PC games deserving revival: Dungeon Keeper

February 6, 11:26 AMPC Game ExaminerBryan Edge-Salois

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The Dungeon Keeper series, which includes Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2, was another excellent franchise courtesy of Bullfrog Productions. The original Dungeon Keeper was released in 1997 and was well-received critically and commercially -- well enough for a sequel, Dungeon Keeper 2, to be released in 1999.

Both Dungeon Keeper games played basically the same, with a top-down viewpoint similar to most real-time strategy / "god games." Dungeon Keeper 2 introduced support for 3D acceleration and sported a number of improvements over its predecessor.

It's Good to be Bad

Screenshot courtesty of Moby Games

In Dungeon Keeper, you take the role of an evil overlord with a humble collection of imp minions. Your lowly imps serve as the worker bees of your dungeon -- mining gold, building, and carving out new locations for your ever-expanding lair.

Monster Management 101
Eventually you'll build up enough resources to build lairs and attract more fearsome creatures into your service. Different lairs attract different creatures;  for example, Libraries attrack Warlocks, who do a lot of your research. Other types of lairs attract various creatures like Bile Demons, Vampires, and Giant Spiders, to name just a few.

You'll also need to keep all your minions happy and fed to keep them in your service. Casinos provide entertainment when your monsters aren't on the job killing and/or imprisoning adventurers, and hatcheries ensure your monsters are well fed. Some monsters have an inherent dislike for other monsters too -- for example, Warlocks dislike Vampires -- so you need to make sure your nefarious minions are directing their hatred at your enemies and not each other.

Regardless, you'll still need to slap some of them around every once in a while -- particularly those lazy imps. And if you need to vent your evil frustrations further, you can slap around and torture any imprisoned adventurers you may be holding in your dungeons.

Don't forget dungeon security systems
In addition to an army of monsters and minions, you'll want to stock your dungeon with the best anti-adventurer-security systems that gold can buy.

Adventurers are notoriously greedy, misguided, dungeon-plundering bastards who like to stick their longswords where they don't belong. And other Dungeon Keepers and their monsters may also decide to move in on your operation. It's up to you to show everyone -- good and evil alike -- who the boss is.

To that end, you can research and develop devious traps and have your imps deploy them in strategic locations -- because it's just a matter of time before local adventurers and do-gooders come rap-rap-rapping on your chamber doors.

Dungeon Keeper reincarnation

Although there are no plans to revive the Dungeon Keeper franchise, Dungeon Keeper -- at least as an idea -- will live on. Unfortunately, Dungeon Keeper isn't being resurrected so much as reincarnated.

A Chinese software company called NetDragon entered into an agreement with EA in December 2008 to developa Dungeon Keeper Online -- a 3D MMO. (You can read the press release here courtesy of Kotaku.)

I'm very doubtful that the spirit and humor of the orignial game (by a British company) can survive being converted to a 3D MMO by a Chinese developer. And based on comments posted to the news release (on Kotaku and other sites), most Dungeon Keeper fans agree with me.

While there's nothing to stop EA from developing a Dungeon Keeper 3, I'm not aware of any plans for it. I think that Dungeon Keeper's general premise and gameplay could still be successful in the current PC gaming landscape  -- but most developers these days seem more intent on delivering the next "Halo" --  so  I doubt Dungeon Keeper 3 will ever happen.

If GOG.com ever got permission to do it, I'd definitely buy a revitalized version of Dungeon Keeper 2 from them. (Writing this column made me nostalgic enough to re-install Dungeon Keeper 2 on my Vista 64 PC, but my hopes of running it again have so far been in vain. You hear that, GOG?)

Learn More:

Read the Dungeon Keeper wiki for more info 

Read the Dungeon Keeper 2 wiki for more info

Read about Bullfrog Productions and their legacy in PC gaming