Drain Heroes' Souls In Kalypso's Dungeons

Saving the princess: boring. Destroying ancient evil: passé. Let's talk about luring adventurers into monster-filled catacombs and using their soul essence to power nefarious schemes.

Dungeons, a 2011 PC game from previously little-known German studio Realmforge brings back the aesthetic of the long-dormant Dungeon Keeper franchise in a slightly different format. This is mostly a simulation, where you don't control your own minions or traps as they make life difficult for the stream of heroes that brave your perilous demesne. By marking walls for demolition and filling the resultant rooms and hallways with everything from traps to loot bags and monster generators, you can build quite a nasty dungeon indeed. You don't want to make things too hard, though, or the heroes will kick off before you can harvest their plump, juicy souls.

Soul essence is the core of Dungeons, around which everything else orbits. To get it, you have to satisfy heroes' needs. Thieves mostly want loot and trap-filled danger. Mages typically go for the forbidden knowledge hidden in your libraries. Warriors wish to test themselves in combat against worthy opponents. Crafting the right challenges at the appropriate pacing along the perfect path is the primary problem you face as a dungeon lord. Put too many monsters or traps in, and heroes will die before their time. Too few points of interest (or the wrong ones), and they'll get bored and attack your dungeon's heart – the font of your strength, without which your game is over.

The soul essence you harvest allows you to place doodads around your dungeon. Candelabras, bookshelves, torches, chairs -- whatever you choose to decorate your dungeon with, the effect is the same: more prestige. You didn't become an evil overlord to not have the world tremble at your name. Prestige unlocks new objects, new monsters, and directly increases the power of your dungeon lord avatar itself. Many scenarios also include it as a victory condition.

Dungeons also allows you to take direct control of that avatar and beat up anything that looks at you funny. As befits the lord of a dread pit, you've got combat skills far beyond those of the individual adventurers that come calling. With spinning spear thrusts and powerful magics, you can do anything from wipe out entire parties of heroes to assault rival dungeons and their masters in their own homes. This doesn't look to be God of War or anything, but slaughtering groups of enemies should be a nice break from setting up foreboding chandeliers.

Realmforge expects around 20 story missions to make it into the final game along with a sandbox mode. I'm told that the story missions will have a wide variety of scenarios for players to conquer, from taking over rival dungeons to defending against extra-strong waves of heroes or escorting valuable minions through dangerous gauntlets.

Three tilesets (stone, brick, and hellish brimstone) and their attendant doodads and monsters are available. A hell-based dungeon looks and plays much different from a catacomb-style lair, and everything from slimes to the undead and demons will be available to throw at incoming adventurers at various points.

The story has a persistent progression, where completing objectives gives you skill points to spend along a World of Warcraft-like talent tree that can boost your avatar's attack, defense, or building abilities. I didn't get to see much of the story in action, but what small bits have been shown suggest a goofy, lighthearted tone that would have me twirling my moustache if it were glorious enough (which it had better be by Movember).

I'm not going to lie to you. I can't wait for Dungeons' early 2011 release. I love unusual simulations like this or Majesty, and there hasn't been a game along these particular lines in years. I shall be very annoyed if it ends up sucking, but I don't have too many fears on that score.