Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Manager Review

I’ve misplaced rely of the quantity of dungeons I’ve trawled by way of over time; slaughtering any beast or creature who dares to face in my path as I hunt down some historical treasure. However I do typically marvel, what if the shoe was on the opposite foot and I needed to defend my dungeon from pesky intruders? Properly that’s basically the premise of Legend of Keepers: Profession of a Dungeon Supervisor, a roguelite dungeon administration sport developed by the aptly named Goblinz Studio. 

There’s extra to this dungeon administration malarkey than you would possibly suppose, and that’s factor for Legend of Keepers. Nevertheless, very similar to some other job, there’s potential for monotony and as such, I don’t foresee a long-term profession available right here.

In Legend of Keepers, you’re recruited by the Dungeons Firm to imagine the function of Dungeon Supervisor. Principally, they need you to assist defend their dungeons and stop would-be adventurers from stealing their treasured treasures. Apart from just a few little interactions with the well-voiced cyclops who employed you, don’t count on a lot of a story. You’ve gotten your purpose and it’s a must to take management of a Grasp by way of a number of missions so as to obtain it.

There are three Masters in whole to play as: the Enchantress, the Engineer, and the Slaveholder. Every Grasp has 9 missions to work by way of and pose their very own eventualities, together with completely different starter troops, traps, and artefacts providing passive results. Solely the Slaveholder centaur character, Maug, is offered at the beginning, whereas the others are unlocked over time. That’s one determination out of your palms, so it’s time to determine how finest to handle your troops, traps and make sure you rent one of the best monsters for the duty at hand. 

To finish a mission, you will need to survive a sequence of encounters and occasions unfold out throughout various weeks. The gameplay in these missions is basically cut up into three phases: pre-dungeon administration, dungeon preparation, and precise turn-based fight contained in the dungeon are all a part of the method.

Starting with the pre-dungeon actions, you’ll have a weekly schedule presenting choices to select from. On week one it could ask you to choose between visiting the coach to spend gold on upgrading the monsters or giving the Grasp a exercise to enhance sure stats. The next week it may throw a random occasion your approach alongside the chance to take a look at the wares of a service provider. Initially it seems like quantity of duties are filling up the calendar, however after just a few makes an attempt at missions, you discover plenty of comparable occurrences.

Taking care of your minions is fascinating as a result of it’s a must to preserve them motivated, which is a neat thought. Each time they’re slain by the nice guys, the motivation ranges for defeated troops will lower and if it depletes fully then mentioned monster is out of motion with burnout, which means they can’t be picked till recovered. Due to this fact, it’s essential that you just permit these teetering on the sting to relaxation within the garrison, encouraging using the whole staff when the going will get powerful. Until you might have a beast of a line-up that by no means falters, in fact.

Occasionally, contracts will pop as much as draft in your staff to guard a dungeon from varied thrill-seeking adventurers. Normally a couple of selection is introduced, with some contracts proving harder because of the variety of heroes concerned within the three-person plundering group. It’s the previous threat versus reward as stopping a more durable staff can supply larger values of gold and uncommon monsters, whereas taking over a bunch of rookies may see you get hold of far much less. Upon accepting a contract, it transports the Grasp and the troops to the dungeon, the place the actual planning begins.

The dungeon is at all times cut up into separate rooms and whereas the layouts could range, there are rooms to put monsters, traps, forged a spell and a few other forms. The Grasp at all times resides within the remaining room, appearing because the final line of defence for any plucky adventures who make it that far. This preparation section actually encourages a tactical strategy with regard to the place you deploy the monsters and traps, together with the order through which they line up. To do it efficiently although, you could take a look at the talents and stats of the incoming heroes, guaranteeing you exploit elemental weaknesses. As soon as happy, let the battle start.

Lastly, the turn-based 2D motion comes into play and it’s… positive. As is the case in most video games, decreasing enemy well being to zero is the best way to defeat the heroes, however you may also terrify them and empty their morale meter, inflicting them to run away. The animated assaults are first rate, with the standing results including an additional layer to consider like poison, burning, bleeding and extra. Regardless of selection in monsters corresponding to orcs, skeletons, ghouls and demons, every particular person monster solely possesses just a few strikes at finest – some have simply the one. Sadly, with you typically having a small staff of monsters, it turns into samey and you find yourself doing it on auto-pilot.

As for the roguelite options, don’t count on an excessive amount of to stay after every profitable or failed mission try. You’ll earn XP for the Grasp for each playthrough, which is able to stage that individual Grasp up and supply factors to spend on bonuses; issues like a better likelihood of the Grasp changing into enraged or cheaper prices for utilizing the coach. I’ll be trustworthy, it doesn’t appear fairly sufficient carried over to boost your possibilities for the subsequent enterprise right into a mission. 

Shifting on to visuals, the pixel artwork is used very well to create a cavalcade of fascinating wanting characters on either side of the nice/evil axis. Sadly, the UI is the other in a way that it’s disagreeable on the attention, whereas not being the best to navigate both. It’s often a ache to focus on what you’re attempting to work together with and attributable to its minimalistic strategy, you typically – albeit hardly ever – don’t even know what interplay you’re selecting.

Contemplating the purpose of a roguelite expertise is to play by way of a number of instances, the minimal carryovers, the repetition of occasions and the pretty common turn-based motion is a slight hindrance on Legend of Keepers: Profession of a Dungeon Supervisor. However, turning the dungeon crawling on its head and introducing a administration side is a superb idea. On prime of that, there’s tons of content material to work by way of with three numerous missions in addition to Ascension and Infinite mode. There’s an honest number of monsters too, guaranteeing missions for every Grasp do really feel a bit brisker.

In the event you fancy being evil, you could possibly do so much worse than apply for a task in Legend of Keepers: Profession of a Dungeon Supervisor. It’s fairly good for a short time, however simply would possibly turn out to be repetitive.

Legend of Keepers: Profession of a Dungeon Supervisor is out on the Xbox Retailer