Dungeon Keeper Gold™

Neat little unique RTS of the mid 90s. I highly recommend getting KeeperFX, It runs and plays much better. Dungeon Keeper defies a lot of your usual RTS gameplay elements. For example, you do not create units from buildings, instead you excavate through dirt walls with imp workers to discover new areas, some areas giving you new units. But the usual way you get units is by placing lair tiles, as well as other tiles gotten by researching them in a library you can build from the start of each mission. Helpful spells are also researched at libraries, which can be invaluable for things like scouting the area ahead with a spell of sight, or aiding your units in battle with various spells (Heal, Protect, Speed, etc) You can also train any unit to increase their level and stats by placing them in a built training area, this will however cost gold with each tick. You do not mindlessly harvest gold from a single point (usually), instead, there is many tiles of gold to dig out, but be careful, as you may accidentally tunnel into a dangerous area early on. Fortification of your walls is also important, as it prevents the enemy from tunneling through, at least until the super late game Breakwall spell is available, it's *really* expensive to cast though. You also do not control your units directly (you can possess a single creature at a time and control it in first person). Instead, you can pick up to 8 units at a time, and place them on any tile you own, and they will automatically attack nearby enemies. You can also place a battle banner which your units will generally head towards and fight whatever is towards it. Certain creatures don't get along very well, so it's important to seperate units that don't get along together. Overall, a pretty cool RTS. Can get a bit brutal and frustrating at times though.

Played the game already more than 20 years ago and still love it. Among so many games (and the list is long) that I played so far.. this just stays the hidden gem and all time favorite. The whole concept, digging yourself through the ground, seeing your imps filling up that gold chamber, the sounds of the different creatures, overall dark but funny atmosphere, joy of beating the incoming "humans", carrying away their corpses onto the graveyard and attracting vampires into the dungeon.. Ahh wait.. the chicken nursery.. grabbing the chicken to feed creatures, the use of magic, entering your own creatures and walk through the dungeon through the creatures eyes.. Some levels also had a resonable difficulty. It's hard to describe what makes this game so good. Basically I'd need the speak about every detail of this game, as all together just form an absolute masterpiece. It's definitely worth playing still post 2020 and years to come :) Unfortunately the sequels never reached that kind of feeling again, at least for me.

I loved this game back in the day. However, this version freezes at the menu unless I play it in a tiny window which prevents being able to see what you are doing.

don't be frightened by its release date, it aged very well. The atmosphere, the units, this feeling of mysteries to discover ... (each new maps introducing new things) to put it simply, this game have a soul and is really fun to play. (and this feeling of power you get in late maps when you release your army of dark mistress, dragons vampire and horned reaper on your poor enemies and annihilate them! That's not something you get from the sequel sadly.

this is the dos version, which means that it does not have the direct 3d update that bullfrog released for the windows version. i think that gog can do better. heard of dungeon keeper fx? that is a fully functional windows version.