Couldn't find much mention of this game on here, so figured I'd start a thread.
Steam store pageDwelvers is a real-time strategy game focused around the management and expansion of an underground lair and its cadre of various beasties. Heavily inspired by Dungeon Keeper, Dwelvers focuses more on the individual needs and personalities of your minions than on the multiplayer/skirmish battles (which is more the forte of War for the Overworld), and puts the player into a more of a freeform, procedurally generated scenario to explore and expand into the subterranean world however they wish (although there is work being done on a more structured campaign).
Unlike Dungeon Keeper or War for the Overworld, Dwelvers actually features a 3rd dimension, granting players increased freedom (and confusion) when designing their preferred style of malevolent communal living. It's kept somewhat simplified however, so there's only ever one "floor", meaning you don't have to worry about an impossible network of criss-crossing tunnels. The ingame environments use this extra depth quite well, and it lends itself quite well (either through the random generation or through player design) to some very pretty open caverns.
As the game focuses more on keeping your denizens happy, you'll need to set them up with appropriate sleeping arrangements, till the dark soil of the underearth in order to bake bread and brew beer, design dining halls for them to relax and enjoy the somewhat dank delicacies of cave life, and keep them fighting fit with training rooms, blacksmiths and more.
The game also features a (mostly) fully-functional surface world, which can be accessed by conquering and claiming one of the many hero gates scattered across the world. At last, you're free to exact revenge on those meddling champions by launching your
own raids into
their world for a change!
And what would a devious devil's den be without an array of infernal traps? Dwelvers' trap and mechanisms system is more akin to Evil Genius than Dungeon Keeper, in that you place and link up multiple parts in order to create a custom-made machine of death and/or mysteriously jamming and malfunctioning completely because you forgot to properly link up the thing to the other thing, and now there are paladins all over the kitchen.
Now, the game's still in fairly early access, and you may have noticed the "mixed" review on Steam. There's a reason for this, and I'd like to explain why such a seemingly fun and original game would end up with such a poor reception.
This is due to the game having gone through an extraordinarily slow development process thus far. Dwelvers is for the most part a one-man project, constructed from the ground down by one Rasmus Ljunggren. Rasmus attempted to dedicate himself fully to programming the game, but due to very poor sales (on what was at the time an extremely unfinished product) and a threateningly large amount of debt, he was forced to go back to working full time, which naturally puts a dent in how much work was done on the game.
The updates trailed off and the silent breaks between updates grew larger, until after nearly a year of no feedback from Rasmus, the game was presumed to be dead and abandoned.
Rasmus had, however, not given up on the project... He was just being his typically shy and somewhat self-deprecating self and felt really bad about pushing out news posts when he didn't have any actual game updates to show for it. He'd been working his buns off trying to pay down the debts that had been accumulated, and as such hadn't been focusing on patching the game. Eventually, he managed to pay down the bulk of his loans and was ready to put aside some more time towards developing Dwelvers, which had already gotten a poor rating by that time.
However, he was "inspired" by the negative reviews, as he found that most of them were giving the thumbs down because they felt the game had been abandoned, not because they didn't like the game. He just needed to prove to people that he was still dedicated to the project.
So, with the small amount of cash he had left over, he ended up buying out the original publishers of Dwelvers. This meant both that he'd be able to get a larger portion of any future proceeds, and that the former publishers would no longer be associated with his game.
This was significant because the publishing company in question was SMP, the company behind Towns, and thus the fiasco of
that game's abandonment. He felt that Dwelvers was getting lumped in as "another cash-grab scam from SMP", and didn't want that hanging over the game as he tried to redeem himself. There have apparently been a couple other disagreements between the two, but I don't know anything about that.
Anyways, since that time, Dwelvers has released a number of major updates in a fairly short time span, including a major graphics and UI rework (which it sorely needed). Rasmus seems legitimately determined to see the project through to completion (and also still a bit apologetic about his long absence), and he's actually even been offered help from the software company he works for in fleshing out and patching up the game. In his own words, "development is going faster than ever!"
However, the game still doesn't have a lot of publicity, which is why I figured I'd put this up. I played Dungeon Keeper 2 to death as a kid, and always loved the aspect of taking care of all the little mooks that served me in my sprawling dungeon complex. Dwelvers goes a step further, expanding upon the economy and giving you greater freedom in designing your lair of evilness. It's still rather rough around the edges, but it's got a lot of heart. A dungeon heart, you might even say.
I highly recommend giving the
free demo on Steam a try. And, if you like what you see, show the dev some support for staying with the project and continuing to work on it through adversity.
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Topic: Dwelvers: Dungeon Housekeeper (Read 1603 times)