DGC Ep 468: Dungeon Keeper (part one)

Hello, and welcome back to Dev Game Club, a weekly podcast in which two veteran game developers look at games from the past to discuss their relevance and impact today. I'm Brett Duville, and I'm joined as always by my co host, a man who deep in the bowels of the earth rules over a realm of chaos and violence. Tim Longo. That's the best kind of realm. Yeah, yeah. Sure wish that was true. But it is better to be feared than to be loved, Tim, as they say.

That's why I play video games, right? So I can fulfill some sort of weird fantasy that I didn't know I had, apparently. Yeah, there you go. That is, of course, from the manual. We are starting a new game uh this week. You wanna talk about the game and why we picked this one?

Yeah, sure. Um, we are talking uh we are playing and talking about Dungeon Keeper, specifically Dungeon Keeper goal. the case. Uh so we it is an another god game and it is another game from Bullfrog. But uh we wanted to um I mean speak for myself for a second, you can, you know, offer your side of it too. But for me Uh my memory of our populist series, uh which ever as everyone knows is always cloudy, but my but I do remember games as Brett has said more than many

Cl Populous in a way for me was always after we played it and talked so much about it, it it felt like almost a prototype for a thing. You know, like an idea of a thing. And you can see its influence on the future. But I feel like now that we've started Dungeon Keeper, I'm happy that we're playing another one by the same company, by the same, some of the same team, leader, you know, especially leadership and Peter Moore.

And then also another God game in the same genre, but this one is definitely flipped on its head. But you can see the lineage from populist in it, you know. And I'm happy about that. I'm happy that we have that sign of connection point and we're and it's almost like we're playing it, you know, it's a instead of which would be a waste to play like populist Five or whatever they would have been on. or populace. A little bit of populist, the New Beginning or whatever.

A new beginning, yeah, right. Yeah. So we played a more modern one and and we did talk about that and we had a guest on for that. But um but uh You know, rather than doing a full series on like a modern version. It's a definitely its own thing, which I have had forgotten a lot about from playing I'm happy to to to hit it for various reasons now. But also just to continue that, you know, that trend that uh on that trend of what a God game.

Especially this company's. Yeah. Yeah, I mean for me I would s I would say it is the um I mean I I also I was looking at our list and we have a number of bullfrog games in there. Good point. Which is a real telling thing about Bullfrog. Um, you know, we also considered just peeking behind the scenes, we talked about Syndicate as another one, which is kind of coming from a different lineage, right? Is more um like

uh enemy unknown, right? Um you know, it's sort a sorta different kind of thing, but um you know, but it's probably a similar sort of isometric or top down kinda or side side view kind of thing. Uh a game I've never played, although I have I have played quite a lot of of the original Dungeon Keeper. Um

Anyway, yeah, so it for me it was like, well, we could play any of these and a lot of it is, you know, the the feel of a bullfrog game. Um in some ways I think Syndicate would be interesting to talk about just because I feel like the tone would be

Maybe a little different, probably a little darker. I'm kind of curio darker and grittier, I would say. Not not necessarily darker,'cause this game is dark enough. Um but this is like dark humor and that's kinda I think dark gritty. Um I'd kinda curious. Cyberpunk. Yeah, like we may come back to that one at some point. Um, but probably, you know, not for a little while. Um but yeah, anyway, it's uh worth

worth looking at um another one and you know there's there's been a number of studios that we've played multiple games from or companies we've played multiple games from like Square and Nintendo in particular are a couple of big ones. Um But uh this is just definitely its own kind of vibe, you know, and is is worth worth looking at now and again. That's something that's a little a little off the beaten path because there are so many good games from that studio and it's

It's a shame to have only one in our in our catalog here that that we've played when their catalog is so good. Uh like I said, we have a number like Theme Hospital, I think is also them and that's in our list.

Um so there's a yeah, there's a lot of a lot of that. Plus it I yeah, go ahead. No, I don't think it's on there on the list, but black and white was also kind of Is one we've talked about. Yeah. Yeah, and and you know, speaking of black and white, the the influence of these games kind of goes um you know beyond Mollynew, who of course went and founded Lion Head, you know, and they went and ultimately were acquired by a EA and Microsoft are Microsoft for that one.

EA EA for um bullfrog, Microsoft for uh Lion Head. Where they did these You know, a lot of games that had sort of the similar, you know, starting points in bullfrog games. Um, but it's it's a good place to be from. I think of like LucasArts is one of those companies that's good to be from. We benefited from that in our career, you know, it was pretty esteemed. Um this is another company that's good to be from because of

How many hits they had, you know, what a unique flavor they had. Um, and you know, you can take other people from there. I was looking through the credits and I didn't run everyone down. I ran down a few names that I was like, Oh, I think I know that name and would see people who just had so many credits in the industry, you know, at you know, um, either the Molyneux companies or just like who had gone and, you know, bore fruit elsewhere, like Mark Healy.

Who um did Kung Fu uh Ragdoll Kung Fu, which I think was the first ever non-valve game in Steam. Um Mm-hmm. And then Alex Evans and he Alex Evans was a programmer. Um, Healy was a designer, is a designer. They co founded with some others media molecule like

Bullfrog's Wow Yeah you know, Bullfrog's imprint is large. Um so it it feels like we should um we should talk about it more than we have. Um so it's good, you know, and looking through the titles, it's like, well You know, kind of a war inflected game is not really what I want to play right now uh with Syndicate, which is ultimately right. Yeah. Right. Um so uh this this felt like uh you know the right right kind of space.

Well and we I mean coming off of Majors, it's interesting too to think about because I I one thing that I think we there's sort of a mythos around Peter Molyneux and And the companies that he's led. And you know, obviously it's a team effort for sure, but I as a as a team, they always Even within the genres that they focused on, they they they seem to swing for the fences, you know, and sometimes they wouldn't it wouldn't work, you know, but but at least they did, you know, and

To your point, there's such a catalog there that most of them had some impact of some kind. And I think this game, Dungeon Keeper specifically, I remember. We'll talk about Uh and I just appreciate, and it was a time, you know, the the late nineties, the nineties in general, early aughts was a time when I think that those risks were a little bit more.

palatable to the people with the money. But uh and but but I think that that th those companies, Bullfrog and Lion, had carried some weight, right? That they were allowed to do certain things. And In both cases, unfortunately. You know, resulted in Yeah, cultural uh capture. Their demise, yeah, which is which is all too often the case. It was especially the case uh at EA.

you know, in the nineties. You know, it was get purchased by EA two years later, nobody's left there anymore who had anything to do with the games and and the studio closes, you know, six months after that. I mean it was not quite exactly that clockwork, but, you know, it was that was a very similar arc, you know, to many of the stories of those acquisitions. And, you know, it it has happened to a degree with Microsoft as well. Lionhead certainly

didn't make it out of all of that, although Rare has, right? Rare is still a going kind Yeah, rare has, yeah. Yeah. Shifts, yeah, yeah. And I mean we did get three Fable games, um, you know, so and the Movies I think was a sort of in the vein of movies. Yeah, so they definitely did some stuff, some good stuff there. Yeah. So it wasn't like immediate Yeah, doing their best, but it's just a complicated transition, you know, to happen. But um and then Fable's another good example of like.

They went in in a whole new direction and yes it was a third person RPG kind of thing, but it was doing it's trying to do something. Fresh as well. And and borrowing some of the things they had done with um with the creature and the world in black and white, right? Oh, the actions the player takes. have a literal visible, you know, impact on the world around you in a specific kind of way.

Um the same way would ha as would happen specifically with the creature, but with the world in general, because the creature would affect the world, um, in black and white. So um so you can see sort of the the genes there as well.

Anyway, you mentioned the the late nineties. Um this was nineteen ninety seven, so I will put it in its context. If you want to hear more about bullfrog, you know, we've we've spent a few minutes on it here, but um I recall talking about it uh quite a bit back in the populace, uh, you know, which is quite a while back now, but uh you can go find it in the the show archive. Um so some games we've played from nineteen ninety seven, GoldenEye Double O seven, Diablo

Castlevania. Uh Fallout. It's wild to think of Diablo and Castlevania in the same year. Fallout. Interstate 76. Final Fantasy Tactics and The Last Express. So this is quite a number of uh games we've played from this year. It's one of those years uh that's got a lot of good games in it. that we haven't. Um Age of Empires. Uh Outlaws, which was led by our old boss, uh Darren Stinnett. Curse of Monkey Island. Uh Dark Forces 2 Jedi Knight.

Shadows of the Empire, so plenty of LucasArts this year, apparently. Uh Wing Commander Prophecy. Final Fantasy Seven, Mario Kart sixty four, Gran Turismo, and of course others. Um so you see this mix of like sort of the end nearing the end of the PlayStation life cycle. I think it had a couple years left, right? Um You've got the uh RTSs involved, some shooters.

Uh, but also the N sixty four kind of in its last last hurrah, I think, more or less, maybe another another year or two on the N sixty four as well. I don't r I don't remember the timing on that exactly. Yeah, maybe more like three years on the N sixty four. So it was uh it was a time. Yeah, you list those games and it's like, Oh yeah, that's a very specific time. Mm-hmm. There are some genres that were Yeah, barely around anymore that we're dominating.

Yeah, I think it was Wing Commander in particular, which was one of those games that I played in prep for Starfighter just because I had not played games like those. Um And uh and uh I r I can remember Shadows of the Empire, d everybody was still kind of in their offices. If they had worked on that game, they were in the offices in cubicles near

um like Mark Pay Hutchinson and stuff, um, you know, in the in the company. Uh, so just interesting uh time. It was also the time where um I think it was the next year that LucasArt said we're gonna only do three D from now on, but it was this sort of switch from software rendered three D to the accelerated cards kind of transition going on. Um so also a big time for all of that, you know, the

Yeah, the um the consoles were having some three D support and that was gonna only get more and more with the coming generation, which was gonna come soon. But the PC was definitely getting into that biz as well. So Which we I bring up here because we will talk a little bit about that. Um when we get into how this game actually plays and looks and feels and all of that stuff. Uh because we are playing the software rendered version, uh, because that is what is

Apparently more stable. Um there's uh d original direct three D support, surprisingly, uh is not super well supported by modern cards. Huh. Go figure. Um it uh But uh I wonder if you switched it to be like your Intel built in card on a PC, if it would be better supported, honestly. Um,'cause those things haven't changed all that much. Um, the integrated graphics chips. Um

But uh despite the fact that the whole point of the Direct 3D, the way it was built, was like it will support all of the versions forever. Um it it did not, as it turns out. Uh Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, so it uh apparently is not as stable. So I will probably stick with the software renderer. I'll give it a try to see if I can make the the 3D version happen just to see how it looks. Um apparently the Gog version.

has some way to support that, but I don't know if they've dropped that in recent years. The most recent info I had from that was a bit old, so who knows. Uh and you are you actually playing on the Steam Deck? You you got it from Steam Deck. No, no, I'm playing on the Yeah, because you got a lot of a lot of keyboard needs. Thank you. Probably doesn't. Well somebody out there might have done a super good mapping for the uh you never know.

It's not imp it's it wouldn't be impossible. I think it'd be more of like the navigation to click on Oh yeah, yeah. I mean I'd have to use the touch screen. To be honest, but which is not impossible, but I think it's definitely better.

Yeah, we will probably not play the most recent Dungeon Keeper, which was a uh MOBA microtransactions nightmare, I believe, on the phones. That's right. I forgot about that. They took the IP and they were like, We're gonna Yeah. We're gonna get rid of all everything that made this game great and we're gonna you know play on your nostalgia. EA owns this IP, right? Correct. Yeah. Anything anything uh Bullfrog did, that's uh that's theirs to mess up. Um so Let's uh

Let's get into it because the the high concept of this game is a big part of its p of its initial appeal, um, which is the idea that you are uh on the other side of the dungeon dungeoneering, as it were. So why don't you take it away? Tell tell me about that. You know. That teased you back in the day. Yeah, well it it's I mean to be hon yeah it's it's It's interesting to think that uh you mentioned it, I think that Diablo came out this year.

Yes. And then we played it for that.'Cause I'm actually Still knee deep in Diablo four. I think I'm I'm nearing up on four hundred hours now. A uh a a game series which has managed not to go the weird uh EA route. No. Oh yeah. They've really they still they still know what they what that is. They know what their IP, you know. Yeah, what it is. They're sticking to it, yeah, which is good good for them'cause I think

But anyway, yeah, so this is the opposite of Diablo. This is this is um, you know, dungeon crawls were a thing and Diablo was you know gonna start a big revolution of that, I'd say with real action RPGs. Um so it was maybe, you know, Dungeon Keeper was ahead of its time in that way and that that hadn't Diablo hadn't lit the world on fire quite yet because these would

But this yeah, the the the the hook for this is you are the dungeon keeper. You are not the hero. You are actually trying to um take out the heroes and the love the I think I was gonna say love.

use any of those words for this game. Um the hilarious part of the hilarious sort of structure of the game is you know the game opens uh with this intro where the hero is on a horse and coming through and going into the dungeon etc etc and going into a town and and eventually you see the the Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's very British, yeah. No, it's very British, very very English in its ways, its humor, right? The in the in the intro, like you mentioned and pre-show in the intro, the M.

uh creatures f you know, flip the bird to the hero, you know, and yeah. Um, but the end, you know, I won't I won't go through every bit of it, but the, you know, builds up to the The hero in the dungeon killing all the minions and then it introduces some of the bigger enemies, the demons, and sort of the dungeon keeper feel to it. And I think it's they sort of represent I don't know if it's you, but one of the demons seems like, you know, who the who the main character is that you play as.

And then they bring you know, um the hero is flanked by another creature and is beheaded and the hero loses, you know. So it's like it's, you know, you're playing the bad guy. It's that's it's that whole thing, but you are doing it from a God game perspective and a sim perspective where you are creating the dungeons on the flip side as the heroes are trying to invade invade your dungeon and so there's a lot of things I forgot about this game that I am appreciating

Yeah, it's just, you know, you're flipping the model. And for an RPG nerd like me, back then in ninety seven, I had just started at LucasArts. And uh It's just like, what a great idea. You know, what a great concept of like flipping it on its head. And you know what it made me think of that was way too close to home and nobody listening. Well, not nobody, but probably unfortunately not a lot of people know this game, but it it reminded me of Afterlife. Of course.

Uh We've talked about afterlife before, but yeah. Yeah, and I don't know if it was if it was um that was Stemley and Sean Clark, I think, was that right? I don't remember if Sean Clark was a very good idea. Yeah, there was another co-director, but I can't remember. But yeah, Stemley for sure. For the writing. Yeah. Assembly's tone and and kind of like the the the setup for it.

So but that was about kind of, you know, um Heaven and Hell and it was like a sim Sim City game where you where you are playing where you are managing Heaven and Hell. So imagine that. Oof. I think that was just a brilliant game and such a weird game, but it's a time for that. And this game is similar.

we're seeing this other side. But the other cool thing I forgot about, and then I'll I'll throw it over to your impressions, is that the other structural setup for the game Is there's a lot of narration, well, not a lot, but there's some narration in the interstitial front-end bits between levels. It's level-based. Right. Um, but there's this um 3D rendering of this land. And there's an introduction to each of the basically towns that you're gonna go take care of.

uh quote unquote take care of as the bad guys. Yeah. And there's uh description, the narrator has this snarky you know, I mean there's a lot of great narration games out there today, right? Bastion and stuff like that, right? So it's like an early version of that where they're where they're insulting the town that's all too peaceful and you're the you're the demons coming in to to wreck house.

I mean it's basically Tristram from Diablo, but you're playing you're playing the characters who made the dungeon below Tristram, you know? Yeah. And that's the sim. And it's just brilliant. I just love it that they went this far. Now there are definitely some tricky bits we'll get into later, but Um the flipping it's on its head. And so you're basically every level is a town that you are

destroying and taking out its hero, its key hero. You're dis you know, killing the hero. And once you do that, so the map, rather than the map in the in the in the heroic RPG sense, rather than the Mac map being you know, healed over time. Each town is, you know, or whatever, like rehabilitated. Right. This is every town is being basically It's getting worse. Destroyed, right? In fact they changed the name. Um That's right.

change the name as you go of each town. And then they'll refer to the you know, if they're so when you're playing the second level they refer to the previous town as its new name instead of its its uh original name, which is like Ever Smile or something like that. Um it's very good. Yeah. Uh so yeah, point of uh uh clarification, it was in fact Stemley who was the project lead on that alone. Uh you might have been thinking about Justin Graham, who was the lead programmer. Um

Maybe, yeah. There w it was I just remember in because we were in QA in the time I remember Mike having kind of a partner in crime. Yeah, yeah. He probably had some some help on that, but uh but he is credited as the sole project. Yeah, well that makes sense. I mean he's yeah. It's so his it is and it's a fun game to play, although and I read something um I don't know, la probably last time we talked about it, I went and looked up the critical um

reception of of that game, which was quite good, but it was like this is a difficult game. And part of the reason why it was difficult before I get to to uh to uh Dungeon Keeper is that The way you built heaven and the way you built uh the other place uh were very different ways to think. So you wanted a really efficient heaven and a really inefficient uh underworld. Right. So it's like

You had to like put your brain on two different tracks because you wanted lots of traffic and congestion, you know, in the bad place, you know, and you wanted everything to be perfect in the good place. And so it was like just involve this like You you couldn't play the game one way. You had to play the game both ways. And then there was all this stuff with the planet in terms of what people believe there and

investing in miracles and things like that to make people believe in heaven or or afterlifes generally and like you could like slow down how many people were coming versus not and stuff like that. Um there is a if I can track it down, this is a great um modern essay where somebody like maximized and made the game Endgame perfect, like that you couldn't get it any better and the amount of effort that that took. Yeah, cool. Figuring everything out about it. Anyway.

Uh for this, I mean, for me it has always come down to it's like, what if you got to be a dungeon master but you didn't care if the players had a good time? Um Ha ha ha. Yeah, that's a good idea description. Yeah. Some of the yeah, some of the most fun, right?

Then the players will not have a good time. Um the uh you know, the whole point is to like all the fiendish things you wish you could do to your players, but don't, um, because they're still level two and if you put too many traps in they won't make it through. Here it's you're encouraged to just like within your budget, um, which of course is always a thing with these sorts of sim games, like, you know, some kind of money to like

Prevent you just going and doing everything and making the game too easy. Um, but within your budget, making the perfect death trap of a dungeon. And that really appeals. You know, there used to be, you know, back back, you know, when we first started playing role playing games on tabletop, you and I, you know, you could get accessories which were like, you know, a hundred and fifty fiendish traps, which would be just these traps that were just grotesquely.

Terrifying, you know, what they would do to players and you know, um, and like being able to detect them, you'd detect it and it's like, how do I even disable this thing? And you know, this has all that kind of pleasure of like, what if I didn't have to care if they survived?

Uh in fact didn't want them to survive. Um, so it really has that feel to it. And you know, you add to that that you're now getting to sort of directly improve the monsters and like the monsters have a real life inside your dungeon instead of the sort of monster closet uh of a lot of sort of dungeons that would have been, you know, in D modules and things like that at the time.

There's all there's also that is like there's a sort of ecology going on here which is also super cool. So you get to build out the dungeon in real time, you know, knowing that this It's going to be tested. And like, are you going to survive the test? Uh

It's just a terrific vibe and the um you know, the tutorial really kind of sets that up kind of perfectly. I mean, there's a moment in the tutorial where I was just kinda like digging around and like, oh, maybe I'll make this room bigger or maybe I'll dig in this direction a little bit. And I dug straight into a tunnel that the heroes were in.

And and suddenly I'm like grabbing all my monsters and dropping them there and you know, I won quickly. The tutorial's meant to be beaten. It's not uh supposed to be a challenge of any kind. Um but but uh but it went it went swimmingly despite the surprise.

And we haven't even gotten to a lot of the elements that'll be in this game and we'll talk about in future episodes. So yeah um a lot of those things I'm like I can't wait to do these things, you know,'cause they're coming, but they're but we haven't got them yet. We're still um we're still kind of in the early days.

Yeah, and you know the the other the like I had forgotten how much mining there is in the game and that that is kind of the main verb you're using to build out from. There's even gold, right? You're going for gold veins and stuff. And so I even had a little bit of a reverse Minecraft feel about it, right? Like what if imagine you were playing as you know. Minecraft, but only digging. Yeah, or that you start in Yeah. Yeah. Right. You start as saying.

You start in a cave and you're, you know, a witch or you're or you're a zombie or you're uh some leader character that that uh or you start in the nether. Okay. Imagine imagine a game where you start in the nether and you are the bad guys. You're the Those pig creatures or whatever. Yeah. There's probably is. Lost Lake tell us how that Um and but but the whole idea is that there are NPC, you know, uh characters like the Minecraft characters, like uh Uh

I'm blanking on their name. Steve. Steve and Yeah that's it. Oh gosh, no'cause they just cast they just cast uh that for the movie. Oh, okay. For the sequel. Uh for for yeah, for her. Uh it's on the tip of my tongue. Anyway, but yeah, I mean it's just like the digging is cool in this game, and I am and and I'd forgotten that. And the reason I bring it up is to your point on digging through into a hero. Um

A hero's hallway that they're digging because they're also digging. They're also mining and kind of trying to find treasure, right? Yeah. Trying to find you and taking Trying to crawl the dungeon. Yeah, it's so good. But the thing that I've totally forgot that is so good and I love so much is on the m on the mini-map they give you an indication. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And where they're coming from. And if you they have a focus-based audio. So basically wherever your cursor and your camera is.

It might just be your cursor actually. They play different audio, right? So it's not like not all the audio is playing all the time. It's based on where you're so. If you go to that spot, you can hear them on the other side of the wall.

Digging. Yeah. And they're like clonk, klong, klong, klong. The sound's amazing. The audio design's amazing. And it feels like they're coming. Yeah. And it is terrifying. Even as an imp. You know, all my imp are running around and all my little minions that are not very powerful. Oh no, they're gonna break through in my library. Oh my oh my god.

Am I gonna do? Yeah. Yeah. So it's the the effect that they were able to achieve on that and I don't know what the sort of AI approach is there, but at least That you know, when I was playing this time it feels like Again, I don't remember the rules for'cause I think in certain walls, like once you build up the once your minions build up walls, it's harder for them to get through or something.

Correct. Yeah. So the the hero AI will start digging hall um digging tunnels all the way around your dungeon. To try to find, yeah. And that's what had happened in the tutorial is because I didn't build out a lot of rooms. Right and they found small rooms, the imps and I actually built a bunch of imps'cause they were like, Oh, you can make more imps and I was like, Well, I wonder how many I can make before I'm

out of money and I like so I made like six more imps and it's like, Oh, I can make quite a few imps before um there's a mechanic with the imps where each one that you make costs twice as much as the one you made before. Um so Okay, that explains a lot. But at a certain point you're like, Oh I'm out of imps. Um Yeah. Yeah. They become too expensive to make. So you do have to protect them a little bit. Um And that's on uh that's typically where the game starts to where a level um

Will break down for you because it's like uh oh. Uh Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I I've I can't afford I can't afford another imp and yet I can't get more money without more imps, which is maybe The game's a little broken around that. Um in later levels where it w it gets more difficult. Um you end up replaying levels because of that, I guess would be I mean it's not broken, it's just

It's the way it was designed to be. It's it's sort of like, oh, this is a game where you can lose. Um, you know, which is not kind of the style anymore, uh, from from that standpoint. I don't want to put an hour in building a dungeon and and then suddenly like, oh no, I'm out of imp. And there's still a hero coming and what do I do? You know. Um I can't afford to build anything to stop him, so we're just gonna lose. And we can either watch that or not.

That's sort of the case with populist, am I remembering that? It's definitely true of all these games, um, of this era. And I mean it's true of of other games in the sort of God game associated sort of area and like Civ Civ games are the same way. Yeah that's true.

It can be it can be hard to recover. You have more options to recover, but it can you can definitely get into a corner where you're like, Okay, this is gonna take an hour for me to die for good, but you know, there's no coming back. Like I have no more options. Uh Yeah, you may as well start. Yeah. Might as well start over. Or Or role.

back. Yeah. Um so that that will come up. Um But yeah, the other you know, the other thing about this is of course, because it's bullfrog and because we're we know them, we know it's gonna have that that humorous and in this this case dark humor.

tone um that makes all of this so much fun to do. From the introducing the town, you know, that you then change over to be some other town, uh, you know, to just like all the things you're gonna all the ways that the creatures are introduced and um there's this basically voice you know, over your shoulder saying, Well, now do this in the tutorial, um, you know, and and in sort of instructing you. And all of that is has got the same

tone and humor that we expect uh from a bullfrog game and would have anticipated at the time. Um your syndicates uh notwithstanding.

Yeah, I mean it it's it and it does it's dark humor, it's British humor in my opinion. Um and I mean it's you know, it's um Low hanging fruit humor as well. But Yeah, this is uh yeah, this is what you what you expect, but uh But I you know, that's I think the funny thing about it for me, even though I I t I typically love British humor.

My most of my life. Um But you know, it's like the funny thing about it is being also a Diablo fan, like Diablo is a franchise, you know, on the opposite like we talked about, the sort of mirror image of this, but takes itself very seriously. Oh, so self serious. It's like oh man the world, you know, things are yeah, soul stones and you know, whatever, you know. So um so uh it's

Yeah, I mean doesn't the first one end with him putting his eyes out or something like that? It's just like it is dark and so. He takes yeah, anyway, I don't want to get into it. Yeah. So you you become Diablo. Yeah. Oh I've yeah, as I've said. Also deep in a Diablo lore. Yeah. Uh so I know I know all too much about the son of the king and Those wikis are definitely a maze of uh twisty little passages. Ha ha ha. Four.

Yeah, like this game. But I yeah, I I think I feel like my memory of the game, which I'm also delighted by, is that and maybe it's just because of the way I built when I played in the old days, but I I felt like the rooms were much more kind of like atomic things. Then you had like a set that you were placing like a little bit more like a Civ or a Sim City game. Yeah, Sim City especially. I'm happily surprised and that's why I brought up mining as well, is that you are really shaping

everything, right? Like there's if you want a square room, I mean there it's all in it's all in cubes, but um Agreed. As far as like if you want to make a room, you know, nine by nine or three by three by three or you know, four by four or whatever, that's up to you or if you want to make it into a shape of and the clock. So I just forgot that it that it was that mm, you know.

Yeah. I mean it's it's very so the room building, you know, which is one of the you know, three key mechanics I'd say that you learn in the tutorial. Um You know, one is the uh maybe four, I guess. One is just the sort of God game directing stuff. I mean that's that's pretty simple. Like dig this way, whatever. Um but the room building is it's very um zone-based.

you know, which is similar actually to SimCity, right? Sim City is all about laying down this is a zone, this is a residential area zone, like that you can actually see on the grid, right? And So for that matter is dwarf fortress, right? Where, oh, this is zoned as a dwarf's room. This is a bedroom. You know, this is a dining hall. This is a whatever. And it's in that case, it's mostly

um rectangles. Here it is like literally grid square by grid square. Um, but I think they are more efficient if they are uh sort of square rooms and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like Encourage you to do certain build certain ways. Yeah. And I'm sure that that is also a honestly a boon to performance and things like that. Um, you know, for for them because it's like, Oh, a creature's in this area, that's a lot easier to test if you don't have to test it square by square. Um, but uh

Yeah, it's a there's a whole bunch of reasons why you might you want only square rooms. But um but yeah, so it is that is a kinda common lingua franqua franca of these kinds of things of like you know, you zone kind of in these areas, but you have a fair amount of control here. I just don't think it would work too well to have like your you know, your lair right next to like with no separation, you know, a bunch of training squares. Um and I wonder to what degree they'll they'll be like annoyed

like you know, like something in Tward Fortress would be where they're annoyed because they hear too much noise, you know, from their bedroom. Yeah, so they go to sleep but they get woken up because they're too close to a a drinking room or something like that. Or some other kind or smelter or something.

Um, so I I'm not sure how much of that is going on here and how much separation of rooms really matters, but um but that is definitely a key mechanic that they're teaching you is like Okay, you're gonna dig out some space, but then you need to then you need to decide what that room's gonna be about. Yeah. And it's automate yeah. Yeah. No, I think the zoning point's a good a really good point and it and it automates beyond that. Once you zone

Like in the training room work for instance, right, there's pillars that are about you know, that are like those mechanical swiveling things for training. Right, right. And they are automated. No, like a kung fu movie. Yeah, right. They're automatically generated once you zone when they build in there, right? You don't place those things individually, like correct. So that's a good point. It's it's not deep, um, but it is flexible. So

Uh-huh. Yeah. And it's just more flexible than I remember having to make those decisions, right? So you and it's kind of neat because in the minimap and the overall and the sort of like top down map, you get to see the shape of your dungeon. So um and and again, it's not that deep in the the the maps themselves, to be honest, are not huge. Maybe they get bigger later, but also there needs to be an approach for the heroes.

Anyway, right. So it's just a fascinating it it seems like a fascinating game for from a design perspective to figure out how to tune and balance that stuff. I'm I'm really like would really really be interested to know what the tools were like for this game because they had to find you know, they had to basically uh craft how the heroes

were coming in and I know I'm I I cheated and played one extra level than you did, but in in that level you get to see the heroes dungeon, for lack of a better term, or at least a neutral dungeon that they took over. Yeah, an area that they've built out themselves or something.

And so that was pre you know predetermined and kind of coming from a specific direction. And if you go in there, you can take their gold and stuff like that. So, um, but it's just like a such a weird it just seems like such a weird game to design because of that because it is so Um but at the end of the day, it does come down to economy and resource management. Like for instance, you need to get gold, of course, and you can mine gold, but you also need a treasury.

Right. And it has to be big enough for all the gold that you collect, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's there's there's those tensions that happen and to your point like Yeah. ki you know, true to form for the the hook of the game some of the v um attitudes that the creatures have as opposed to say a Sim City game or a Sims game is an even better. It's like rather than hunger, well, they do have hunger, but like rather than happiness,

It's like how annoyed are they? Or how you know it's like these different Yeah, these different um these different descriptors that are that are the variables you're worrying about, which is great because it you would want those to be different from you know, a h a hero heroic character that's that's maybe about bravery and you know and other things, um other um sliders or bars.

Or not filling. And to your point, again, because I cheated on that third level, they introduced libraries and they specifically say the libraries cannot be placed near other rooms because of the normal. Right, of course. the one studying there will be annoyed at it, you know. So Yeah.

No, that's it is fascinating. I mean one of the things that of course as a God game it gives you, uh, and this is another mechanic that's that's surfaced in the tutorial and allows you to affect some of these variables. uh other than room placement, which you know, something like the library will will matter. But like you have um because you are a you are embodied as a hand in the world

uh you can interact directly with the minions. Um which, you know, you can you can literally just I think it's right click to like slap them. So which is a very like that's all the way through to uh black and white, right? You can

you know, give negative reinforcement or positive reinforcement to your um you know, to your creature in that game. Here you can do that with any minion and when you slap them or pick up you can you can basically if they're kind of not doing what you want them to be doing, you can basically pick them up and drop them somewhere else. um to you sort of incentivize them to do. So if you pick up a creature and you drop it in a training room, it will start training as long as there is enough slots.

in the training room to do so. Um similarly you pick up an imp and you drop it near an undug wall, it will start that you have marked as to dig. It will start digging that wall'cause it's kind of the closest thing that it wants to do. Um So you have that sort of direct control over the sort of your slow upgrade of your dungeon or the upkeep of your creatures, but you can also directly impact morale by slapping them.

So you can slap those imps to make them work harder because they're not working hard. Um or you can slap apparently if you s and I did this a lot um in the training rooms, uh if you slap them while they're training, they will level fast. in their um in their training. So they'll get tougher faster because you're slapping them while they're training. Um and I mean the the sort of like

you know, direct access to sort of some variables, you know, basically speed of things happening and, you know, what things are what creatures are doing. But in this kind of like I'm so much more important than you, do my bidding kind of way, is very, you know, very in keeping with the tone and this sort of like, you're an evil guy. You know, you're not the you're not the good guy here. Um

you know, you are making the challenge that the heroes will not overcome. Uh and I love that aspect of just like go find a creature in the training room and Um and different creatures, as we go further into the game, different creatures, and some of this will be problematic, as if this isn't already. Um, some of those creatures will have different reactions to those slaps on the basis of what those characters are and where they are.

Um so it it gets to be a whole a little weird and a little out there. Um but it's different it's sort of an indirect Direct interaction with your minions, if you know what I mean. Like in the Sims, you can literally say, go do this. Um but you can't smack them. You know, you can't say, Don't do that, smack and smack them, you know, like you're doing anything else.

I don't like it. Yeah. And they and they they're getting I think they thought and think they're getting a pass by be you being the evil character and sla you know, that's where black and white fell down. Yeah. It's like Yeah, it's pretty. It was like It's pretty grim. Yeah. Well you know.

We left a copy of that running overnight with a creature who was made to be not very nice and it ate all the villagers, um Yeah. You know, overnight. Uh You know, Peter Peter I think Peter would say and I think he said at the time that that it's like in that case You as a player are making those decisions, right? So he kind of washes his hands of that concept in that point. And you know, I have a strong opinion about that.

There's plenty of examples and and in fact some of at least one franchise we play. Um so yeah, I mean you get you get a you get a bit of a you I think developers think they get away with it because you're saying the players make But you're still giving them opportunities. In this game, you are only the bad guy, right? So it's like even the hand looks evil. And I think Yeah.

It's implied that you are that character from the intro, right? That and I think unfortunately that character's name is Orney? Yeah, it's horny. Um yeah, and the other demon I think is like a fat demon or something, is the other kind of big bad character in that scene. Uh but Horny is the very like kind of tall.

um curvy, you know, gaunt face with like long chin, uh, demon with sort of like I don't know, you'd say goth makeup or something like that. Um And that is a that and the uh and the female character who we'll I'm sure talk about in the future, um, are kind of the series icons, you know, they're the sort of they are on the Dungeon Keeper 2 uh cover, you know. This one the cover was I think I I think they call it the Vat Demon, but I I don't remember for sure. For sure.

Yeah. Um so the final mechanic that they t talk about, um in the tutorial. I mean there's lots of kind of like little things around this. There are objectives and things like that, but it's it's pretty and messages of different kinds. Uh like when things happen, oh the heroes are have breached a wall. There's an there's a message for that.

Um the last one, and this is one I didn't play around with at all, so I'm gonna basically hand the mic over, is is possession,'cause I skipped right over it. Um I don't know if I had a hero invading at the time, but there is. um a real direct interaction with your minions in the form of possession. You want to take that away?

Yeah, I mean I once I did it I c I remembered it existed, but I I definitely had forgotten and it and it was another magical moment for sure that it sort of blows your mind. Um, because this is like Brett said, this is a three software three D render world and so the hallways you're digging do exist three dimensionally. And most of the entities are

as far as we can tell. Um and there there's some that are not, but geometry wise for the world it's polygonal. Um again, software, so you see the pixels. But If you possess and I I haven't tested this out fully, but I assume you can do any unit, you go into first person mode as that unit. And you basically have arrow keys and mouse looks. And then if you press the mouse button, you are swinging Well in the In the imp's case you're swinging a sword, a little sword. A short dagger.

Yeah. Maybe a dagger. Um and you're running around the hallways that you built in a first person mode. Like Yeah, I mean it's like Ultima Underworld, right? Right. ridiculous and so cool and magical and you can do it to anybody. Like in the third level you do get warlocks. And so I'm kind of interested like can you cast spells from that? Cause I think they have like a ranged attack.

when they're in their kind of, you know, minion AI mode. I don't know. And so so in the When I played with it the most, I I went in the form of a imp, and there was this really long hallway that the heroes had dug back to that dungeon I was talking about where they were keeping all their gold, which I stole. Um with my hand. You can basically pick it up and then flop it. You can drop it in your own treasure, yeah. Measure?

Yeah. It's like a it's like a minion that you can directly interact with with the right Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that you can only pick up a certain amount and all this. But anyway, so I'm dungeon crawling as this imp d you know, all the way down this hallway as they're invading and this ranger comes up and starts

shoot me with a bow and arrow as this imp and I didn't end up taking them out, but I did I did pretty good damage, you know. He took me out, which I think should be the case as an imp. But I mean, talk about a surprise, you know, where you're playing this God game, um, you're playing this simulated game. And you know there's minions. And like you said, there's this interesting, very bullfrog hybrid of indirect and direct interactions with you.

simulated, you know, characters, but then inhabiting one and running around the dungeon. I don't remember when it came out how much the marketing uh NPR talked about that. Um Because it feels like a little you know, and I'm I actually probably think it's very inefficient and not very Yeah. That's probably not the an effective way to play. Yeah. But as a novelty at least. pretty magical that it's that seamless and it and it does instantaneous. Yeah.

And at that point you're you're seeing it's more rendered, um, as you said in pre show and as Ultima Underworld would suggest. There's a lot of sprites, right? The the modeling is sort of the Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So most of the characters will be sprites at that point. But that is that is pretty cool. I mean, and other games have tried to do that in the space. Um you remember uh

Streets of Sim City anyone? Um not a success, I gather, but something they tried is like what if you could just drive around in the SimCity you made? Um Right. You know, and it was like well Wouldn't that just be like if I went out and drove in my neighborhood? Um I don't want to do that. Um that's not the Much less dangerous. Yeah, much less dangerous to do it in SimCity, but um but you know, that was not the fantasy of those games. And in this game, again, as the evil DM

It kinda is, right?'Cause as the DM you're always playing all the monsters, you know. So now you get a chance to do that one at a time as well. Um, which is cool. I mean I You know, the only thing I would kinda want more would be like a tab to be able to tab between the creatures like I want to tab through all the ones in that room. Yeah, to make it easier. Yeah. Yeah, to to jump around. Um for sure. Uh

Yeah. So it's um I haven't done that yet. I will do it. I do remember doing it back in the day. It's just today when it happened, like I said, I think I I was right in the middle of something else happening. So for whatever reason that that part of the script well, I probably broke it'cause I dug through a wall um into the heroes and I kind of triggered the heroes maybe off script for the tutorial. Um

But uh and then I and then I just didn't come back around to this. But I do remember doing it back in the day. Um so it's definitely a thing. I anticipate that there's gonna be a lot. Like the possession thing will probably continue to be a novelty. I don't know. We we should test it out and see what if there's some times when it's really useful. Um

But it's you know, I'll give an example, but I think we're gonna end up talking about it much more as the levels get more difficult. But there when you take

The thing that's been occurring to me as we're playing this is that when you take a concept like this and flip it on its head and you have this such a very specific hook that feels on it on the surface very tonally focused and driven by wanting to do like play the bad characters game and you know

The sim comes with it and there's some similar tropes that come with the sim, like we talked about resources and economies and zoning and stuff like that. So those you've seen in other games of this kind. But um But I'm starting to see that even in this these first few levels, you know, the zoning, uh balancing the zoning, which I guess would maybe would have been the case in the other zone games too, but for instance, you know, when you have the economy and the zoning.

If you expand one zone too quickly, you'll r run out of money for the other zones, but the creatures need the other zones. And so it's just interesting that they needed to it's the same concepts, but they needed to find new context. For them within this tone. Yeah. So it's not, I guess the long story short, what I'm saying is it's not just a coat of paint on a Sims game.

It has similar concepts, but they still had to find ways for it to work. Um, so you know, uh to to make the zones work, but in a different context for you playing the pu person creating the dungeons. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I I mean I think you're right. I mean I think that, you know, whenever you are, you know, taking familiar ingredients and applying it to a new context, you're you're very much really thinking about

you know, the mix of those res of those, you know, sort of concepts and things like that. I mean it's like you don't wanna it's like you don't want to lean too heavily into the zoning. You know, this is this kind of zoning is it's not that complicated. It's very like one to one.

Um, but the balancing of those things and like the growth of those things, as you point out, is really important. Um, because that's where the tension comes from, right? In um in a game like SimCity, you know, it's more like Well, I need to have enough residential zoning because that's where my real tax base comes from. For example, that's not necessarily real, but like um but that's the kind of balance of zoning that you care about which is Yeah.

Right. It's very different, you know, and that is actually kind of a layer entirely above what you see on the screen in a way, right? Is that you have these advisors and they're always telling you you know, build more public transit or whatever. Um and uh, you know, in this game everything is very, you know, because it's a small number of units. kind of game typically, right? And it's not gonna be hundreds of units. Um it is very much a like

managing the concerns of a small community of different things that need things. You know, and it's like, oh, I've pushed a little too far. Like I can definitely remember back in the day um, pushing too far in one direction, like, oh, I put in tons of traps and then they came from a different direction. Yeah. Yeah. Great hallway where it's like, Oh, you're never getting through this and then they came in the back way and that was the end of of that level run.

Uh well you were saying earlier that you had accidentally broken through into the Always. In the third level that I was playing, I actually intentionally did that at one point'cause I was ready and I went. Yeah, you were like. Yeah. I wanted well I wanted them I wanted to guide them to a specific place.

You know what I mean? So there's like it's interesting I guess, you know, it's another example of interesting strategies come up when you have flipped things like this, right?'Cause that that you wouldn't have had in another if you were playing a hero game where you're trying to invade there, you know, it's just different different like you said, different concerns come

Um, and I was trying to think of another analogy to to make my point'cause I it's hard it's hard for me to explain and wrap my head around, but like I'm I'm also playing the the Doom reboot right now just for fun. And because of the way that they that, you know, obviously a traditional shooter on the surface, but because of the way that they have designed the way you get health and ammo in that game, it changes the way that you design the enemy.

Right. Because you want them to get close to them, you know, and so to to to achieve to get the resources from. And so it's just a when you choose that kind of approach, it's in it's always interesting to me about how you think of the designs of certain things that are typically traditionally designed in a certain way, and you flip it on its head and have to think of it differently. And I love that. to see people going through that challenge in a game like this.

Yeah. The other element, you know, that of this game that we'll be talking about more in the future, so I'll just kind of tease it here, is that it's very obvious at the beginning that this is a uh, you know, like SimCity is, for example. uh is that this is a what delights will unfold over time kind of game where we're we've been exposed to very little. You know, for me, uh, three monster types, um, and the imps. So the imps are kind of your

um, you know, peons or whatever, but your you know, flies and beetles and uh demons spawn, I believe was the third one. Um, you know, with the only three creatures I've seen. So it's like you know you're ultimately gonna get uh the fat demon and the other characters seen in the opening s opening thing, but it's like what else am I gonna get? What other kind of rooms am I gonna get? There's lots of space on these screens.

And then the tabs of like the different things that you can do to your dungeon where you're like, Oh, there's a lot of room to to develop this. Um, which is a very like Yeah, it it not only points to like cool new interesting things for me to do as a player and experiment with.

um and et cetera, but also like what things am I gonna have to balance? What plates am I going to have to spin? Um, you know, if I introduce if I have ten more room types or whatever, you know, what is that gonna be like and how you know, mad cap is that going to feel like and how much is it gonna stress me as a player? Um it is one of those games where it's like, okay, but now we're gonna keep introducing more. You kind of get how the

the mechanics work together, but now we're gonna just keep throwing more and more wrinkles. But you know, the payoff is that you get more opportunities to do cool things and or different sorts of things and uh you get new mechanics and all that, new creatures to occupy and possess if you want. like that. And that's definitely a certain vibe of of game as well that this um is already teasing, you know, two two, three levels in. So Yeah. So more of that. More of that to come for sure.

Yeah, it's uh it's yeah, I mean because the core concept and hook is so pure i think to your point like the the the incentives you're gonna be going after are you know are gonna be i think clear and obvious too. You know, you you want the bigger creatures, you want the more interesting Interesting. How do I track these big creatures? Yeah, traps like you said, traps become a thing.

guiding the heroes. We didn't talk much about the heroes, but I did want to mention that one of the other things I love about it is that it is there is a feel of a party of heroes invading. Like there's there's a dwarf, you know, there's dwarves, there's elves, there's archers, there's you know, units with axes, there are different types of

Hero units that are invading and they are the archetypes that you would expect. And then the last thing that happens that is um how you win the level is the hero of the land is the last character that comes in and of course that hero is is probably the one that you see In the intro. Right. Um Yeah. Yeah, like a knight. And then the is more powerful than the rest of them. And so that's when you know, that's when you're hoping that your dungeon is up to the task.

Um and that's announced and it's a big deal. And then, you know, that character is dungeon crawling through the corridors that the rest of the heroes have um dug. Um to get to you and Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So they'll you so you you know, and that's why I liked I forgot that you could do this, but I really liked opening like'cause again, that the sound of them breaking, trying to break through and like testing, you know, it's a very echoey like you can hear them

Clanging on the other side of the wall. And it's it's sort of terrifying and it's really effective. But I loved that moment of breaking through. the wall and I did it intentionally where my training room was because I knew everybody training. Right. So I broke through as they were on the other side because they were kind of like, you know, they were like a shark. They were circling around my whole dungeon. And I was like, okay, I'm going to break through right here. And then they were there.

And that's also where the hero came in eventually. And so yeah, I just A similar a similar thing happened to me on the second level where Yeah. I ha I happened to I think I was growing out the training room'cause it attracted a lot of

monsters to work for me. Um, so I was and I was just constantly training them up. I was picking up idle ones always and dropping them in there. You know,'cause it early on it's like, well, I can just kind of focus on this one thing, you know, there's a little bit of building I need to tend to. um, you know, make enough layer space or whatever and all that. But um but fundamentally it's like, well, I've got a training area I want to make tougher.

tougher guys that'll take on the heroes when they come. And the same thing happened where I grew out that room large enough that that was where they actually broke through, you know, and um as it happened. So it uh and that went quite well for me. So Yeah.

It's interesting and and again I'm I'm still just kind of to review what I said in the beginning, I'm I'm happy we're playing this because I do think Populous was early bullfrog, you know, where they they had a a brilliant idea that they were trying to figure out how it really works. And we did play a more modern one, but you know, it's like that was a thing. And I think we needed to play another one of their

see how they bring their learnings from their previous games like Populous into something with their own kind of very creative spin. So I think this is a kind of an interesting Venn diagram of all of that. For that as a company.

For sure. For sure. All right. Well, we will talk about it more next week. Um, we'd love to get your reviews and hear your email at devgameclub at gmail.com. Uh you can throw in reviews on whatever you're listening to. I think you can even put comments on Spotify now, I'm hearing, um, through other podcasts I listen to. So if that's a place you go, please do so. Um we'd love to hear from you. We're on the web at devgameclub dot com and my co host here twitch is at twitch dot TV slash.

Tim Longo Jr. with the JR at the end. Whereas I mentioned earlier there's been some dwarf fortress or I've alluded to I guess. Uh how's how's that going? I think you didn't end up streaming last week, so maybe there's no new updates, yeah. No new updates there, no. Um yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna uh tomorrow is um yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what

There's three things that happen tomorrow. Tax day, uh yeah, today as you're listening to this. Tax day. It is also permit season for backpacking, so that's always an important thing. Oh yes. If you're out there it's getting your permits in. It's going, but also it happens to be my thirtieth anniversary day. Wow. I didn't I never knew that it was April fifteenth. It's tax day, easy to remember.

Wow, yeah, now I'll never forget it now, but I didn't know that. You started before I did, how would I remember? Well, congratulations, sir, sir. Three decades. Wow, you are old. Yeah. Thirty years. Years in, it only feels like sixty. Yeah. Okay. New baby from Majora's Mask. That's right. Yeah, sorry I deleted that uh sound effect there. Uh I can put it in and post.

Yeah, no, no, it's don't don't do it. Anyway, yeah, so I the reason I bring it up is that I typically stream on Wednesdays. It happens to be Wednesday, tomorrow. I was thinking, should I like stream something that's relevant to that? I mean clearly the uh midi snail game. I Mortimer and the Yeah. That song is burned in my brain. I wonder if I could find it, uh Yeah it would be it's probably up there, it's probably on God. You see if you can find any new bugs.

Anyway, he'll announce whatever he's doing in the uh community run Discord, I imagine. Uh there's a link for that in the show notes. Our intro and outro music was written and performed by the immortal Kirk Hamilton, commissioned by a friend of the cast, Aaron Evers, and our logo, Discord, that our merch store.

All by Mark Garcia, uh, who, congratulations Mark, has a uh his his game like app in the uh Android App Store as of today. Uh so check that out uh if you're in the Discord. Have fun suffering from aching facial muscles this week. And good night. Good night.