So angry’s trying to get me into Dungeon Keeper 2, an old but supposibly popular game. Everyone knows (except I) of what you do. Angry claims it’s “like The Sims”. I don’t really see a resemblance.
So you’re an evil dungeon keeper, and your task is to build rooms for your minions, and train them for battle against invaders. It sounds simple, but it’s not. It has a steep learning curve that I still haven’t gotten over. In the Single Player campaign, you must work up your forces and do battle with the boss, and take his ‘portal gem’.
Your currency is gold. You can get this from making your Imps mine in specified areas that you mark out. You need gold to afford specific themed rooms, like a Lair for your creatures to sleep, a Hatchery for food, and a Training Room to increase their skill levels.
Each room has its own breed of creature that summons it. However, to get more than just Imps, you must link your dungeon to a Portal, and have them claim it as your own. This will cause fire-breathing Salamanders to show up when you have a Training Room, or Warlocks when you have a Library.
So you’re having to do a balancing act between building rooms and getting more gold to do so. This is harder in the later levels, as the game assumes you know what you’re doing.
However, you’re not alone. A disembodied voice called “The Mentor” is your evil (as evil as you are! Muhahahaha!!) dungeon adviser. He tells you if your minions are unhappy, if a room is too small for them, and when it’s “payday” for your creatures. He also informs you if your dungeon is breached by invaders.
There’s three issues I’ve seen with this game. The first one, it’s “stuck” in Fullscreen mode. There is a way to set it to Windowed via the registry, but this doesn’t work in Windows 7.
The second thing, the cheat mode doesn’t seem to work. Though the cheats don’t really do much (nothing in the lines of keeping your creatures happy, or spawning creatures that you want). So it’s not really important.
So I mentioned there’s a Single Player campaign earlier. There’s also a “Pet Dungeon”, which is half Sandbox, half Scenario. When you start one of the several tiered levels, within 10-20 minutes, the game has unlocked all rooms for you. But you must still make sure your minions are happy and ready. The sandbox side is being able to summon heroes to invade your dungeon, or don’t at all.
But be careful. Every time you summon, their skill levels go up one point. And if your minions aren’t ready at the same skill level as they are, find your dungeon heart in trouble.
But anyway, the Pet Dungeon is the best way to learn how to play. So, that’s my opinion on Dungeon Keeper 2. It has a pretty steep learning curve, but it’s fun. Especially when you see a ton of gold ore just waiting to be mined out by your imps.
And I found something cool. In the original Dungeon Keeper, you get to have dragons. But to me, they look like Creepers from Minecraft. They have no arms, just legs. They have wings, of course.