Dungeon Origins

Review

"In these lands where evil dwells Humanity’s hope was already lost. Filled with despair, waiting for the end. A miracle transpired and a Hero was born. Fighting the dark for the sake of the weak. Victorious returned and the evil was no more”.

After defeating all the evil which had lurked in the King’s lands, you visit the King, expecting a hero's welcome. Although the King is very grateful that you rid his lands of evil, he deems that you’re no longer required and that you are far too dangerous to leave with your powers.  Before you realise it, you’re surrounded by guards and mages who try to drain your magical powers. As the mages drain your powers, the king tells the guards to kill you.  But channeling your powers, you’re able to overcome the mages and guards. You feel very weak, but you must escape before reinforcements arrive. However, before making your escape, you vow to destroy the kingdom and the cowardly King who had betrayed him.

Even though you’re weak, you still manage to escape from the chasing guards. After evading your pursuers, you need to find somewhere to restore your magical powers. You decide to build a dungeon where you can regain your powers and build your army in preparation for exacting your revenge upon the betraying King and his kingdom. You purged these lands of evil, but now you’ll become the same evil that these lands had feared for so long before your intervention.

The objective for building your dungeon and creating your army is to reach a Dungeon Rank S. You start the game with a Rank F, and as you progress, you’ll move to Rank E, D, C, B, A and finally you’ll reach Rank S. To build your dungeon you will need to lay a path extending from the entrance, which is found on the centre right of the screen. Selecting the Hammer on the bottom centre of the screen will open Build Menu. Here you’ll find Dungeon, Monsters, Traps, Buildings and Buy Sections.

Selecting the Build Path option will allow you to place a section of path down on the screen. It’s up to you how you lay your dungeon path down. The more complex your dungeon, the better it will protect your Dungeon Core and Treasure Chest from the King’s men. The Dungeon Core is a large crystal ball which stores your Essence. You are required to place this Core somewhere within your dungeon, although it must be placed with no obstacles blocking its path. If the enemy reaches and destroys your Core, then it’s Game Over! Like the Core, the Treasure Chest must also be placed with no obstacles blocking the way to it. While most enemies will head for the Core, there are thieves who will head straight for the Treasure Chest to try and relieve you of any gold you currently have stored. Selecting the Dungeon Core and Treasure Chest can be found under the Dungeon tag of the Building Options (Hammer).

Once you’re happy with the path you’ve constructed, it's time to fill the dungeon with evil monsters. Selecting Monsters in the Building Options will display a list of the monsters you can currently use in your dungeon. To begin with, you only have Goblins, Skeletons and Imps to choose from. Selecting one of these will display some information on them, such as Health Points, Damage Per Second, Damage, Attack Speed, Passive Skills (if any) and the Cost of each monster. The cost of a monster consists of Essence and Soul Points, and these costs will vary depending on the monster; Goblins cost One Essence and One Soul point while the Skeleton and Imp will cost you Two Essence and One Soul point each.

Selecting a monster will allow you to place it down on a path section in your dungeon. You cannot place them down in the entrance of your dungeon. You can also only place three monsters down in any one section of the path. Once you have finished building and adding your monsters, selecting the Ready button will start the King’s men advancing into your dungeon, looking to destroy your crystal and end your search for revenge against the King and his kingdom. A new Day will start after you’ve defeated a wave of enemies sent by the King. This will revive any fallen monsters from the previous wave, and will also allow you to add more monsters, new paths, or change your dungeon paths should you have the required resources to do so.

To help you combat the enemy, you have some Skills, which will be displayed when you start the onslaught of the King’s men. You can have a total of three skills to use while under attack, although as you progress, you’ll unlock new Skills as your dungeon ranks up. However, there will be a time limit as to when you can use these Skills next. It takes five days (five waves) before you’re able to reuse these Skills, so make sure you only use them when you’re really in a pinch.

Each time you defeat a wave of enemies, your dungeon will gain experience and Rank Up. Your rank is displayed in the top centre of the screen, indicated by a face which fills red as you progress. There are also your resources: Essence, Souls, Gold and Magic Stones. Also here is the current day count and the option to Play and Speed uptime. Once you have acquired enough to rank up your dungeon, a Boss will enter the dungeon. Defeating the Boss will then move your dungeon to the next rank, Rank F to Rank E and so on.

You can add other buildings which will help you and your dungeon grow stronger. The War Room, Arcanist, Magic Infuser and Crow are some of the buildings you can add to your dungeons. As you progress through the game, others will become available to you. When placing these buildings, they must not prevent access to the Treasure Chest and Core. The War Room will allow you to complete Raids on nearby villages, cities and other locations. Selecting to use the War Room will take you to the map screen, where you can select a location and it will detail the Difficulty, How Long a Raid Takes, Possible Loot (Gold and Magic Stones) and the Success Rate.

Below this this information is Raiders; there are three types of raiders which you can use to raid locations. The cost (in Essence) per raider will depend on which raiders you use. The Success Rate is also determined by which raider you use, along with the difficulty of the location. Once a Raid is over, you’ll be rewarded with Gold and Magic Stones. If you have enough Essence, then you can do multiple raids over and over, helping to fill the coffers and collecting Magic Stones.

Magic Stones can be used when you have the Arcanist building placed in your dungeon. The Arcanist allows you to open the Research Tree. This research tree is divided into Dungeon Rank.  With each new unlock costing more and more Magic Stones to unlock, you’ll be able to unlock things like Core health, damage, the ability to upgrade your monsters (turning them into bigger and badder monsters), traps, as well as the amount of gold, souls and essence you can have at any one time.

To begin with, you only have a small dungeon area in which to work. You can change this as you progress by buying adjacent sections, expanding your dungeon for gold. These sections go up in price from twenty-seven gold to five hundred and thirty-three gold. The more sections you have in your dungeon, the more complex the dungeon becomes, and the more monsters you can cram into your dungeon to protect your Core and Treasure.

Another building you can build is the Magic Infuser, which will allow you to infuse your monsters with magic. The types of magic you can infuse your monsters with are Wind, Water, Fire, Ice, Earth and Lightning. Other buildings will become available to you as you progress through the game.

I’ve enjoyed playing the game so far; it runs well and looks and sounds good. It’s easy to learn and you can build your dungeon to however you like. You can upgrade your monsters into bigger and badder versions of the basic ones you start with through the research tree. If one dungeon path fails, you can change the dungeon around to hopefully defeat the enemy.

I’ve made it to Day Fifty and Rank C; however, I seem to have hit a brick wall. There are twelve enemies making their way towards my Dungeon Core and I’m unable to defeat them, as they go through my monsters like a hot knife through butter and destroy my Core. By the time they get to my Core there’s about seven or eight enemy still standing. I’ve tried creating a new dungeon a few times but as my Core gets destroyed it reverts to my last successful day. I wish I could save my dungeon even if my Core is destroyed, as it’s a pain knowing that the last successful dungeon just doesn’t seem to work at all.    I could maybe tweak newly created dungeons, but as they don’t get saved it can be frustrating. However, I could just restart the game from scratch and try using different monsters and researches in a bid to hopefully get by Day fifty. Overall though I have really enjoyed the game and would certainly recommend it.

There’s not a lot in the way of Options in the game; you only have Music and Sound volume sliders along with Show Tutorial check On/Off box.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com!