Dungeon Keeper - Android

[Raveen]

I mentioned in the what are you playingthread that I was playing the Android Dungeon Keeper game.

A month or so down the line I'm still playing and I thought it might be of interest to give a review of the long term game given how controversial the game has been in the media.

First of all, the game should be approached as a casual game. It is not, particularly in the early days, a game you can play for hours at a time. You will want to log in every few hours to set your imps a new task. Imps are your basic workers, they dig out rock, build rooms and traps and they are your most precious resource. You start with 2 imps and can have up to 6 (I've just got my 5th). As you dig you will earn gems which can be used to accelerate tasks or buy new imps. You'll want to do the latter as more imps is a good thing. There's a mechanic where you slap your imps to make them work at double speed and the amount of time the boost lasts is also dependent on how many imps you have, more imps meaning a longer boost.

In terms of rooms there are mines, gold and stone, which provide you with resources. First of all you have to dig to your mines and then claim them. I'm sure there are people who don't claim all their mines and use that as a defensive tactic but I dodn't bother with that because I want more stuff.

Gold and stone are used to build rooms and traps and summon minions. Each new room has a different property, some store resources, some unlock new minions, some are defensive and some are a mix of the above.

You can raid other dungeons, using your summoned minions, to steal their resources and other keepers will raid you which is what traps are for. A raid lasts 3 minutes and the minions you use will be permanently gone requiring you to rebuy them. The game uses some form of matchmaking to ensure that you aren't completely outclassed or overwhelming for your opponent and there's always a nice amount of resources to be stolen even if it's never quite enough. Raiding and designing your dungeon to best protect your assets is the meat of the game.

It's a lot of fun and the new elements being drip fed to you by the game actually works well as there's always something new to try (or another keepers design to copy). I joined a guild which allows you to club together to earn perks which essentially shave time off certain events.

All in all it's a lot of fun and well worth playing. THere's absolutely no requirement to spend money to play (I ended up paying £3 for some extra gems as they were giving away a free Imp with any purchase and I've absolutely had my moneys worth from the game). Don't write it off based on the press, try it and give it the time it deserves and you might well enjoy it.

[Gandalf]

Copying my quote across....

As well as the micro-transaction stuff - which isn't too annoying - there's too much encouraging you to log on ALL the time, such as the imp-slapping, and the fact that mines fill up within 2.5 hours.

I have actually taken up OGame again. At least you can increase your storage there so it akes a number of days to fill up.

[Raveen]

Same with DK, now my mines don't top out whilst I'm asleep. I think the slow start could be improved upon by EA because pretty much all those complaints go away after a couple of weeks play.