished digging out a 4x4 room.
- The game is the very definition of pay-2-win, a true money trap.
- Dungeon Keeper is not a video game, not any more. Instead it’s just a virtual beggar, constantly demanding your spare change and offering nothing in return.
DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME!
Looks familiar, doesn't it?
War for the Overworld (A kickstarter project made by subteranean games) has been released on steam for bedrock beta testing, it is a spiritual successor to the Dungeon Keeper series and is titled after what the third in the series of DK's would have been named. If you REALLY want to play a "new Dungeon Keeper" this is your best bet. Otherwise, just buy the first two game from Good Old Games or something.
Fun facts[]
EA are cunts. Seriously.