One of our fondest retro gaming memories is pelting in many, many hours on the incredible Dungeon Keeper (1997). Our mate Phil introduced us to it and we picked it up on our PC without delay.
We fell in love with its demented play on more conventional city builders such as Settlers III , which we also got addicted to. But Dungeon Keeper was special. And it still is! You can pick it up on GOG or Steam and its unique gameplay challenges are still outstanding.
It remains one of the most outright, despicably fun and innovative games. And we’re here to remember its brilliance. Mwahahahahaha!
Beware! The Lord of the Nineties Was Dungeon Keeper’s Innovative City Building
You can think of modern city builder indie game success stories (Stardew Valley). As great as many of these are, few buck the trend to the extent Dungeon Keeper did.
The player takes control of a dungeon as supreme overlord. You have a dungeon heart (literally—it’s a heart) at the epicentre.
Your task is to make your dungeon liveable for prospective minions, who will be able to fend off any irritating do-gooders into the bargain.
Your staff arrives in the form of the world’s most depraved and repugnant beasts from the unholy underworld.
You entice them along by mining the local vicinity for gold and then building rooms to acquire minions. Initially, you have a batch of imps who serve you unconditionally. If you’re unhappy with how slow they are, you can even give them a slap to get them to work faster.
Gather gold, design your dungeon, set up rooms you need, fortify walls to fend off heroes, and you’re all set to welcome nefarious minions to your vile base.
Sure enough, with the likes of a gym, library, and workshop, you’ll attract demons, wizards, and Jabba the Hut-esque monstrosities. Each species has particular character traits you have to cater for, but you also have to be wary of the heroes of the land who are intent on putting an end to your evil ways.
As a result, you’ve got to build a terrifying dungeon filled with traps and battle-ready monsters ready to fend off the do-gooders. Alternatively, you can head out to conquer rival neighbouring dungeons to steal their wealth.
Having to cater, train, punish, and feed this insane lot of vagabonds is fantastic entertainment.
The wizards, for instance, want to be in the library, but they’re highly powerful when battling with moronic, morally sound heroes. This means you have to juggle between making them battle ready whilst slaking their desire for knowledge.
Then there are the psychotic horned-reapers who are more of a problem than assistance. Utterly out of control, they’re ridiculously powerful, suffer from ADHD, and will attack your other minions on sight. You have to build a quarter for them off alone and, frankly, they’re pretty much unmanageable.
You even have the option to become one of your minions and walk around your dungeon with a first-person perspective. This allows you to wander around and see your design work and attack other minions, if that’s the way you want it.
It’s this sense of character which adds so much to Dungeon Keeper – it’s brimming with charm and wit and features one of the most fantastically deep and devilish voiceovers imaginable.
Lots of Love for Those Minions
Looking back now, we do think the masterstroke for the title is with the minions.
These little dudes remind us of hamsters. They scurry about the place and look all cute and loveable. However, in the game they’re totally obedient to you and with your claw you command them to do stuff. The minions can:
- Knock down walls
- Fortify walls
- Lark about the place smoking
On that last point, if they have nothing to do they’ll just waddle about in circles and have the occasional smoke. It’s those little details that still make Dungeon Keeper a magical experience.
To be successful in the game, you have to make your minions work hard. They’re crucial to everything you do, so we have a habit of creating lots of them, training them up, and then they work super fast.
If you suddenly have a level five, for example, minion cop it… well, it’s bad news. You actively curse the day that’s happened as those guys are super effective.
But it was a wonderful inclusion. Instead of just clicking on dungeon walls and having the wall collapse, you see the minions at working digging away and crafting the place up for you.
That’s really clever, immersive game design that stands out to this day.
The Disappointing Dungeon Keeper 2
Unfortunately, the Dungeon Keeper legacy didn’t go from strength to strength. We know some people like the sequel, but we had a really difficult time enjoying it.
Launching in 1999, it has a graphical overhaul and looks more polished. We think that does it a disservice over the original, which has a gritty dungeon-like feel. But for the gameplay, we just don’t find it as enjoyable as the first outing.
After that, EA (considered one of the most cynical and unpleasant developers and publishers by the gaming community) ruined the series a step further with a microtransaction plagued mobile game.
Dungeon Keeper on mobile launched in 2014. A decade on from that, it’s seems a lazy move. You know? Like a full overhaul of the title for PC could have been outstanding with all the new features that could have been added in.
The reviews were awful and that pretty much triggered the end of the series. For now, at least.
FYI: The Original Dungeon Keeper is Available On GOG and Steam
But don’t let those disasters put you off the brilliant original. The great news is, despite being 20 years old, you can play the game on modern PCs.
Simply put, it’s brilliant fun—addictive, joyous (in an odd way), mad, and so superbly put together. It’s an absolute masterpiece.
Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, you can have access to the title in mere moments. It’s available on GOG (Good Old Games) at a princely sum of a few quid:
You could be playing it within minutes and commanding your minions like the despicable maniac you are! So what are you waiting for?!
If You Want a Modern Take on the Frothing Formula Try Dungeons 4
Launched in November 2023 we got German developer Realmforge Studios’ Dungeons 4. It’s a mix of genres, but pays massive homage to Dungeon Keeper with its gameplay loop.
That’s all with a World of Warcraft type aesthetic.
It’s met with pretty solid reviews and may soothe your itch for reliving 1997 all over again.
A Few Notes on the 15-Year KeeperFX Remake
Whilst EA may be ignoring the series after running it into the ground with stupid ideas, one fan has made an interesting passion project: KeeperFX. It’s an open-source remake of the orginal game:
“The main goal of KeeperFX is to preserve and expand upon the original Dungeon Keeper experience, offering many new features, improvements, and much more while staying true to the original feeling of the game.”
The original campagn is there alongside custom content the community is actively creating.
We’ve not tried it yet (but will be soon). All you need to make it run are the original game files—your CDs or the digital editions from GOG or Steam. There’s even a Discord community to chat to other players!
Wonderful. We’ll be giving it a go and reviewing it (note: 16.06.24 pledge!)
