Dwelvers
————————— EARLY ACCESS WARNING: THIS GAME IS STILL IN ALPHA, EARLY ACCESS STATE. YOU MIGHT ENCOUNTER BUGS. YOU MIGHT ENCOUNTER CTD’S AND YOU MIGHT GET FRUSTRATED. BUT, IF YOU BUY THIS GAME, YOU WILL ALSO HAVE THE CHANCE TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE SHAPING OF A GREAT GAME ————————–
Dwelvers is a real time strategy game where The player takes the role of an evil Dungeon Lord who guide its minions through building their own dungeon, below and above the surface. Manage elaborate production chains, cater to the needs and quirks of each monster and lead them to battles against other monsters and pathetic humans.
The most challenging part for the player will be creating an advanced production system so as to have enough food to keep the creatures well fed, enough weapons and armour to outfit their army as a force to be reckoned with, and of course enough beer to keep them satisfied with you as their master. A drunk minion is a happy minion! The theme of the game will have a lot of dark humour, and each creature will have its own personality, demands and fighting style; forcing the player to handle all the creatures in different ways in order to max out their potential. A happy minion is a useful minion!
Features:
- Multi Layered dungeon: The dungeons are not only scary, they are also deep!
- Free form room building: Set the size and shape of your rooms and build the inside of them. no run-of-the-mill pre designed rooms, your dungeons is uniquely yours!
- Monsters equipment: Craft and equip different weapons and armours for your creatures. some of those weapons can only be found through looting enemy rooms.
- Below and Above surface: In Dwelvers, you will have the option of raiding above surface human settlements and seamlessly transit between the surface and below.
- Extended production system will see you managing the production of several resources in evil efficiency
- Hydraulics system that allows players to build elaborated traps and dynamically changing walls that are triggered by pressure plates.
- Trade with off map settlements by capturing portals.
Steam User 14
One guys passion project to re-ignite the dungeon keeping genre.
Sadly, one person passion projects take ages, and it was beaten to market by quite a lot of other people with the same idea.
And got a lot of reviews saying "abandoned" (which have been proved very incorrect)
You should buy this game if you love indie gaming and/or management sims, and also because it's a rather good dungeon keeping game.
Steam User 12
I have completed the first 3 missions and wanted to leave an early review. I gotta say, I'm really impressed with what I've seen so far. The first mission is short but each mission after it has been increasing significantly in length. I'm mostly coming from Dungeons rather than Dungeon Keeper, so keep that in mind. The dungeon heart in this game is the Dark Mother, who is fully voiced and gives you your instructions for the campaign; I like them a lot, the writing for them is pretty entertaining and well done. The actual gameplay is essentially your normal dungeon keeper gameplay but it's very supply chain focused. Instead of buying units and paying them gold that you mine, you essentially make an internal economy that, as it operates, generates more units for you. I find this really entertaining, although it does mean that being invaded can lead to a wipe more easily than if you could panic buy some extra minions. All of the supply chain processes also have their own animations and the creatures can put on task-related cosmetics, which is adorable. There's also an added layer of complexity in the vertical (!) building. You need ladders to traverse vertical terrain and have to mine the top layer first. Fluids also flow downhill, so you can end up with waterfalls or lava if you are not careful and have a really bad day. The end goal is pretty much to build up a large group of units and wipe out the humans on the surface just like these games have always been begging for. Unfortunately the combat control is pretty much just a rally flag, but I'm ok with it. Outside of the dungeons series, I don't think any of the other dungeon keeper type games let you do this. There are a couple where it's abstracted, but to actually take your minions outside? I'm not aware of any except Dungeons. As a result of the charm, the supply chain focus, and the novel additions, I'm having a blast.
The game's sounds are pretty quiet and the soundtrack is limited, but that's not a big deal. Presentation is also a little rough in spots, with the game launcher and menus being especially noticeable as well as a couple icons being low resolution. However, there are multiple build stages for all of the buildables and a huge wealth of animations, so I think the tlc was given to the right places.
I've had one minor bug, which is that the achievements aren't unlocking in steam for me although they are in the game.
Finally, I want to address the somewhat unique situation surrounding the game launch and why I'm writing the review early. If you read the negative reviews, they're almost all about the game before the beta build launched or about the long early access period. While 10 years is a hell of a long time, I have mad respect for the developer knuckling down and finishing his passion project despite it being a horrible financial decision. Despite the low review score, the game in its launch state doesn't deserve those reviews. This game is a lot of fun, and provides some unique twists on the dungeon management genre that make it easy to recommend.
Steam User 6
Been thoroughly addicted to this. Blends Dungeon Keeper, Minecraft and resource management simulators. I bought in after the game was out of early access and in full release. I greatly appreciate the developer's labour of love. This game is utterly amazing for something done by one person. I wish the dev the best of success with this, he deserves to go Platinum with this <3
Steam User 7
Woah! This one slipped under my radar. I played a whole lot of your game growing up. This one got me into the dungeon manager genre, glad to see you back at it though Rasmus! I was quite sad when I hadn’t seen updates in a while, but it warms my heart that you’re back at it!
Steam User 11
The game is nearly complete at long last. It is much improved since the last versions and it finally represents most of the hopes and dreams of the players and developer. To be honest, the game was kind of a mess for a long time. The developer is a better coder than studio head which is evidenced by agreeing to every request made by the fans. That made the game sloppy and slowed development for a long time. But slowly and surely the developer has reclaimed control of the game and delivered a truly good experience.
It’s important to remember that this game was intended to replicate Dungeon Master style gameplay from the late 90s and as such, it may not be a fit for those with little appetite for such games or patience in general. Still, it’s a game that is far better than its reviews would indicate. The majority of bad reviews are from disgruntled(fair) fans who waited a decade for the game to finish. It deserves a fresh look now for sure!
Steam User 4
Let's address the elephant in the room, the bad reviews, most of them focus on the developer's hiatus and bugs, however on December 19, 2023 they released 1.0, all the bugs are patched (at least it hasn't happened to me). none of those mentioned have come out), second, the game is easy to learn and fun, it is like an underground RimWorld (or settlers), it has Z levels which means different heights.
If you like building dungeons, get it, it's entertaining and worth a shot
Steam User 2
Having owned and followed Dwelvers for years, there have been its ups and downs, Rasmus works on the game primarily solo and despite people calling the game abandonware at times, he has continued to work on it, solo. The game is really good and definitely not abandoned, please give it a shot.
Graphics are great, gameplay is fun.