Legend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Manager Review

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

There’s extra to this dungeon administration malarkey than you may suppose, and that’s a great factor for Legend of Keepers. Nevertheless, very like every 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 position of Dungeon Supervisor. Principally, they need you to assist defend their dungeons and stop would-be adventurers from stealing their valuable treasures. Other than a number of little interactions with the well-voiced cyclops who employed you, don’t count on a lot of a story. You’ve got your purpose and it’s important to take management of a Grasp via a choice of missions to be able 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 via and pose their very own situations, together with totally different starter troops, traps, and artefacts providing passive results. Solely the Slaveholder centaur character, Maug, is offered initially, whereas the others are unlocked over time. That’s one choice out of your arms, so it’s time to determine how greatest to handle your troops, traps and make sure you rent the very best monsters for the duty at hand. 

To finish a mission, it’s essential to survive a sequence of encounters and occasions unfold out throughout plenty of weeks. The gameplay in these missions is actually 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 select 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 looks like a great quantity of duties are filling up the calendar, however after a number of makes an attempt at missions, you discover plenty of related occurrences.

Taking care of your minions is fascinating as a result of it’s important to preserve them motivated, which is a neat concept. Each time they’re slain by the nice guys, the motivation ranges for defeated troops will lower and if it depletes completely then mentioned monster is out of motion with burnout, that means they can’t be picked till recovered. Subsequently, it’s essential that you just enable these teetering on the sting to relaxation within the garrison, encouraging using all the crew when the going will get powerful. Until you have got a beast of a line-up that by no means falters, after all.

Now and again, contracts will pop as much as draft in your crew to guard a dungeon from numerous thrill-seeking adventurers. Often multiple alternative is introduced, with some contracts proving tougher as a result of variety of heroes concerned within the three-person plundering group. It’s the outdated threat versus reward as stopping a more durable crew can supply better values of gold and uncommon monsters, whereas taking up a bunch of rookies may see you acquire 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 all the time cut up into separate rooms and whereas the layouts could range, there are rooms to position monsters, traps, solid a spell and a few different kinds. The Grasp all the time resides within the ultimate room, performing because the final line of defence for any plucky adventures who make it that far. This preparation section actually encourages a tactical method 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, it’s essential take a look at the skills and stats of the incoming heroes, guaranteeing you exploit elemental weaknesses. As soon as glad, let the battle begin.

Lastly, the turn-based 2D motion comes into play and it’s… advantageous. As is the case in most video games, lowering enemy well being to zero is the best way to defeat the heroes, however you can even 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 think about like poison, burning, bleeding and extra. Regardless of a great selection in monsters resembling orcs, skeletons, ghouls and demons, every particular person monster solely possesses a number of strikes at greatest – some have simply the one. Sadly, with you usually having a small crew 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 probability 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 probabilities for the subsequent enterprise right into a mission. 

Transferring on to visuals, the pixel artwork is used very well to create a cavalcade of fascinating wanting characters on each 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 simplest to navigate both. It’s often a ache to focus on what you’re attempting to work together with and as a consequence of its minimalistic method, you typically – albeit not often – don’t even know what interplay you’re selecting.

Contemplating the purpose of a roguelite expertise is to play via 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. Nonetheless, turning the dungeon crawling on its head and introducing a administration side is a good idea. On prime of that, there’s tons of content material to work via with three plenty of missions in addition to Ascension and Limitless mode. There’s an honest number of monsters too, guaranteeing missions for every Grasp do really feel a bit more energizing.

For those who fancy being evil, you can do quite a bit worse than apply for a job in Legend of Keepers: Profession of a Dungeon Supervisor. It’s fairly good for a short time, however simply may change into repetitive.

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