Dungeon Keeper

How to run a dungeon on an NHS budget...

Have you ever fancied being completely in control? Having your own way all the time, give or take a few minor headaches and interruptions? Well now you can. Dungeon Keeper gives you the power to shape things your own way, to develop your own game and to interact with other beings on a level not seen before in any computer game. I would want it to as well, since it's taken the best part of three years to develop...

Ten years after founding Bullfrog and developing the literally earth shattering Populous, Peter Molyneaux has decided to leave Bullfrog. The reasons for this are many, and have been well documented elsewhere. This is his parting gift, his final two fingers to those doubted it would ever happen. When I last saw it, in January, it was 'in the final stages of completion', but it's still taken six months to get it finished. It was well worth the wait.

Dungeon Keeper came about because Molyneaux was sick to death of always playing the good guy in games. Being a hero has become such a cliché he wanted to do something different. In Dungeon Keeper you turn the tables on all this goody two-shoes rescue-the-maiden-and-claim-your-treasure lark. Here you play the bad guy. You control the denizens of the deep. You kill any blond haired son of a king who dares enter your Dungeon seeking fame and fortune.

Room with a view

The game is set up as a series of levels in which you progressively take over towns and villages by spreading your dungeon beneath them. At the beginning of the game you can see the land from the tower of your castle. A green and pleasant land where everyone is having just too good a time for your liking. However, as you exert your influence the lush and pleasant pastures and festival towns become dark, dangerous, foreboding places. You and your spawn have corrupted them beyond belief. Or something like that.

In order to do this you need minions and you need gold. The more of both, the better, and the two are inextricably intertwined. You start off in a Dungeon that has no creatures except Imps ­ your basic workhorse. Imps will mine gold, knock down walls, build rooms and decorate your dungeon. In order to get more creatures into the dungeon you will need to attract them by having rooms for them to rest in, places to train or study in, a food source and, most importantly of all, gold, to pay them with.

The standard view in the game is roughly a 3D isometric, top/side down view of the dungeon, which has relatively high walls. For ease of use this can be changed to a view with even lower walls, or even a top down one ­ but the standard view is just so damn gorgeous, you rarely want to. At the beginning there is a central core to the dungeon in which your Imps are waiting for instructions. By highlighting squares in the surrounding walls and ground you can get your imps to dig, first for gold, then to build a room to store gold, and then on to build structures which will attract creatures into the dungeon.

The basic rooms needed to start a dungeon are a Treasure Room a Lair and a Hatchery. Then a corridor can be made to a portal through which the creatures will enter. After you have started to attract creatures, you will need to redouble your efforts to find gold as all who enter the dungeon and swear allegiance to you will expect to be paid well for the privilege of doing so. Creatures also like to exercise their bodies and minds; so to attract war-like creatures you will need to build a Training room, while to attract magicians, you will need to build a Library.

All of the creatures that enter the dungeon need a Lair to sleep in, but as the game develops, and more types of creature appear, you may need to micro manage your accommodation a little more carefully. Magicians and Vampires do not get on very well, and if you bivouac them in the same place there will be more than tears ­ they'll tear them selves apart. A more obvious no-no is putting Spiders and Flies into the same place.

When you first open your portal, creatures like Flies and Cockroaches appear, and although they look a bit puny, they are all you get and can even hold their own in battle with the first adventurers who enter the dungeon. Later on you get an exotic mix of brethren. Not only do you get Vampires and Magicians but Trolls, Ghosts and Dragons also make an appearance, and there's a totally foul creature called the Bile Demon that looks like an oversized Space Hopper and who, not to put too fine a point on it, farts his way to victory by gassing opponents into submission. Even more interesting for adolescents is the Dark Mistress, who just loves pain and so makes a fine fighter.

Which brings me on to the subject of discipline. One of the major selling points of Dungeon Keeper is that each creature has a fully developed AI, with its own needs and desires and its own way of doing things. If you're to succeed, you need to keep your motley crew under control and direct them to do the right thing. Keeping them busy, well fed and well paid is all very well ­ but, if they think they can get away with it, you will not get the best out of them. And so the wriggling hand that is your mouse cursor icon can be used to impose your will on said motley crew. You can pick them up and place them wherever you like, moving Imps to the section of wall you want knocked down, moving fighters to the part of the dungeon just invaded by heroes etc. You can also hit them, with varying degrees of success. A sharp slap around the ear serves to remind them who's boss, although some creatures respond better to this than others. And the one who responds best is the Mistress, who loves it so much she bends over for more.

If you capture enemy creatures in battle you can build a torture room to convert them to your way of thinking. On advice from Mr Molyneaux himself, if you have a good few of a particular type of creature in your dungeon and they don't seem to be pulling their weight, you can put one of them in the torture room which, because of the way the AI is built, will spur the others on to greater things out of fear of your malevolent manner.

However, the worst thing you can do is lose control over your own creatures. They could rebel. If you are too harsh, or you haven't set up enough hatcheries to feed them, or you haven't enough gold to pay them, they'll get discontented, stop doing what you want them to do, then start fighting amongst each other and stealing gold. The last offence is punishable by death in my books, and any offender guilty of this must be made an example of or you'll lose all respect.

Achtung! no entry

The first five or so levels in the game act as a tutorial, and believe me they are needed. Dungeon Keeper is such a large, complex game, that there is always something new to learn and even when you finish these missions it is useful to save, then continue playing on the same level for a while to familiarise yourself with what has happened. The type of levels vary from mining a certain amount of gold and attracting a set amount of creatures into your dungeon, to capturing other dungeons and defeating numerous opponents. And all the while those damn heroes are trying to sneak in and take your gold.

To keep them out, you not only have to have a decent, well- trained army of minions, you also have to plan and fortify your dungeon in a canny way. Fortification involves strengthening walls, erecting doors and setting traps. Imps will strengthen and decorate walls if you leave them to their own devices, but strategic doors will be needed, which range from the standard one up to a magic door which is nigh on impregnable. Traps are handy, but it's worth remembering that they'll kill your creatures too, so you've got to isolate them. Fans of Indiana Jones will be pleased to hear that one of the traps is a gigantic rolling stone.

Dungeon Keeper features two distinct, but related, styles of gameplay: overhead strategy and first person perspective, real-time action. You can direct your minions against heroes from the standard view or you can 'possess' one of them and enter a 3D textured, first person world. This way you can gather your troops in a room, possess one of them and lead them into battle. Personally, I'm not into this method. Although it has novelty value, it takes away from the strategic element of the game which I enjoyed most. However, the idea is that you play the game exactly how you like, and no doubt some will love this. In first person perspective, the way you view your surroundings depends on which creature you are: If you're a fly everything will be bug-eyed and wide angle ­ the resolution isn't that good either. It improves when you possess a higher level character, but don't expect too much close up.

You don't need to worry when you possess something that will plunge your dungeon into anarchy either, as there is a computer AI assistant to look after it. You can set it to be aggressive or defensive, and it will eventually adapt to your own particular style of play, ensuring that things still get run while you're campaigning in another part of a large dungeon. You can even leave this running while you go off and do something else, sometimes with interesting results. It might sound sacrilege, but it's actually useful ­ just so long as you know you can rely on the computer AI, and to get some idea of what it does by itself.

The main screen is divided into three sections: the dungeon view is on the right-hand side and is the biggest area, on the top-left there is an overview map, and below it boxes containing information on the type of rooms available and the creatures in the dungeon. In standard view, the graphics are breathtakingly, with surprising details and incredible lighting effects and shading. Your hand acts as a sort of light source, so wherever it is, the dungeon will be lit up. If I had a criticism at all it would be regarding the creatures, which are sometimes hard to distinguish against backgrounds. It can also be difficult to locate exactly where something is happening in larger dungeons ­ but once you get used to using the map screens, and perhaps switching to a different view from time to time, everything sorts itself out.

Likewise, sound is excellent. Each of the creatures have their own brand of effect, and although it can get a bit frantic during battles, it all hangs together. The chickens' squawking still makes me giggle, especially if the animal is actually a hero who has been turned into Sunday lunch by a spell and a Troll is about to eat it.

This is one of the most complete games I have ever seen. It has humour, it has all of the traditional roleplaying values of creature levels, magic training, experience, yet includes such a macro strategy element that it raises itself far above D&D games like Diablo. And of course you get to play the bad guy. Incorporating elements of a God simulation, a role-playing game and a first person shoot 'em up, it's an undisputed classic. It's difficult to get into but the rewards are immense. God knows how long it will take me, or you, to find all of its hidden features and complete the game (Molyneaux reckons 60 hours ­ but I reckon he's lying), but we'll sure have fun trying.

Alan Dykes

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		SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Publisher:	EA	Minimum PC:	Pentium 90
Telephone:	01753 549442	Minimum memory:	16Mb
Web:	www.ea.com	CD:	Quad speed
Developer:	Bullfrog	Graphics:	SVGA
Price:	£45.99	Supports:	Joystick, keyboard
No. of players:	1-4 (2-4 IPX LAN. Internet play planned)	Sound:	All major soundcards
Difficulty:	Intermediate	Installation:	Win95 only