Dungeons 3

After recently playing Dungeon Keeper 2, I thought I’d try a game series inspired by it. I played Dungeons 2 a few weeks ago, and now have played through Dungeons 3. These games take a lot from the Dungeon Keeper 2 gameplay, and even more ideas have been taken for this iteration. However, they also have their own ideas which I felt made the gameplay a bit confused. The dungeon part plays like a simpler Dungeon Keeper, but there’s also an overworld where it plays like a real-time strategy. The changes made in this game have refined the mechanics so it’s less cumbersome to play and feels like you have more choice on how to approach the missions.

This time, the Ultimate Evil ventures onto a new continent to continue his evil expansion. Thalya, a Dark Elf, is possessed by the Ultimate Evil and does his bidding.

The narrator from Dungeons 2 returns and is just as talkative as before (there is an option to lower the frequency if you wish). It’s the narrator from The Stanley Parable. He has some conversations with Thalya, and there’s fantasy references and fourth-wall breaking humour.

“Little Snots” are your workers in the dungeon. You don’t hire them directly, but expanding your max capacity automatically hires them and they are re-hired if they die. I didn’t notice them die in the main campaign since they tend to run away when attacked. I thought it was a weird change that they are now robots, but later I found it was a DLC which I could disable in the main menu.

One of the ideas taken from Dungeon Keeper is the Hatchery, so now your creatures need to eat. The Brewery provided that function in the first game, and although the Brewery is still here, it is no longer vital for low-level orcs - but now it enables higher-level orcs. Cemetery and Prison allows you to convert your foes into undead creatures in a similar fashion to Dungeon Keeper. Your Throne room now has a Dungeonheart which the narrator jokes about how they are copying Dungeon Keeper.

Instead of your creatures joining your army via a portal (like Dungeon Keeper), you just hire them directly but this costs gold. Your army will require a wage, and have other demands for their happiness. This time, they require food from the Hatchery and also require a place to rest so you have to designate a Lair for the Horde (this partially replaces the Hospital).

The creatures are categorised as Horde, Demons and Undead. Undead recover/revive in the Graveyard, Demons recover/revive in the Vortex - which are their equivalent of the Lair. Horde creatures can be revived, but need a Crypt and an undead creature like a Banshee to operate the machines.

Naga’s are no longer archers, but healers. Goblins have low HP but high attack units and can be upgraded to be in mechs. There’s other types of units like Imp, Arachnids, Succubus, Lich and Vampire. Trolls no longer feature.

Thalya is also a unit who has a ranged magic attack. If she dies, she will later respawn, or you can pay money to revive her.

In the previous game, your mouse cursor was the Ultimate Evil’s gauntlet, but now you have a standard cursor, which the gauntlet trails - it’s a weird change. I also found it hard to see the cursor on the overworld when there’s hectic battles going on. The overall graphics look the same as the previous game, possibly with more detail such as decorations that are on the walls of rooms. It’s a really nice, colourful visual style.

Some rooms need to simply be zoned to work. Others require you to place a “work unit” in the room (e.g. the Brewery needs a “kettle”), which cost gold and require an amount of Toolboxes that are produced in the Workshop. Room efficiency is better if there’s surrounding walls, and a door to close the entrance/exit.

The build and research options are now accessed via a sidebar which was a much needed change. There’s now more to research, with loads of options unlocked after building the Library. Research no longer requires a creature to perform the work so is much more streamlined. Evilness used for research along with gold. Evilness is accumulated by capturing certain locations on the overworld called Isles of Evil. These can be reclaimed by the Heroes, so you have to periodically defend them.

Traps can be placed in your Dungeon but some of these are now “manual”, so need to be slapped to function - so you need to be actively monitoring when you get raided. There’s a few designated entrances to your dungeon which enemies can enter. It’s handy to place a few traps down to do some initial damage before your creatures finish them off. I think these designated entrances make the game easier than Dungeon Keeper because you are only defending specific areas that you know up front. In Dungeon Keeper, you have to be careful where you are digging as you can create additional problems.

Whilst in the dungeon, you can pick up and drop your creatures. Since you own your full dungeon map, there’s no restrictions so you can drop them right at the entrance when the enemies come in.

To go to the overworld, you can pick up your creatures and drop them at these entrances. This felt a bit clunky in the previous game. In this game, there’s an easier way by picking up your units in the Dungeon and right clicking in the overworld. This process is really smooth once you learn the shortcuts. F1 selects Thalya, F2 picks up everyone, then holding right-click drops everyone.

There’s also a Portal spell which allows you to teleport to your Dungeonheart from the overworld, and you can go back if the heroes haven’t destroyed it.

When you are in the overworld, the gameplay changes to an RTS. This is a bit weird because the controls change. You cannot pick up your creatures, but now you can drag-select and right-click to guide them. It is quite a slow, basic RTS and only deals with combat - you don’t build on the surface. You can create groups with ctrl+number like you can in games of Age of Empires. Spells can also be assigned in this way, and there is a space on the UI to show you these assignments.

The aim of each mission is often to destroy a city, several key points or the main hero unit. Along the way, you are often instructed to destroy a few camps. I think there was much more freedom in how to approach the missions. There were some linear sections, but also had branching paths. Some missions seemed like you could attack the main city without exploring the entire map. The previous game seemed to restrict you to following strict sub-objectives before allowing you to finish the missions.

I still often found myself repeating the same sequence of moves: sending my army to the overworld, dealing a bit of damage, retreating back to heal, defending my dungeon from a raid, waiting to heal, then going back to the overworld. Some scenarios seemed very grindy in that regard, and it was a matter of time before I was victorious without anything happening to force me to break out of that sequence.

There’s no longer extra areas like caves. This made the previous game clunky as it meant you had to navigate 3 areas and it took a long time to move between them. I felt the pace of the game was much better as I seemed to have a nice stream of income without the rooms or research feeling overpriced. This was a big problem in the previous game.

Dungeons 3 has addressed the majority of my complaints from the previous game. It was much more comfortable to play, and the pacing of the game seemed more streamlined. It did feel a bit on the easy side though, although there was an option for a harder difficulty. The campaign is longer, and there’s many “Skirmish” levels which play in a similar way to many other missions but without the story elements.