You start off as a powerful lord of hell and, since no one gives a damn about loyalty in hell, you're soon betrayed. You flee your throne and have to work your way back up, killing your superiors one by one until you get to the usurper that took you down to begin with. How do you do this? By attracting and torturing poor heroes to death, of course!
Dungeons is primarily played from an overhead perspective. You can rotate the camera at any angle and do some beating first person if you really want to see the blood fly. You control the layout of your dungeon, the paths, the traps, the monsters, and the treasures that lie within. You also can venture into battle yourself as the dungeon lord, and pound some pathetic heros face in.
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will come up from time to time from people other than your henchmen.
Here my boss orders me to water the flowers of his friend's
grave, truly a job fitting for a demonic overlord. Compliance
is optional, but pissing off your boss often leads to them letting
heroes 'escape' their dungeon into yours, at a staircase in a very
perilous position!
But you won't wouldn't want to do that the moment they descend into your dungeon. Like any good villain, your lord gets his jollies by toying with his victims first! Slaying a hero from the start only gives you a pittance of gold that they were carrying on them. The other primary resource, Soul Energy, is from the heroes enjoyment of your dungeon. I say enjoyment like that because some heroes are sadists that love pain, some just love stealing your gold, others will crave combat and killing monsters, and some just want to sit in your library and read for a bit. As heroes meet their needs, they gain soul energy, and then theyre ripe for the harvest to use in creating more shinies that both lure and impale adventurers!
So basically youre playing The Sims with the lives of adventurers in the most maniacally evil way possible. Instead of playing with dogs and books, they play with hellhounds, spike traps, and ancient grimoires. Instead of going to work, they're sent to rot in your dungeons. Instead of watching them die of old age (or perhaps tragically in a tiny prison made of drywall), you'll harvest their soul energy and move on to the next hero. Is this idea of creating a tragi-comic experience for the heroes a worthy succession to the olden days of clickety clicking a ghostly green hand to dial up the punishment? Read on to find out!
Cautions
Dungeons is Rated M for Mature for some rather obvious violence mostly. It's all animated and not very realistic, so it's pretty safe for everyone. Nothing warrants an M rating in this title to be honest.
Gameplay - 95 / 100
assigning you tasks for a level. Typically these involve survival,
locating treasure, defeating other dungeon lords, or just being an
asshole and increasing your Prestige. Prestige is a stat that boosts
all of your heros statistics, which includes your typical strength,
magic, constitution, and agility. The more of a badass you are known to
be, the bigger the multiplier you get on your base stats for the level.
This multiplier can max out at 400%, so its good to be known.
How do you become known? The best overlords build a wicked dungeon, not
just filled with things that heroes want, but the little stuff that
makes a dungeon a homeeerie lamps, bookcases, smoldering campfires,
and random remains. These not only increase your prestige, but can be
used to control the path of heroes, who often walk in the path of
things to admire and not just desire. Increasing your prestige also
grants access to bigger and better treasures and toys for adventurers
to crave, to better satisfy their needs and then satisfy your needs
when theyre slain!
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stronghold that must be defended at all costs. Unlike most
games of the genre though, you really don't have to defend it that
often. Heroes only charge it when they're bored.
Even if you fall in combat, you'll be resurrected at the
heart with a penalty to the heart's HP, so there's little reason to be
cautious of going after a juicy hero.
Of course, it wouldnt be a dungeon without torture. Prisons and
torture cells are available for extracting every last bit of a heros
soul energy, but theyre not without a downside. On most maps, theres
a Champion hourglass that slowly ticks down with your most nefarious
deeds, such as jailing and torturing. These Champion enemies don't care
about your pretty gadgets and treasures, and seek out the heart of your
dungeon to end your reign. They also incite nearby heroes to do the
same, and thus need to be taken care of quickly.
Your lord is a badass, but he cant handle a horde of heroes alone.
Players have the ability to call in monsters of their own via
pentagrams, which spawn a team of guardians to control an area. They
also function as ways to please heroes who crave pain and dishing it
out, but a cluster of hellspawn fighting alongside you will ruin any
mob. These pentagrams extend your control, enabling you to build
further out and specialize areas of your dungeon. Youll need to do
this to fufill the various quests that come up as you play. Some are
easybeat the mission, kill a certain hero. Others are more devious,
such as satisfying X heroes completely, sacrificing resources to your
boss, or even watering flowers.
As you progress through the trash and make it to hell to confront the usurper, the heroes that come into hell change as well. Mere adventurers will be battle-hardened barbarians, apprentices will be high warlocks, and even thieves and high priestesses will occasionally show up. They all have similar needs, although rather than walking into their demise from traps, most thieves actually have a desire to find and disarm them. If you built your dungeon right, the thieves job should be on par with Indiana Jones. They should barely make it past your array of traps, find wondrous treasure, and then be greeted by your Nazi demon overlord as they attempt to escape.
Bosses are a little more complicated, and often involve an enemy dungeon heart and summon/room mechanics that resemble a certain MMO with over 10 million subscribers. So long as you take your time establishing your prestige before going to confront them, youll have no difficulty dispatching them. If youre done with the main story, there are sandbox missions to build the ultimate dungeon at your leisure and some survival maps to test your mettle. An evil lords job is never done.
Graphics - 65 / 100
While zoomed in, the lighting and detail of the various gimmicks throughout your dungeon is impressive. Unfortunately, thats about all there is to be impressed about graphically. The animations are passable. The initial tileset for the first set of missions is very drab looking, but as you progress into the catacombs and eventually hell, things liven up and get more colorful. If this sounds familiar, its about the same as Diablo! However, your dungeon lord looks pretty basic regardless of your prestige, and attacks rather anemically for an all powerful overlord.
Sound - 77 / 100
Part writing genius, and part delivery, the main character voice acting is spot on. But like most titles of its type (and action RPGs aren't its type), the music is non-existent. The only time youll hear anything is when your dungeon heart is under attack, and besides that, youll hear generic one liners from heroes that wander your dungeon and attack. Those generic one liners are weakly delivered and inevitably relate to leveling up or experience, and it gets old after a while.
Value - 95 / 100
It's not always about maiming
and torture. Some missions involve interception and
escorting, providing some much needed variety to building the ultimate
'luxurious' dungeon.
Missions take a very long time to clear, and it can take
some time to really understand the workings of a truly masterful
dungeon. So long as
you enjoy the basic formula, youll
spend forever on this game and get your moneys worth and then some. Patches are even adding
more content and DLC
is available to further your experience underground.
Just when you think youve seen it all, each
new boss completely changes your loadout of traps, monsters, design
gadgets,
and treasures. Theres
a lot of fun to
be had here for a single player game.
Lasting Appeal - 60 / 100
Dungeons is a wonderful experience to get into and making the forces of good suffer seems like itd never grow old. But once youve got the hang of dungeon building down, youll go through a lot of the same motions and the game will lose its charm quickly. Once youve cleared the campaign, youve seen most of what the game has to offer and likely wont stick with it. The game is worth the long hours youll put into it at first, but after that its likely just going to take a spot on your steam game list.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Dungeon Base Building is always fun.
- Entertaining writing and delivery in the storyline.
- Some creative missions and objectives
Cons:
- Ugly graphics, yet semi-demanding system requirements.
- Enemies sometimes behave erratically.
- Aside from short-lived DLCs, little reason to play once the main story is finished.
Conclusion
While Dungeons is a unique take on being an evil mastermind, its not without flaws. However, the charm of the gameplay and tormenting of souls keeps you wanting more. The appeal might fall with time, but if you enjoy the first hour, youll enjoy the next thirty easily.
Overall 78/100 - Good
