Developer: Goblinz Studio
Publisher: Goblinz Studio
Platform: PC, Mac
Tested on: PC
Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Master – Preview
Whenever you play an RPG, almost 95% of the time you’re the good guy, trying to save the world from an impending danger with your fellow companions. This mostly means venturing several dungeons while slashing your way through hordes of enemies. What is on the other side though? How do monsters manage themselves? With Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Master, you can finally find out.
Story-wise, the game has quite a different intake than normally expected. Although this game is still in Early Access right now, there were already quite some options to test. Before you jump into the action, you have to choose one of the three available baddies, each with their own specific characteristics and abilities. Afterward, you can also adjust certain settings of this run, like the amount of gold you earn or how hard the champions will be.
It seems that the dark side isn’t that different as ours, as the protagonist is looking for a job and the Dungeons Company is hiring. The only thing you must do is keep the treasure safe from adventurers that try to get fame by raiding and looting the whole place. Seems easy enough right? Be careful though, as this thought might be the last one that pops through your mind, when your lifeless body hits the floor and the champions dance in your blood.
To be able to do your job, you get the necessary resources like a certain number of monsters and traps to end the life of everyone that steps one foot in your dungeon. The lifespan of your career depends on how long you’re able to defend the treasure. If you’re defeated, you have to start over again as it’s a roguelite game. At least you gain experience after each run, making you level up and giving you the option to distribute skill points. These points can influence your own abilities but also the flow of the game or your minions.
As you’re doing a job, this means that you play per week. Each week will give you a few possibilities to choose from, going from doctor visits to sieges, training, or some random events that are a gamble and can end good or bad. Some weeks are only filled with enemies for you to face, like adventurers or some more deadly variants. After choosing which type to fight against, you have to prep the dungeons. Here, you can already see what kind of enemies are trying their luck, meaning you can pick monsters that are strong against these types of humans or against certain elements. Each face-off is done in groups of three, while the trap rooms always revolve around one contraption. Some of these traps do damage while others are to boost your own team or to bury fear deep into the souls of these stupid adventurers. If you’re able to fend off these assaults, you’re able to select a reward and get some resources like blood, tears, and money. With this loot, the next cycle begins where you try to train your monsters and face certain problems to your best ability.
The graphics might take you back to the older days, as the different characters and the backgrounds are pixelated sprites. Still, the combination of the several elements like the dungeons with the weekly overview, topped off with the different monsters and adventurers make it a colorful and explosive experience. The diversity of available fiends is quite broad too and having the options to mod and add own characters certainly is a nice addition to the game. Having some nice sound effects and music to guide the game certainly helps to create the right ambiance and gives you the drive to continue this crazy story in an upside world. Some more sinister tunes will pop out of your speakers, the kind that fits with a dungeon overlord and his monstrous followers.
The only issue that pops up now and then is that there is a bit of lag that makes gameplay less fluent. For example, the sound is stuck or repeats itself a few times before continuing and the same can be said about the graphics too. Hopefully, this is something that is going to be tackled by the developers by the time that this title goes live.
Conclusion
Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Master is a game that will show you the other side of the adventure part, namely the management of several dungeons and the fiends that run around in it. Every time a group of heroes enters a dungeon, the whole design changes to make the group of humans suffer as much as possible. This title has a lot of potential, thanks to the fun gameplay and the several abilities and management options the game offers. Add the combination of the graphics and the music to the mix, and you’re looking forward to taking up the job as the keeper of treasures.
Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Master - Preview,
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