PC Game classic: DUNGEON KEEPER

Boy, is it already 20 years ago since I eagerly went to the store to buy this game. My preferred PC game magazine had run a series of articles during the previous year, about this groundbreaking game. The chief developer, Peter Molyneux, was famous for titles like Populous and he had some interesting philosophies about game design and the eternal battle between good and evil.

The idea with Dungeon Keeper, was that it was much more fun to be the evil one since the good ones were always so out and out good and had no quirks or exceptions to their goodness. So the game is set up as dungeon digging and attracting evil creatures, to be able to fight the cheasy good guys.

You are presented wit ha map of a certain underground area. Then you can use little working minions called imps to dig out the rubble, collect gold and then you create rooms of lairs, hatcheries and training etc. to attract evil creatures for your "army". The size, shape and sturdiness of the rooms determines the number and type of creature you attract. As this "micromanagement" progresses, you may encounter the good ones and fight them. Hopefully your army is trained and leveled to a sufficient strength to finally beat the "Lord of the Land" as he enters the scene like the cheasy prince charming he is in his shining Armour.

just like with other stardard strategy games, you spend a lot of time building the Dungeon and at times it does feel a little tedious, redoing all the dungeon-keeping you just spend a lot of time doing in the previous level. But at the same time the Dungeon areas are quite different the way they are setup and you have to figure out optimal ways to lay out the rooms and their placement in relation to each other to make sure they attract as many creatures as possible. The amount of available gold may also have an important say on your dungeon keeping style from map to map.

There is a lot of humor in the game. Their respective "nests" in the lairs have unique style and they give certain complaints and moans when and if you pick them up to drop them another place where they are more sufficient, like in the training room. You can even slap them with your "hand of god" and they will work harder for you. But do not overdo it... then they will leave the dungeon.

It is pure nostalgia playing this game after so many years. I realize that gameplay can outway much of graphic design and other empty calories. This is pure, unique gameplay and filled with fun ideas. It is a classic. It can be bought from gog.com at a very reasonable price. please give it a try if you are in a PC nostalgia mood some day :-)

https://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper