By Alec Meer on August 12th, 2010 at 6:26 pm.
So you know how you wanted Dungeon Keeper 3?
You’ve got it! But you haven’t.
German game Dungeons is to DK as those Czech UFO games were to X-COM: an unofficial tribute-sequel made with more modern tech, most of the same ideas and some canny side-stepping of the IP.
Feelings:
Excitement! Dungeon Keeper! Prettier! Sort of. Actually, I’m not sure about the look. Then again, DK never took a great screenshot either. Best to see it in motion, I suspect.
Worry! Not Bullfrog! May be either too slavishly similar or, like those UFO titles, just doesn’t capture the spirit!
But come on. This is brilliant. The fact of it is brilliant. With EA lending the license to Chinese MMOs, it seemed we’d never see the like of DK again. We will. Wonderful news – just hope they take the concept further rather than simply repeating it.
Go go press release:
Prepare to Unleash Your Devious Side as Kalypso Media Announces “Dungeons”
Think you can hack it as an evil Dungeon Lord?
Ridgewood, NJ, August 12, 2010 — Kalypso Media, a global publisher of award-winning PC and console games is pleased to unveil Dungeons, an all new strategy/simulation title for Windows PC which will take players on a devious adventure through the depths of the underworld. Prepare to have the roles reversed as you play a despicable Dungeon Lord whose job is to create fiendish dungeons to lure and trap heroes who dare to try and steal your treasure. Dungeons is currently in development by Realmforge, a Kalypso Media studio and is scheduled for release in Q1 2011.
Dungeons follows the mis-adventures of the foremost of all Dungeon Lords, who spends his time luring heroes into his labyrinthine creations with the promise of treasure and a good fight — only to be trapped by his ingenious devices. Once they are in his grasp, our Dungeon Lord must look after and cherish his new found prisoners until they are more comfortable with their surroundings, because come the “harvest”, happy heroes have more precious soul energy for you to gleefully extract via foul prisons or twisted torture chambers!
In Dungeons, our protagonist falls victim to a devious plot hatched by his vile, nasty and thoroughly vicious ex-girlfriend and finds himself at the bottom of the underworld hierarchy and the top of the dungeon pile which in this world is about as bad as it can get. Our Lord must have his revenge, and make his way back down the dungeon levels to his rightful place — but first he must deal with his new bosses, the three despicable Dungeon Lords who stand in his way.
At his disposal are his dim-witted goblin minions who dig tunnels and build rooms to lay out his lair and trap ever stronger and braver heroes who dare to enter, not forgetting to plot his revenge against his ex-girlfriend and his new bosses who think it’s great fun to bombard him with useless tasks. It goes without saying that a malicious and sneaky creature such as our Dungeon Lord has more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Revenge will be sweet indeed.
For more information on Dungeons please visit www.kalypsomedia.com
Features –
Get ready for a fight! Lure 10 different hero classes into your dungeon where 15 different monsters lurk in the darkness
20 challenging campaign missions demand all your cunning to succeed. Survive them – and there’s still the custom game waiting for you
In a dungeon there’s only one way you can go and that’s down. Conquer three different underworld levels and the bosses who guard them to become the one and only Dungeon Lord
Prison cells and torture chambers are at your command and ready to capture your next hero and steal their precious soul energy
Create the dungeon of your dreams (and heroes’ nightmares) with 50 different objects at your disposal
Wimpy goblin workers are awaiting your orders to create your next diabolical dungeon masterpiece
12/08/2010 at 18:29 Vinraith says:
Well, Kalypso has a good history with “tribute” games, Tropico 3 was pretty great and actually improved upon the original in some significant ways. Here’s hoping the same thing happens here, it’s been entirely too long since we had a Dungeon Keeper game.
12/08/2010 at 18:31 Dyst says:
Kalypso seem like a pretty solid developer. I’m very excited for this.
12/08/2010 at 18:31 Alex says:
When? Where? Steam? I wants it!
12/08/2010 at 18:35 GamerV says:
No multiplayer?
Not that I ever played that in the originals, but still…
13/08/2010 at 04:22 P7uen says:
You haven’t lived until you’ve racked up a 60 quid phone bill playing Dungeon Keeper on your 28.8 modem, only to have your parents scream at you and your friend laugh at you (for twas me wot dialled him).
12/08/2010 at 18:38 westyfield says:
“So you know how you wanted Dungeon Keeper 3?”
I don’t know. Am I my dungeon’s keeper?
12/08/2010 at 18:39 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
Expect a precise clone of the original Dungeon Keeper and/or Dungeon Keeper 2.
12/08/2010 at 18:44 Urael says:
Here’s hoping…!
14/08/2010 at 14:37 LionsPhil says:
You’re implying that that would be a bad thing.
Unfortunately DK2 has hit that tech bracket where it’s a bit finickety on real hardware (at some point even the ancient nVidia drivers on my trusty old GeForce 4 box must have got bumped up just enough to start getting a black flicker), yet too demanding for virtual.
31/10/2010 at 01:03 Craig Stern says:
A precise clone of the original would be fantastic. A precise clone of DK2 would be a total waste.
12/08/2010 at 18:40 Javier-de-Ass says:
realmforge are great developers. too bad mudtv was a bit… crap. ceville was great though, nice to see they’re tackling a really different style of game with each new project.
12/08/2010 at 18:41 Deston says:
Want!
That is all.
12/08/2010 at 18:42 GamerV says:
The developers previous game was M.U.D. TV, which wasn’t that great. Clunky interface and not really fun.
Also Ceville and (future?) Airport Tycoon 2. We’ll see.
12/08/2010 at 19:56 terry says:
And The Guild 2, which I’m finding is an interesting game marred by an awful UI, a lack of documentation, horrible pathfinding and hordes of bugs.
I’ll keep half an eye on this but my experience with Realmforge’s games has not been an overwhelmingly positive one.
13/08/2010 at 11:46 GamerV says:
Different companies it seems, Runeforge and Earthforge.
12/08/2010 at 18:43 Kieran says:
Not only is there this and the mmo theres a serious fan made successor in development aswell.
http://warfortheoverworld.org/
http://forum.keeperklan.com/6-War-for-the-Overworld
There is some other projects on those forums aswell.
Also this game better have a analog of the DK2 Dark Mistress i saw concept art for a succubus but thats not really the same.
http://www.bluesnews.com/screenshots/games/dungeons/20100812/
12/08/2010 at 18:43 Inigo says:
Dungeons is to DK as those Czech UFO games were to X-COM
Oh dear.
13/08/2010 at 08:59 coldwave says:
UFO: Afterlight was good.
13/08/2010 at 20:12 Marcin says:
Yeah, I quite liked it. It had the brutality of the original, plus you got attached to your troops simply because there were so few of them and they had personalities.
Plus, it had a genuine geosphere.
Looking forward to this, however it ends up.
12/08/2010 at 18:43 Bob's Lawn Service says:
Have I mentioned how much I love those whacky Eastern Europeans (Ok, so Germany isn’t exactly East, but still…) lately?
Because I really love you fuckers.
12/08/2010 at 18:45 dAniel says:
I thought that dk 2 was pretty much perfect in its atmosphere, ui and dungeon building. For a spirtual successor i’d like to have a more structured battle system, where you can take more influence on the outcome.
12/08/2010 at 18:48 dAniel says:
… rather than dropping 20+ creatures on one tile
12/08/2010 at 18:46 Navagon says:
Hell yeah!
12/08/2010 at 18:50 Pode says:
http://www.kalypsomedia.com doesn’t feature this press release (yet?). Way to go RPS, you scooped the devs themselves
12/08/2010 at 18:50 cqdemal says:
Terribly off-topic – Irrational just announced BioShock Infinity. FPS set in 1912. In a flying city.
12/08/2010 at 18:53 cqdemal says:
Whoops, I meant ‘Infinite’.
12/08/2010 at 18:50 Tei says:
WOOOT !
*happy dance*
12/08/2010 at 18:53 Monnbrun says:
Alec Meer = Mordin Solus
12/08/2010 at 18:57 bleeters says:
I predict that my creatures will eternally be in need of a bigger lair.
Also, woo. My day has just been made.
…my captcha says “diaf” :(
12/08/2010 at 19:02 alh_p says:
Funny how Alec has started to sound like Mordin Solus from ME2…
12/08/2010 at 20:42 Armyofnone says:
Seconded. This post rather does remind me of Mordin.
12/08/2010 at 19:13 jalf says:
The first UFO one was awful, but the two sequels were pretty good games in their own right.
Far better than all the uninspired clones people keep making rehashing the exact same thing again and again and never getting it right.
12/08/2010 at 20:45 Jimbo says:
I picked up UFO Afterlight in a Steam sale the other day and became hooked. That game is totally rad.
I hope this game has off-brand Dark Mistress.
12/08/2010 at 19:18 Vague-rant says:
A large part of me really won’t mind if this is just updated graphics. When I tried playing Dungeon keeper 2 on my XP machine a year ago, it was extremely unstable. Anyways, I shall watch with interest.
12/08/2010 at 19:36 Al3xand3r says:
How about a new Dungeon Master?
12/08/2010 at 19:51 Swanky says:
Dungeon Master was one of those titles I somehow managed to miss first time around, so that’s fine. Just so long as the industry isn’t going the way of Hollywood with its regressive remake obsession.
12/08/2010 at 20:45 Sardaukar says:
Give me Creature Possession, give me the life of the Dungeon, and I shall give you my money.
12/08/2010 at 21:06 AdrianWerner says:
In 2009 it was Tropico 3, this year it’s Patrician IV and 2011 will be Dungeons.
I love you Kalypso, I fricking love you! :D
12/08/2010 at 21:11 Pijama says:
In this case, I’d rather take my stand with a company that clearly loved the original than EA’s scheming schemers of malignant money grabbing scheming, of course. :D
Or in other words: WOOT
12/08/2010 at 21:22 scharmers says:
Hopefully this remake will be closer in quality to the 1C remake of “Majesty” and not the endless stream of of Eastern European X-Com clones…
12/08/2010 at 21:51 Duffin says:
As as already been said Kalypso are a very tidy little outfit. Looking foward to this. SEXY TIME.
12/08/2010 at 21:51 Duffin says:
*has
12/08/2010 at 22:21 Wulf says:
Ooooh…
12/08/2010 at 22:33 Ginger Yellow says:
If it is just updated graphics, I’d be delighted. And, let’s face it, Tropico 3 was basically Tropico with updated graphics and roads.
12/08/2010 at 22:57 LOVERS says:
break dance
dans kurslari
dans
12/08/2010 at 23:16 Larington says:
I read this article in the machine gun style speech pattern of the Salarian doctor in Mass Effect 2… And it worked (From the ‘Feelings’ section onward, anyway).
12/08/2010 at 23:23 Sagan says:
It should be noted that all the optimism towards Kalypso is probably misplaced, since the developer of this is Realmforge Studios. Who have made two games so far. One has a Metacritic rating of 73, the other has a Metacritic rating of 59. I know we aren’t supposed to like Metacritic, but it is useful for getting a general idea about something, and the idea that it gives me about this developer is, that I shouldn’t get my hopes up too high.
12/08/2010 at 23:39 Jockie says:
I use metacritic quite a lot for films and TV shows (interesting that indie films always score far far higher than general mainstream stuff), but I just don’t think it works for more niche gaming stuff, like strategy games, or basically non-action games. Look at the reviews and whose reveiwing for less publicised releases and you may see an odd and unfamiliar set of reviewers who have dictated the score. Particularly look out for the word ‘Destructoid’ where they have a lot of nutjob bloggers out to carve a reputation for themselves by ripping into titles.
I’m willing to give Kalypso the benefit of my doubt based on the fact it’s a game I really hope will be good, metacritic can fuck itself as far as i’m concerned.
12/08/2010 at 23:25 Cooper says:
A little wee came out.
12/08/2010 at 23:47 Bassism says:
ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod.
Seriously, they can repackage Dungeon Keeper in a shiny new engine, and I’d love it. In fact, I almost hope that they do, since then they can’t ruin anything.
Of course, they’re more than welcome to make it more better too. I’d be fine with that.
13/08/2010 at 00:30 salejemaster says:
siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
13/08/2010 at 00:30 Inigo says:
If there is no Richard Ridings informing me with his honeyed words that my bile demon is unhappy because it has no food, then this game will hold no interest for me. The man cannot remain as the voice of Daddy Pig forever, surely?
13/08/2010 at 01:11 Bureaucromancer says:
Comparison to X-Com totally fails. The huge gotcha in all the X-Com remakes and tributes to date has been the loss of either (I find usually both) the strategic element (if not completely at least in spirit) and the destructible terrain (anybody know of ANY version since TFTD that has it?), which, nm the look and feel, ruins the gameplay as far as I’m concerned. All this is the biggest thing that pisses me off about that new XCOM thing (which I grant looks like moderately to fairly interesting in it’s own right), we are now getting the technology to do really good 3D destructible environments in a way just not possible a few years ago.
I still want my pausable Full Spectrum Warrior style X-Com though.
Oh, and to actually talk about Dungeons/Dungeon Keeper, looks awesome. I don’t see any real gotchas in the reimplementation like there are with X-Com, so even a straight clone would be interesting (though I doubt I’d buy that).
13/08/2010 at 01:50 Joji says:
Kalypso did a pretty terrible job with M.U.D. TV though… the game was full of bugs with only one big patch released for it and that’s all… it didn’t even repair most of the bugs which is a shame because the concept of the game was kinda neat.
Except for that I don’t know much about them except they’re making both Patrician 4 and now DK, 2 very awesome series.
13/08/2010 at 03:23 Mars says:
“One of your imps does a great impression of you. He can even do the ears.”
So many interesting games slated for 2011, here’s another one I’ll have to keep an eye on.
13/08/2010 at 05:15 Collic says:
Cautious optimism mixed with giddy excitement.
YES !
13/08/2010 at 08:41 Juppstein says:
Just a little tip for those that cannot wait for DK on the digital screen. There is a very well made and truly funny boardgame named Dungeon Lords. It is a strategy game where you build your dungeon and try to survive the waves of adventurers. If you want to know more have a look here:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/45315/dungeon-lords
This game is worth every $ and it’s a big hit in our game group since several months.
13/08/2010 at 11:10 Sam says:
I am cautiously optimistic.
13/08/2010 at 11:42 Arg says:
Kalypso Media: Buggy, unfinished games that never receive proper patching and receive buggy expansions that ALSO remain unpatched in terms of critical mem leaks, gamebreaking bugs etc.
(MUD TV just being the latest example of this fraud. They didn’t even patch it for the international release.)
THIS PUBLISHER OFFERS NEAR ZERO ENDUSER SUPPORT AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.
Also, this looks like it has nothing on the actual DK, but is just a cash-in attempt while trying for exactly the same look and concept. Where’s the advancement?
13/08/2010 at 12:16 Butler` says:
DK1 is in my top 5 games of all time. Quite like to be dissapointed by this sadly :(
13/08/2010 at 13:21 Araxiel says:
Well, it already seems kinda bloody, me likey, and cellshaded, me not so sure if likey. I hope you’ll be able to change to the original dub, everything sounds more evil in German.
13/08/2010 at 17:09 Severian says:
Oddly enough, this reminds me of how I felt when Tropico 3 was announced. The original Tropico and DK are probably my two most favorite games of all time (well, perhaps Ultima III should be thrown in there), so nothing gets me salivating as news like this. When Trop 3 was announced, I kept saying: “As long as they preserve the gameplay of the original and update the graphics, I’ll be thrilled.” And, it was so, and I am. Mostly. I have been quite pleased with Trop 3, although I haven’t played it nearly as much as I thought I would.
If the gameplay mimics that of DK1/2, and the graphics get a nice overhaul, I’ll be thrilled. Please make it so.
13/08/2010 at 18:24 Vanderdecken says:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/08/tech_brief_66.html
Linked to by the BBC! Well done old bean.
15/08/2010 at 17:56 lolucard says:
“they take the concept further”
hope so, if it would be one of the main publishers, it would only be simplified for the retard generation.
06/10/2010 at 03:39 louis vuitton outlet says:
Linked to by the BBC! Well done old bean.
03/12/2010 at 23:17 xclever says:
http://www.dunyaforum.net