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[Cthulhu]

Yeah, the minimap looks pretty bad but it might just be a placeholder.

[Kagus]

You know, I came into this thread with a spark of new hope, a new hope that maybe someone out there was indeed heading down the right path, and that truly awesome games were being viewed as great things to aspire towards emulating, not financially disruptive pitfalls to be avoided.

But, unlike most of the people here, I actually got discouraged by the screenshots.  This may come as a surprise, but there is one single thing exhibited in the art style and the UI that I actually like...  And that's the minimap.

That's right.  That fuzzy, pixelated mess that is still a perfectly good method for quickly figuring out what's going on and where.  Something that gives an exceptionally simple overview of your dungeon, which may otherwise be disguised by the various props and shininess that you see in the standard view.

Everything else just looks like a bad, bog-standard RPG/RTS on wheels.  The icons, the resource counters, even the damned text font fills me with doubt. 

We see invading heroes getting cut down to drop a sparkling leather bag at their feet, we see health circles (oddly, I thought the 'flowers' of Dungeon Keeper were far less invasive than foot-level health indicators.  Didn't detract from the "living dungeon" feel), we see combat damage reports as little colored floaty numbers...  And that succubus art looks downright disturbing, and not in a good, creepy way.  More in a "I can't believe it's not Anime!" way.

I don't know, I'm probably overreacting...  But I hold no great expectations for this.

[Eagleon]

There you go Cthulhu.

I mean... *coughs*

I think the biggest impact Dungeon Keeper had on me was the audio, oddly enough. It had tremendous style - the crumbling walls, the muffled cries of the imps, the trickle of coins, the beating dungeon heart that faded as you moved away. And no music - though I'm given to understand some versions had it, I think that would detract from the cavey feel. I hope they'll keep it on par with the originals. Could care less about graphics - if it sounds any worse or lacks the right atmosphere, I couldn't play it without thinking something is missing.

[Moogie]

Looks ok. Not too excited about it, really. I agree with Eagleon's point about the audio atmosphere; if they don't get that right, then the rest isn't worth a damn.

To be honest, the interface looks a bit crowded. I can also see myself getting lost in the thick of larger battles; there's so much background detail in the floors and walls that I'm finding it hard to spot individual units in those screenshots unless they're zoomed way in.

[GaelicVigil]

The main problem I had with Dungeon Keeper was the whole tongue-in-cheek undertone.  I would love to see a DK remake that was more serious in tone.  I may be wrong (and I'm usually not), but the art-style alone in this one doesn't seem to be going that direction.  Am I the only one that is really sick of the WoW-style art in games lately?

I really loved the art in Divine Divinity and would love a DK remake that looked something like this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

or this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The dungeons in Divine Divinity felt really creepy, like a place you definitely did not want to be stuck in.  It would be much more interesting to see a hardened, blood-stained warrior hack apart limbs deep inside a foul-mouthed goblin infested dungeon in DK fashion, rather than watch "puffy rainbow man" run around a Nerf playroom.

[Duuvian]

I liked DK2. This looks promising. I share the hope there will be tons of different minion types.

[Mephansteras]

Hmm...imagine a Dungeon Keeper style game with the atmosphere of the original Diablo. That could be awesome.

Divine Divinity's atmosphere might be similar, but having never played it I couldn't say.

[nenjin]

There you go Cthulhu.

The gods weep.

Mini-map

If that's the biggest gripe people can find at this time, I think that's pretty reasonable. The mini-map is actually in a glass bubble-type thing, the MM gets a rounded effect like a crystal ball. I think that looks pretty neat. So I wouldn't be surprised if the MM gets more love...because it would be rather silly to have a dynamic representation like that....and then leave at effectively an 8-bit resolution.

To be honest, the interface looks a bit crowded. I can also see myself getting lost in the thick of larger battles; there's so much background detail in the floors and walls that I'm finding it hard to spot individual units in those screenshots unless they're zoomed way in.

This I can agree with. There's a lot of shit going on in the screen, in the UI....I just fired up DKII for nostalgia's sake and yeah....the UI there is way, way more simple. But Dungeons is going to be doing some different things (like an actual character for you) so the UI will need to be more complex. It does still look crowded though.

Agreed. Dungeon Keeper felt incomplete to me. Good idea, kind of fun, but not really much fun to play past the first half dozen levels.

To be honest, I've never played more than 3 campaign missions in DKII. I just had more fun making dungeons exactly how I wanted them. The issue was the map template. There was like...one template that allowed you to build with almost total freedom. And even that map had water and lava rooms so you actually had to KNOW the level to build a dungeon without busting through a wall, and giving the heroes another way in.

So I've probably played the "Masterpiece" level 10 or so times. And after two hours of that, there's really nothing left to do. So I agree, DKII had some real dead-ends in game play, and I hope Dungeons addresses that.

[Kagus]

Sometimes it's the limitations that make something interesting.  There are levels in the campaign that give you severely limited dungeon-sprawling capabilities, but it just gets all the more delightful to find something that works out because it ends up taking on an entirely new feel.

Like one of the final missions in the campaign...  There's this great honkin' big underground castle built up, and you're wedged into a corner with bedrock and lava all around you.  You need to worm your way around, fill in gaps with necessary rooms, and then start stealing rooms from the computer through careful management of imps and the use of secret doors.  You learn to take what you can get and make the most out of it, so your side of the map starts looking like this haphazard pit of evil, mixed in with little hidey-holes where devils can creep around behind the walls.

Now, sure, Masterpiece does allow you to design expansive cathedrals with pillars and arches and doors and whatnot, and that's all well and fine (heck, it's what I spent most of my time doing, even in the online games.  I very rarely won, but everyone agreed that I had the most awesome-looking dungeon)...  But there's a completely different and exciting feel to "making do" with less-than-favorable conditions...  Like the map where your dungeon is split down the middle by this great big underground river, and you end up with forges overlooking the murky currents as imps scurry back and forth across wooden bridges.


Beyond that, there's the mapmaker.  And once you've unlocked the power within that, you can craft your own damned universes.  I made a couple maps a long time back that unfortunately were lost before I ever got the idea to release them...  One was an imp-race, where you had to dash your way through a racetrack with all sorts of traps and obstacles as a possessed imp, and another was an old-fashioned dungeon romp in DK style.  Take the role of a warrior, priest, wizard or archer and travel through four differently-themed areas, each with their own special boss battle, before finally making your way out of the dungeon and into the glorious light of freedom.


Now, granted, a lot of stuff changes when you bring editors into the mix.  But I still feel that there's plenty enough to do in vanilla DKII.

[nenjin]

snip

Sure sure, I understand the appeal. There was a moment where I went "ok that's kind of cool", in a mission where every room existed over lava and had a few guards in it. That was sort of fun.

But it wasn't why I originally picked up the game, and the challenges always under cut the premise of the game to me. The game became more like a Dungeon Themed Dig Dug when you had to expand your dungeon into stuff. Sometimes the restrictions were too restrictive too; they give you enough space and gold to do what they wanted you to. And then you can throw in some traps. That wasn't particularly fun in my book (doesn't mean it wasn't it in yours.)

But I'm just wired differently when it comes to these kinds of games. I love the SIM aspect, not necessarily the strategy part. I love the creative aspects, like in DF or Evil Genius, trying to find the most efficient way to organize your base both for resources and defense.

What DK needed was some limited, random map generation. That would have sold me completely. I'd be ok with having to negotiate terrain if it a) wasn't used to limit me and my dungeon design and b) wasn't always in the same place.

I never did fool with the map editor, or MP. Because the game was a SP obsession for me, and there wasn't enough going on in terms of the AI to make it worth my while to design my own maps. (As opposed to say, an RTS.)

I'm a huge old skool D&D nerd, the kind that still draws dungeon maps on graph paper. So that's what I envisioned this game as letting me do...the missions and challenges were not what drew me to it in the first place. In that sense, Evil Genius is probably closer to what I thought DKII should be than DKII was.

[nenjin]

On the actual game:

I've been reading up on Kalypso and Realmforge. MudTV is uhm...well it's a train wreck according to everyone. The graphic style is cheesy, game play was detailed to an unfun extent, and the final product was thrown together. At least according to reviews.

Things look pretty good...but I'm a little unnerved by their track record.

[Zangi]

One can only hope it doesn't become a failboat.

[Captain Alchatron]

Wow, looks a good start!  I especially love that minimap, as has been said.  It's a lovely little nod to the original.

Personally I thought DKII was a let-down... but there you go.  It'll be nice to see a 3rd party version and perspective on the theme (and I hope they do it 'right').

As for the humour: yes, the blurb for the upcoming game sounds awful, just like Overlord.  I hope they scrap that and find their own humour, or just use the original DK's one, skipping from morbidity to simple silliness.  I loved the "one of your imps does a feasible impression of you, Keeper.  He even does the ears!" and the other messages you got every so often. 

I hope they find a similar voice-actor, or even the same one.  He was immensely good and really gave the game a 'feel' to it, as with the rest of the sound.

[Kagus]

I loved the "one of your imps does a feasible impression of you, Keeper.  He even does the ears!" and the other messages you got every so often. 

I used to think that was funny because imps didn't have ears.  I was a strange child.


I also like simming it, and that's what got me into the series in the first place.  I remember quite clearly the feeling I had when I viewed some ad for DKII in a tiny little brochure/booklet thingy, where they showed a few critters wandering around in a casino.  I was hooked before I'd even played it.

It turned out that the Dungeon Keeper series (got both in one go) was indeed more about smacking people about than keeping your creepy dudes happy (although there were more things to take into consideration in the first one...  And making little "Horny Keep"s was always great fun), but I loved it anyways.  I have always hoped for something more in line with just setting up a thriving underground environment and maintaining some semblance of cheerfulness in your dungeon's denizens, but I don't feel any less happy for having played Dungeon Keeper.

Unfortunately, I don't expect this to be either Dungeon Keeper or Sim Dungeon...  But, as almost nothing is known so far, I'll keep my mind open.

[nenjin]

So some things I've teased out--

I think there will be a somewhat Diablo exploration model to this. First, you have a playable, controllable Dungeon Lord. Second, they mention you being put "on the top of the dungeon heap" and "delving down to defeat the three other Dungeon Lords to become the best."

So I'm guessing that in a custom, one off game, there are multiple levels to each dungeon and you work your way down into their dungeon, kill them, take it over and expand it, and continue down, all the while heroes come from above.

Heroes also seem to be part of your resourcing model. While things are vague, they mention you needing their soul energy and harvesting it through torture chambers ect...

So I'm getting the feeling that this isn't a pure clone and isn't a pure SIM. Which, going by the crowd, generally seems ok as DKII felt like it stopped short in some areas.

Pity their boards are by and large in German, I'd love to get some stuff out of the people in their forums.

Although using Google Translator, I did learn there will be no multiplayer at release. and MP is iffy even after release.