Dungeon Keeper

Dungeon Keeper is a strategy game made by Bullfrog. It was released in 1997. Later the same year, the expansion pack, The Deeper Dungeons came. It contained more levels that could be played in any order you like. In the original you had to finish the levels before before you could play the next level. Bullfrog also released Dungeon Keeper Gold Edition that contained both the original game and the Deeper Dungeons. It also contained a level editor so you can make your own levels. Dungeon keeper is a very good game actually and it hasn't got as much attention as it should have. Therefore I decided to write this article so you can discover this unique game again.

The game
The game takes place in dungeons that you dig bigger. You are evil and have to fight the heroes that wants to stop this evil. On all levels you have a dungeon heart. You have to protect this heart because if it is destroyed you lose. It is the only way you can lose. All enemies try to destroy this heart. You have a spell that you can make imps with. The imps will make as you say. They are useless to fight but very good to dig. You can indicate how they should dig. Often you make your dungeon so you got rooms. In these rooms you can build treasure room, lair, hatchery, training room and much more. You also need creatures to defend your dungeon. It will come creatures from portals to join you. There is many different kind of creatures. They all like different things so some of them will not come if you not have what they want. Warlocks need to have a library to come. A bile demon wants a lair and a hatchery that is big enough. They also have their own temper and there is no limit of this. Spiders and flies will have problems to be together. Often the spider kills flies.

You control a hand with the mouse. This hand can be used to pick up your creatures(not more than eight at one time) and drop them on your ground wherever you want. If you want them to train you drop them in the training room. If you want to torture them you drop them in the torture chamber. To build rooms you have to place it where it should be. You have to click each tile and that can be a bit slow if the room is big but it's only to go on. There is also many different spells you can use. You can use the speed spell to speed up your creatures for a while. You can heal and protect your creatures. Most of the spells you have to research in the library. Not the imp spell and the possess spell. The possess spell is a very useful spell. You can't in an easy way tell you creatures to go to some point. There is a spell called call to arms that can be used to this but your creatures are a bit slow and will always have to fight enemies they see. With the possess spell you take control over a creature. Instead of see everything from above you will see everything from inside the creature. This makes the game feel so cool. You get the felling that you actually are running in the dungeons and so on. If you not using the 3D mode you will see different inside some creatures. Vampires will see everything in red and dragons will have something that looks like they are burned in their eyes. It is not very easy to fight inside a creature. You miss all the time and so on. If there is many creature you will have hard to see anything because of spells are everywhere and it's only confusing. One vs. one fights is often better when you are inside if you have the right technique. It is often possible to run away from enemies in their own dungeon and reach their heart. You can even manage to kill it quite often.

There is also traps you can place in your dungeon if enemies come that far. The traps are made in the workshop. The imps carries boxes from the workshop to the place where it should be and then the trap working.

Single player mode
In the game you will fight very much against the heroes. At least in the original single player mode. The heroes don't build anything. Often they only walk around and wait for you to come. On some levels you they also have a heart that you have to destroy. In the end of the level you will meet Lord of the Land and kill him. The heroes sometimes have traps and rooms that you have to go through. The heroes sometimes tries to be clever and come down from the the ceiling when your creatures enter the room. You will of course meet some other teams that are like you but have another color. In the last level you will meet the Avatar. He looks a bit ugly with his backpack.

Go and play it!
Of course there is much more to say about this game but we can't make it in only one article. The best thing you can do is to play the game and you can explore the good things in it or should I say evil? There is a Dungeon Keeper 2 but I don't recommend that. I have played it and it doesn't have the same feeling. The game is too bright and the creatures are not even bigger when they are a higher level and so on. Your best creature in the whole game, the horned reaper, is not even a creature any more. He is a spell! A big disappointment for a Dungeon Keeper fan. The casinos was a cool thing but that doesn't help it. Buy the Dungeon Keeper Gold Edition and you will be sure that you not missing anything.