"Sympathy for the Keeper"

In the years of its existence, Bullfrog made a name for itself by creating truly unique games. In fact, the studio was the brainchild of Peter Molyneux, the man who basically created the “god game” and who would later break from the company to form Lionhead Studios. Dungeon Keeper remains one of Bullfrog's most recognized and renowned titles released before its unfortunate dissolution at the hands of EA, and for good reason. To this day, it remains a groundbreaking and extremely fun title.

Dungeon Keeper places players in the shoes of an evil being known as, appropriately enough, the Dungeon Keeper. The Keeper's goal is to build up an army of evil creatures and eventually break free of the underground realm he resides in so he can rule the world above. Though the evil perspective presents the opportunity for a unique narrative, Dungeon Keeper actually doesn't have much of a story. Apart from the bare-bones setup of the player being the evil ruler of a shadowy underground realm attempting to take over the world, the story never really goes anywhere. In the end, it doesn't make a bit of difference because the actual gameplay is so engrossing, you'll likely never notice.

The concept of Dungeon Keeper is fairly simple – In each level, players are charged with building a dungeon of various rooms that can lure in minions, train them and finally leading them to slay the goodly heroes who reign over the area. As such, Dungeon Keeper resembles the many city building games released for the PC in that the player has to build certain things to draw in minions and then keep them happy. Dungeon Keeper never gets as in-depth or complex as those games, but this works to its advantage because the game stays easy to understand and enjoy.

The heart and soul of any dungeon is the aptly named Dungeon Heart. Within this room lies the life source of the dungeon, a huge artifact that can be damaged and destroyed by enemies. If this happens, it's game over. Because of this it's likely to be the center of your dungeon (and not to mention it's usually the only room you'll start out with). Each stage also begins by giving players a few Imps to use for expansion. Imps are the backbone of every dungeon and perform all the menial tasks, from digging out new rooms to mining gold to hauling dead bodies away.

Immediately upon starting a stage, the first thing players will need to do is to dig out a room by highlighting tiles of dirt. This will notify the Imps that they should clear the area and they'll immediately begin digging it out. Once they've got everything cleared away, players will need to turn that empty room into a treasury, which will hold the lifeblood of the dungeon; gold. From here, Imps will be able to start mining gold once it's been found and highlighted. After they've dug it out, they'll haul it back to the treasury and it will be added to the dungeon gold reserves. It's important to note that each level gives players a limited amount of free gold (i.e. Imps don't have to dig it out) to start with, and this should always be used for building a treasury. If it is spent on something else, the player won't be able to build a treasury and Imps won't have any place to take mined gold, meaning aspiring Dungeon Keepers will be unable to do anything, which forces a mission restart. This actually seems like a bit of an oversight on Bullfrog's part simply because there's no way to work around it. But given that the treasury is such an integral part of the dungeon, players really shouldn't be wasting it on anything else to begin with anyway.

Once a respectable amount of gold has been amassed, players can begin expanding their dungeons. Aside from the treasury, lairs and hatcheries are the most important rooms of a dungeon and provide sleeping quarters and fresh chickens to feed incoming minions. Once these have been built, players can excavate a nearby Portal, which allows minions to begin coming into the dungeon.

Once minions come into the dungeon, they'll bed down and become yours to command. Depending on their species, and if the dungeon has the proper rooms, they might even start researching and creating things (more on this in a moment). All told, there is a pretty large array of minions that can be lured into the dungeon, from flies and spiders to orcs, trolls and even dragons. One of the interesting things is that all creatures don't get along and some, such as the fly and spider, will immediately start to fight and eventually kill if they come into contact with one another. This leads to one of the few real problems in the game – Simply put, there's no way to avoid this. The game doesn't give players any sort of tools or options to keep rival creatures away from one another (such as assigning them sections of the dungeon to keep to) so if two opposing minions arrive, it's usually best just to send the less useful of the two back through the Portal.

Minions are a demanding lot and require payment for their services. At regular intervals, creatures will expect a payday and will all head to the nearest treasury to get their gold (except for Imps who are apparently just happy to have something to do). If for some reason you don't have the funds, they'll get unhappy and eventually leave the dungeon.

If you want to lure better minions into the dungeon (and you will), further expansion is required. Training rooms, libraries and workshops are some of the more integral and useful rooms that can be built. The training room allows minions to hone their fighting abilities, gain experience and grow stronger. This will allow a burgeoning army to become an unstoppable force, but training requires a healthy supply of gold, so those Imps need to continue their mining operations nonstop. The library attracts Warlocks to the dungeon and they will spend lots of time in its shadowy recesses poring over ancient tomes. The fruit of their labor comes in the form of spells.

As a being of incalculable evil, it's only natural for the Keeper to have many fancy spells. However, spells cost money so they can't be used willy-nilly. At the beginning of any given level, players only have a few spells to choose from – Possess Minion and Create Imp. Create Imp does exactly what it sounds like and summons another dutiful little worker, though the price increases each time it's used. Possess Minion is an interesting spell that puts players into the shoes of the selected creature, moving the camera from its top-down perspective to a first-person viewpoint with graphics so bad they'll make your eyes bleed. This spell doesn't have much of a use, not only because the 3D graphics are so bad it's hard to tell what's what, but the controls are clumsy and there just isn't much to do with it. Other spells include the ability to spy on a remote area, heal minions or cast lightning.

Workshops are also a very important part of a dungeon and will draw industrious minion types. Once they arrive they'll work nonstop, eventually producing a variety of items for use in the dungeon. Doors can be used to block off areas of the dungeon and can be locked so neither minions nor the enemy can get through. Traps can be deployed to damage any intruders and are often quite entertaining. Gas traps spew out a haze of noxious fumes and the lightning trap sends out huge bolts of electricity that fry incoming enemies. However, players don't get to decide what is built in the Workshop and so may end up with a bunch of doors when traps are needed.

There are several other room types that perform various functions and draw more minions to the dungeon. The Prison can be built to hold captured enemies until they die, in which case they'll come back as skeletons. The Prison is best used in conjunction with the Torture Chamber, where players can toss inmates for a little interrogation. If they die, they'll come back as ghosts but every now and then they'll break and defect to the Keeper's cause. A Graveyard can be built to hold the corpses of deceased allies and enemies, who will then come back as Vampires. Finally, a Temple can be built where the player can sacrifice minions. If the sacrifice is acceptable you'll often get a bonus of some sort. If not, expect to be punished for a pitiful offering.

Once players have built a dungeon, gathered an army of minions and trained them up, it's time to take the fight to those law and order loving losers and conquer the realm in the name of chaos and evil. Sometimes the goodly heroes will invade your dungeon and other times they're hiding out in their own abodes, but fighting is always a very simple affair. The player can pick up any minion within the dungeon and drop them wherever, so long as it's within the bounds of the dungeon. Because of this, fighting is as simple as grabbing as many minions as you can hold and dropping them on top of the heroes. At this point they'll engage in a huge brawl. If minions have been spending a lot of time in the training room, they'll steamroll the opposition with ease, but even if they haven't, numbers can turn the tide just as easily. All in all, fighting is very simple and really could have used some refinement or added complexity but as it is, it works well enough.

If there's any real problem with the game it's the complete lack of variety. Regardless of how far you progress in the game, the structure of each level never changes from the sequence of events I've detailed. Build a bunch of rooms, get minions, train them and fight. Levels are further simplified by the fact that the enemy starts out with a complete base and just sits there until you come and get him. The minor variations for each level, such as how much space you'll have to build in, how much gold is nearby and what obstacles, such as lava or impenetrable rock, are between you and the enemy, don't do much to change how things play out.

As a game that's been around for more than a decade, Dungeon Keeper is a technically limited game. The color palette couldn't be any more dreary (brown!) and the look doesn't change a bit from level to level. Everything is also very pixilated so minor details are nonexistent. When a hero is killed, their blood will actually fall in single enormous pixels so it looks like his body is erupting into crimson fireworks. It's hilarious, in a retro sort of way. As ugly as the game looks from the top down perspective, that pales in comparison to the 3D first person view that players used when possessing a minion. The pixilation is twice as bad, to the point that everything is indistinguishable. It's possible to actually count every pixel a minion is made of.

If you're one of the unfortunate few running Vista, you can also look forward to some added fun. The introductory cutscene is unwatchable because of screen tearing and all sorts of wild effects, and the color scheme also bugs out from time to time, switching from the dull browns to a psychedelic mix of greens and purples. I tried several installation types and every compatibility variation I could think of and couldn't completely eradicate any of these problems. While the color issue can be sorted out with a bit of luck and patience, it still goes wild on occasion. Thankfully, all Vista related issues seem to be confined to the graphics so gameplay is not affected by this. If you are using Windows XP or the newer Windows 7, Dungeon Keeper performs admirably and has none of these weird issues.

While the game is as ugly as any I've ever seen, the audio holds up very well. At the beginning and end of each level, you'll hear a narration about how nice and good a town is and why it needs to suffer. After beating the level you'll hear how the town has changed (in delightfully grotesque detail). The voice actor who does this is brilliant and he sounds truly disgusted as he describes the state of each town before your invasion and very smug afterwards. Creature sounds aren't bad either. There are lots of screeches, chirps and yells from minions as they go about their business and fight. Imps are particularly entertaining as they'll give out a delighted “whoopee” if you pick them up and drop them somewhere.

THE VERDICT
Dungeon Keeper isn't complicated, it's ugly and it's lacking in some options that would make the game more user friendly. Despite these issues it is a very fun, intensely addictive experience. Plus, it remains in a category all its own as well over a decade after its release, it is one of only a handful of games that put players in the shoes of the villain. What a shame.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/09, Updated 07/06/10

Game Release: Dungeon Keeper (US, 06/26/97)