Dungeon Manager ZV

(Clarification : Since some people wonder how I know so much about the game - I owned it prior to the steam release, so I've booked in quite a chunk of playtime, some 50 hours, outside of it's english release. Therefore I know whereof I speak.)
This is why we shouldn't leave Japan on its' own. No, really, I'm serious. We do that and instead of Football Manager they come up with this?!?!
Dungeon Manager ZV, which I think I can sum up best by saying it's FM2015, but for someone who wants to design, and manage their own dungeon, their own monster roster and carefully balance the growing needs and desires of the adventurers they are luring into their dungeons with the promises of untold lewt with the need to protect that loot and therefore placing big scary monsters in the way. Put too many big and scary monsters in the way, the adventurers will take one look at your dungeon and go "NOPE.JPG", but make the dungeon too easy, and they'll walk out with your lewt, and you will fail at managing your dungeon. It's a curious beast.
No, really, we must never leave Japan alone, this is what happens when we do. They create games where you're monster mixing slimes, golems and demons?!?!
The game visually is ... not the worlds most stunning presentation. It's going to send you back a long way in time, I actually had to look up the kind of resolution it was using (1024x768 in case anyone wondered). The art style for what you get is consistent and well drawn, though ye gods could it have done with high res artwork for current gen monitors. The music too, has that kind of castlevania style theme, that sort of off kilter japan orchestral horror they do reasonably well. But beyond the somewhat shonky presentation lurks a really, really brutal game. DMZV is to dungeons what Football Manager is to the emerald turf.
Oh it starts innocuously enough, giving you a nice 3x3 grid of rooms you can build out into, one of which will have your stairs to the surface world, in these rooms you can fill out each room with a selection of zombie minions, along with a larger "foe" of sorts, be it a slime, a golem, a demon or if you've been stirring up some kind of hellish creation, one of the monster mixes available (G-Golems and Zombie-Demons are merely the start of the chaos available...), once you start working your way down through the floors, you'll start to appreciate the subtleties that come into play, such as being able to set elemental affinities on a per floor level, which confer bonuses either to your monsters, or even to the heroes that walk the dungeon (in exchange for bonus resources should you kill them!), setting up your zombie minions with their own attack and defense levels mean that some rooms will be tailored to dealing with specific classes of hero... and that's when you realise that you're going to be sinking a lot of time into this one.
The kind of game where five minutes can become an hour, and an hour can become half a day....
The hero roster is -extensive-, no less than 23 or so classes with a few unique versions and a final "boss" of sorts await you as you work your way through the game, ranging from the simple Novice, who wanders in with little more than a sackcloth and a pointy stick, all the way up to Valkyries, Samurais and Knights that can actively change the element of the floor they are on and really ruin your day.
Juggling the monster strength relative to your fame is the key balancing act here, as you'll want to keep the two running along the knife edge to get the maximum inflow of adventurers (and occasionally an escapee to relate his experiences of your fine establishment), so in terms of mechanics, there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. It would be lazy to spam the strongest things you could field, and the game -will- punish you if you do just that, by starving you of heroes, and then eventually steamrolling you with something far beyond your capabilities. It reacts to your playstyle, and will chastise you for being a poor designer. However, play it's game, and it will reward you with an experience that is very much the Football Manager of Dungeons.
Okay, this sounds interesting and all, but how on earth do you make sense of it? How does ANY of this make sense?!?! HALP!!!
Therein lies the nub of the review. This is a very niche game. If you're seriously considering buying it, and you've done your research, then my advice is to take the risk, the chances are you're already aware of what you're letting yourself in for. Strap in and prepare for something very much unlike you've played to date.
If however you're even remotely unclear on what you're getting, if you came here from a recommendation, if you just came to this game from idle curiosity and really don't have the first clue as to what is going on, or you do not have an abiding love of very heavily text based and very japanese influenced bizarro games that don't want to make sense, and ask you to manage a -dungeon- of all things. Then I would tell you to turn around, and walk the other way, otherwise you'll be making a mistake, and you'd do the game a disservice as well.
Verdict : Highly recommended -but- only to the people who know with absolute certainty what they're letting themselves in for. This is a niche game in the truest sense of the term, and as a result will appeal to a very narrow, and very odd demographic. If you enjoy solving rubiks cubes in the dark, this may just appeal to you.
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I went into this game not expecting much. To be honest I was expecting to refund it immediately. Somewhere along the line though, it caught my interest. Not sure why, but it's addicting. I think it's the seemingly simple gameplay. I can sit back and kick up my feet, all the while I'm trouncing the "heroes" that come into my dungeon (call me malevolent, but it's very entertaining). During my few hours of gameplay I've been peeling back layers of strategy. Should I put my slime on the third floor or the fourth? Wait...I should build him up so I can put him on the sixth floor! Unless of course that hero kills him before hand...nah I'll just replace him with this level 1 I just summoned.
It's moments like these that kept me playing. The constant micro kept me going. For some people this is a turn off, but being a relatively relaxed player myself I still found this game very entertaining without the need for ton's of key strokes. I can do everything with the mouse. It's just a matter of thinking things through once you get the hang out how it's designed. That may seem complex, but I assure you it has a very nice learning curve. Fun and intuitive. A double bonus in my book.
TL:DR - If you have an active imagination and don't mind using your brain a little then give this game a try. If you need really good graphics then pass this one by.
Addendum: This is my first review. I welcome all criticism.

An interesting, niche game. A short summary:
In this game you are the master of a new dungeon. Starting with a single floor you have a 3x3 grid of possible rooms. Excavating each room takes resources. In each room you can then deploy zombies or more powerful monsters to stop adventurers from progressing further in your dungeon. On each floor you can have up and down stairways, allowing acess to the floor above/below. Each added level increases the strength of invaders but also allows you to place more formidable traps and monsters. At least 15 floors can be constructed and on the lower floors you can find and breed some more special monsters such as dragons or esoteric demons.
The objective is to protect your most valuable item, the Knight's Emblem from being stolen. All the items in the game have certain effects associated with them. Some will boost the power of traps or reduce the cost of resurrecting your zombies. In the hands of adventurers the items will increase their attack, defense or other attributes making them more formidable foes.
Additionally you wish to attract as many powerful adventurers to your dungeon as possible so you can collect their magic items and life force. So that you can lure ever more powerful adventurers and repeat the process. You may also allow adventurers to escape so that they can tell their friends about your dungeon. You actually want this to happen as simply being inundated with level one novices is not particularly exciting or gainful. As time passes new classes arrive and higher levelled and better equipped adventurers too. Eventually organized parties will attempt to reach the depths of your dungeon.
You constantly balance between increasing the strength of your dungeon and monsters while also allowing adventurers to experience thrill and sucess, encouraging them to return. While you steal their items, you can also allow them to escape with your own. Allowing adventurers to live with valuable loot makes them extremely happy and increases the fame and allure of your dungeon even more.
The game is not graphically stimulating, but it does something new, that I have not seen expressed as a game before. If you like the idea of managing a dungeon and have a modest imagination I would suggest you try the game. It is quite reasonably priced and runs very well.

Casual "spreadsheet sim" with solid strategy. Good resource management mechanics in the beginning and some interesting variance in the monsters you can summon. Small learning curve; I'm a strategy vet, and I cleared the game on my first try in less than eight hours. The game promises some replayability after you win: you can continue your dungeon, and the game will throw two bonus enemies at you. There's also a Hard difficulty I haven't tried, and I'm interested in seeing how fun it can be.
I would enjoy greater complexity and customization within the dungeon. I only used ten of the sixteen available floors, and the sole reason I went down so far was because one monster type must be placed deep underground. Speaking of monsters, you'll have to keep track of which monster combinations make what; the game doesn't do that for you. It is a minor inconvenience, as there are only a handful of possibilities, but a tab showing you all your unlocked fusion recipes would be useful.
I recommend Dungeon Manager ZV with one caveat: This ain't an intricate game. You're not getting War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition levels of nuance here - you'd be lucky to get one-fifth. If you're a genre fan and/or like relaxing with text-based strategy, then go for it. Otherwise, don't bother.
I may edit this review in the future should I record myself playing Hard. I wouldn't mind the game kicking my teeth in.

A very interesting and original case to Dungeon Keeper using spreadsheets :)
Seriously funny and intelligent game that allows you to create your simplified dungeon structure, create and level your monster and manage your fame that atracts the adventurers coming to die in your dungeon, allowing you to gather more ressources to make the dungeon more difficult, attract more heroes, etc...
This is a definitely recommended game that will give you some serious fun and a good challenge.

Basically your the big bad guy and you create an elaborate dungeon through menu navigating and trying to outlast these fools who are acting like adventurers in a video game. Definitely worth an experience and inspiration to transferring monster management to table top games.

It looks like a really stupid game that you could probably write yourself. But it's addictive and I've had a lot of fun with it. There's strategy in creating a dungeon that not only is inviting to adventurers, but snuffs out anyone who gets too far.
I don't want to oversell DM ZV. It's really not all that deep, and likely I'll play it furiously for a few days then never pick it up again. But it's super cheap and worth what I paid for it.