Dungeons



A strategy game developed by Realmforge Studios and published by Kalypso Media in 2011, can be easily considered the spiritual heir of Dungeon Keeper. Also had a standalone expansion called "Dungeons: Dark Lord".

Like the above mentioned game, you play as an Evil Overlord residing in his dungeon with his goblin minions. You have to build and expand the dungeon by using Gold and Soul Energy which you can harvest by capturing heroes that wander into your dungeon. In order to gain more and more Energy you'll have to keep them satisfied with treasures, good fights, traps and other goods. It also has a single player campaign with a unique gameplay system, where you lead the Dark Lord Deimos in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Kalypso, his treacherous ex-girlfriend.

Compared to Dungeon Keeper it's much more simplified and focuses more on heroes than your own creatures and takes elements from Theme Park and Tower Defense systems.

Dungeons contains examples of:

 * Action Girl: Female Adventurers, Rogues, Paladins.
 * Affably Evil: Your trusted goblin Advisor.
 * Anti-Hero: Basically all the heroes that enter your dungeon will be looking for gold, fame, books and / or weapons and leave once satisfied. They'll only try to destroy you if they're bored or rallied by a champion.
 * Annoying Arrows: Minos seems nonchalant about the half dozen arrows embedded in his shoulder.
 * Back From the Dead: If your Dark Lord is killed, he'll be resurrected by the Dungeon's Heart at the cost of some of the Heart's Health. This applies to your enemies aswell in the story mode.
 * Badass Bookworm: Necromancers. They read a lot of books and scrolls when they're not busy crushing foes around.
 * Badass Nickname: All heroes have titles, but only the ones from Hell are actually badass. The ones from Catacombs are downright silly and mocking in nature.
 * Beam Spam: Magic Missile.
 * BFG: One mission involves creating a giant, slime-spitting cannon to cover a whole castle in mud.
 * BFS: The Zombie King wields a hugeantic sword.
 * Big Bad: Technically you, but in the story mode, Kalypso took your place.
 * Blade On a Stick: Deimos/The Dark Lord wields a poleaxe-looking weapon with a red gemstone in it. Some of the heroes are armed with staves and glaives.
 * Bloodless Carnage
 * Blood Knight: Many of the heroes, usually warriors, will gain Soul Energy by dealing or taking damage.
 * Book Ends: The game starts with the Goblin Advisor going to Deimos on his throne. The final cutscene has the Advisor approaching to Deimos, now sitting on the Crystal Throne again.
 * Card-Carrying Villain: Your character.
 * Crapsack World: Like in Dungeon Keeper you have to turn idillic places and peaceful countries into this.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: You'll spend most of the game hunting down heroes and inflicting them a crushing defeat. However, on higher difficulties and against multiple opponents you may be defeated. Justified as you receive a huge boost in power as long as you're inside your area of influence.
 * Some heroes like to be on the other end of one to fill their soul energy. At least they have to stay alive long enough to inflict the amount of damage needed to satisfy them.
 * The Danza: Kalypso.
 * Dirty Coward: Your Goblins will run away in fear when attacked by heroes.
 * The Dragon: The Zombie King to Minos and Minos to Calypso. Later you get a true Dragon in the form of the fallen hero Marthas.
 * Dual-Wielding: Some heroes tend to carry two weapons at once.
 * Dumb Muscle: Adventurers, Warriors and Paladins.
 * Elaborate Underground Base: You have to dig your way through dirt and occasionally gold to build your lair.
 * Eldritch Abomination: Guardians. Funnily enough, they're just a type of high-level mook. The Fire Angel may count too.
 * Electric Torture: The T.V. looks like an electric chair complete with electrical shocks.
 * Endless Game: The Free mode.
 * Evil Is Visceral: Guardians: when seen up close, they look like a bunch of floating intestines and organs with very long limbs and dangling heads wrapped in black cloaks.
 * Evil Overlord: Deimos. There are also other rival Dark Lords (which are exactly like you but blue colored), the Zombie King, Minos and Kalypso.
 * Evil Versus Evil: You have to fight not only heroes, but also the Zombie King, Minos and Kalypso.
 * Fallen Hero: Marthas the Paladin, who you have to persuade to join the Dark Side. But he has no sons and won't change his name to Darth Whatever. He's not a Prince either
 * Fire and Brimstone Hell: Avernum.
 * Fireball: One of the many spells you can learn or cast from scrolls.
 * Flunky Boss: The Zombie King constantly summons hordes of skeletons to fight you.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords: The Champions, arguably the only true heroes around, are always armed with large broadswords.
 * Horny Devils: Kalypso is a Succubus.
 * Human Sacrifice: In Hell, you can sacrifice a hero in order to obtain all his Soul Energy at once. However it will hasten the arrival of the next Champion.
 * Inexplicable Treasure Chests: You can put them around the Dungeon to satisfy the heroes. They can vary from small chests, large hoards with jars and crates to humongous hills of gold from the depths of Hell itself.
 * Kick the Dog: Heroes can do this by killing your goblins.
 * Knight in Shining Armor: Champions will occasionally appear. Unlike other heroes, they're not distracted by treasures or rooms or decorations and they'll slay every monster in their way, free any imprisoned or tortured hero they come across and try to destroy the Heart of the Dungeon. They can also persuade other heroes to join them. Torture and sacrifice can hasten their arrival. Conversely, releasing captured heroes delays them.
 * Lost Forever: Your Gold, if a hero manages to escape alive after pillaging your vaults. Luckily you can get money from other adventurers.
 * Lovable Rogue: Rogues and Assassins.
 * MacGuffin Guardian: The Heart's Keepers are these. In the Catacombs, you have the Undead Butcher, the Colossus in the Temple and the Fiery Angel in Hell.
 * Magic Knight: Necromancers. Also the Dark Lord.
 * Malevolent Architecture: You can build traps in order to damage heroes and entertain rogues and assassins (who can get Soul Energy by disarming traps). There are also tons of sinister decorations that you can build in order to make your Dungeon more interesting and raise your Prestige points, which allows you to purchase better decorations and attract stronger heroes.
 * Marathon Boss: Kalypso, in a way: in order to defeat her you have to: slay two Dark Lords, then reach the next level
 * Meaningful Name: Deimos.
 * Mercy Rewarded: If you free a prisoner you can delay the next Champion. It's usually a smart move to do after ordering the torture or sacrifice of another prisoner.
 * Mooks: Your Goblins, who are in charge of the Dungeon and refill treasures and armories, rearm traps, dig new rooms, mine for gold and also carry defeated heroes to prison. If they're slain you can summon more.
 * Nice Hat: Your Advisor.
 * Our Monsters Are Different: Amongst the various beasties you can hire there are:
 * Blob Monster: Gelatinous Slimes in Catacombs, described as magic-resistant Mighty Glacier type monsters.
 * Creepy Centipedes: The huge Fire Wurms are gigantic worms with multiple legs and a maw filled with hooked fangs.
 * Dem Bones: Skeletons in Catacombs.
 * Frogs and Toads: Giant man eating frogs in the Temple levels.
 * Giant Spider: The half humanoid Demonic Spiders in Hell.
 * Hell Hound: Cerberi in Hell. However, they only have one head.
 * Living Statue: In the Temple Level. The Colossus may count too.
 * Mix and Match Critters: "Beasts" in Temple looks like horned lions with six legs.
 * Our Demons Are Different: Imps in Hell.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: Rat-men in Catacombs.
 * Scary Scorpions: Giant Scorpions in Temple.
 * The Undead: Not only skeletons but also Guardians and the Undead Butcher in Catacombs.
 * The Password Is Always Swordfish: The password to the smuggler merchant in one of the early levels is actually "Swordfish".
 * Set Swords to Stun: Usually averted, as the heroes with enough Spirit are merely knocked out instead, even when they're defeated by traps or monsters. So that you can imprison or torture them in order to squeeze out all their Energy. However when an unconscious hero runs out of Soul Energy (or if he's defeated before he gains any) he's dead for good. And Champions don't get Soul Energy to begin with.
 * Shoot the Medic First: When fighting multiple enemies in the Hell level you should take care of the Healers first.
 * However, since the healers gain Soul Energy through healing (usually exclusively), it might be a good idea to let them be until their bar is filled.
 * Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness: The Silliness won.
 * Especially the Expansion. The Story is pretty much a spoof of Lord of the Rings. The opening cutscene shows the Dark Lord trying to forge the Other Ring and failing twice, producing... a rubber duck and a toybox.
 * Sorting Algorithm of Evil: You start with the feared but not-so-strong Zombie King in the catacombs, then the mighty Minotaur Minos in the temple and finally Kalypso, a powerful Succubus, in the pits of hell.
 * Soul Jar: The Dungeon's Heart, a huge, pulsating gem. You lose if the Heart is destroyed, but luckily you can repair it. The Zombie King has also literal jars that keep healing him if not destroyed.
 * Spikes of Villainy: You can even use them as part of the decoration to make your Dungeon more interesting.
 * Spiritual Successor/Expy: To Dungeon Keeper.
 * Squishy Wizard: Played straight by Apprentices and Wizards. The Necromancers in Hell are more like Magic Knight in style.
 * Temple of Doom: The Sunken Temple. It has a vibe of Mayincatec too.
 * The Dog Bites Back: You spend most of the time in the early missions of a level getting bossed around by the current master. In the last mission of each level you get to take your revenge on them.
 * Torture Always Works: You can force people to watch dreadful tv shows or tie them to gigantic wheels to extract more Spirit energy and faster. However doing so will also make Champions angry and hasten their arrival.
 * Trailers Always Lie: All the characters seen in the trailer (except for the goblin) are actually important characters, not just mooks.
 * Verbal Tic: Minos, -sgrunt- has them.
 * Villain Protagonist: Guess who?
 * Villainious Mime: Deimos never talks.
 * White Mage: Healers.
 * Wicked Cultured: Minos the Minotaur Lord. His first task involves building 20 library gimmicks, so that monsters won't grow ignorant over time.
 * You Require More Vespene Gas: Three resources: Gold (from adventurers and mining) is used for buying most of the items you need to outfit your dungeon. Soul Energy (from captured heroes) is used to increase the monster level of the dungeon, summoning the guardian and to build prestige decorations. Prestige (from the previously mentioned decorations) makes your Lord more powerful and unlocks additional items.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: Guess how the Zombie King tries to chase you away from his dungeon?