Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we complete our series on Dungeon Keeper. We talk about the various strategies we used to overcome some levels, possession, and units as resources of different kinds before turning to our takeaways. Also: Happy Birthday, Peter Molyneux! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
To level 11 (B) or 10 (T)

Issues covered: a Happy Birthday message, favorite moments in his games, a punishing campaign of distinct levels, feeling the puzzle, the dungeon crawl aspect of the game, trying many different strategies, playing against what the AI will do, disrupting the enemy, exploratory sacrifice for fun and profit, possessing the Horned Reaper and taking out the heart, strategies for moving around quickly, a diversion into the scavenger room, strategy guides and marketing, first-person mode, all the information about creatures, mood changes, exploiting FPS strategies, cheating and fairness for the AI, creatures as resources for tech trees or for combat, disposable units vs conserving units, playing and failing at various strategies, a non-normal catalog, merging genres, potential, supporting the villian theme, do most players finish Bullfrog games, audio design.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Peter Molyneux, Theme Park, Populous, Glenn Corpes, Mark Healey, Masters of Albion, Lionhead, Tomb Raider, The Descent, World of Warcraft, MysteryDip, Soren Johnson, Black and White, Starcraft, Homeworld, Fable, Majora's Mask, Evil Genius, Hitman (obliquely), Spelunky, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Not sure!

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Dungeon Keeper. We talk about the weird mix of genres this game presents, and the unique problems that presents to level design and for the player. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
To level 8 (B) and 10 (T)

Issues covered: the genre mix, complexity, narrative genre and setting, Murphy's Law (vs Moore's Law), pulling from their own conventions, balancing difficulty, not knowing if it's scripted, requirements for creatures, needing to read the manual, not knowing what the rules are, explaining things to the player and getting over the hump, what some of the rooms do, knowing when to go, using level design for flow, having a clever level with four wizards, grim places the game visits, dungeon crawling, the impact of audio design on RTSes, a little discursion into dynamic music, musical choices, hearing what your units are getting done, understanding game state from audio, favorite codes from back in the day, implementing cheat code systems, giving players options.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Overlord, Civilization (series), Evil Genius, Chris Corry, StarCraft, WarCraft, Populous, Republic Commando, Dungeons & Dragons, Blizzard, Homeworld, John Carpenter, Russell Shaw, X-COM, mysterydip, Konami, Gradius, Contra, Starfighter (series), Belmont, Penny Arcade, Daron Stinnett, Jedi Knight, Outlaws, id Software, Troy Mashburn, Adventure, Kaeon, Hitman, Bruce Lee, Majora's Mask, Nintendo, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
Play more!

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on 1997's Dungeon Keeper. We talk about its tone again, and delve into a number of design topics including interface choices, verbs, and level design. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played:
Three more levels-ish

Issues covered: tonal neutrality vs tonal specificity, constructing a fantasy world, having a clear identity, villainous UI choices, white standing out, a subtle tiling system, feeling like increasing a hoard, increasing the verb space through direct interaction, picking and dropping things to direct them, units you're not meant to care about, camera choices, shortcuts to get around, preferring the zoom level as it was, the magical moment of possessing a creature, more RTS than expected, the early RTS curve repeating itself, not wanting to lose the builder choices, having to research all the rooms again, needing canvas space to paint, not knowing when units change over to you, finding idols and small rooms, economic victory, pincer moves, having the multiplayer options with the meta, power-up timing loops, starting with multiplayer first, how we have time for all this, trading off time with other games or hobbies, Tim the baby designer.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Civilization, Sid Meier, SimCity, Will Wright, Firaxis, Maxis, Populous, Lionhead, The Movies, Peter Molyneux, Black and White, StarCraft, Homeworld, Blizzard, Dragon Quest Builders, Minecraft, Thomas Pynchon, id Software, Doom 2, Quake (series), Halo, Unreal Tournament, Ben, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Saros, Hollow Knight, Valheim, Diablo (series), Mortimer and the Riddles of the Medallion, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time:
More Dungeon Keeper!

Twitch: timlongojr and twinsunscorp
YouTube
Discord
DevGameClub@gmail.com