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Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2. Evil Genius. What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?, Dwarf Fortress, etc. Games where you start out with a large area of varying shapes and sizes and are expected to turn it into a base of operations wherein you can plot diabolical deeds, recruit minions and monsters, and so on. I have always loved these kinds of games. DK2 was one of my all time favorites, and I could (And did) spend hours and hours coming up with new ideas for bases. DUNGEON KEEPER 1/2 (Buy DK2 on Good Old Games https://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2 ) Invade a realm governed by righteous and just heroes. Protect the heart of your dungeon and build rooms to attract in monsters which will train, research spells, fight for you, and conquer. Take enemies and let them die to become mindless skeletons, interrogate them for rewards, torture them until they just can't take it anymore and join your unholy cause, or kill them and let their corpses be raised into undead vampires. The DK series is the earliest games I personally know of that involved carving a base out of rock and filling it with rooms. It has some amazing complexity for its age, with monsters having things they like and dislike, other monsters they like and dislike, and forcing you to consider who lives where and near whom else. The progression is steady and fun and the narrator's voice in 2 is one of the best video game narrations ever. The games are all set underground, where you summon magical imps to dig out rooms which you then assign to various tasks - hatcheries create chickens which feed your army, lairs provide a place to sleep, training rooms allow your army to level up and become stronger, library allows special troops to research and power up spells, etc. You cannot specify what creatures join you in your dungeon, but rather you find and claim portals which summon troops for you. The type of troop summoned depends on what rooms you've built. Build a casino and rogues will be summoned. Build guard rooms and dark elves (archers) will be summoned. Don't like a particular creature? Kill them off against heroes or drop them back in the portal to boot them out of your dungeon. After the first two games were released sequels never showed up. We eventually got a third, but it's a godawful EA mobile game cash grab that pretty much nobody likes. EVIL GENIUS (  on steam http://store.steampowered.com/app/3720/)Be a late-60's early-70's supervillain. Create a hidden island base with a hotel for cover. Hire and train minions to work for you (And to murder when they fail you or your plan goes awry). Steal priceless treasures to increase your influence over your monions and raise your notoriety across the globe. Create traps and diversions to stem the tide of secret agents hoping to invade your base to discover your plans and steal your loot. Complete infamous acts to terrorize the world. Recruit powerful henchmen to be your hands in the world. And defeat a variety of super spies in amusing ways. Personally EG is one of my all-time-favorite games. It has its flaws and they are legion, but I've always been able to look past those and work with the game to create something truly amusing and interesting. Hiring minions then training them to specialize in various tasks was amusing. I liked the idea behind sending my troops out to complete evil quests for me or steal money, and having to find a balance between keeping my peons at the base to perform their jobs here, sending them out to earn money and fame for me, and trying to keep my head down so my horrible actions don't attract too much attention from the Powers-That-Be appealed to me. You start out with a large mountain you can hollow out and fill with all kinds of rooms. Your minions must be tended to, as they're your primary workforce. Provide them with healthcare, entertainment, room and board, and they will do your every command. Minions start out as untrained construction workers in jumpsuits, but can be trained to specialize in all kinds of tasks from combat, to caring for other minions, keeping up your hotel cover, repairing things around the base, and so on. Kidnapping individuals and interrogating them will allow you to unlock new classes of minions, inspire loyalty in your workforce, or just entertain. Traps of all shapes and sizes can be built and linked to various triggers (Laser tripwires, motion sensors, pressure plates). Set off an array of traps linked to one another to create a chain reaction of pain. The gameplay is split between your main base where you keep your minions healthy, research new traps and objects, and protect your base from invading agents alongside a 'world map' where you can send minions out to earn money, complete quests, steal loot, and kidnap skilled workers to interrogate. Every evil action you do generates 'heat' which represents global interest in your schemes. The more you generate the more agents and stronger agents invade your island. The only sequel is an online facebook game which i haven't played as I've heard it's rather bad. EDIT : There's a bonus CD which includes a new henchman and some new traps/artwork/miscellaneous stuff. It's a free download online but apparently it's included as part of the game already if you buy the game from GOG.com What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? A japanese game series imported to the US, these games are simpler yet harder than the others mentioned in this post. You must dig out a dungeon and populate it with monsters to protect a demon lord from invading heroes. This game has a very complex 'dungeon ecosystem' involving slimes which spread 'nutrients' around the dungeon tiles. A tile with more nutrients will spawn stronger monsters. Some monsters eat others to reproduce and spread their numbers. Heroes that invade will spread magic (via casting spells or dying) which summons more monsters which in turn prey on others and so on and so forth. The entire thing is quite complex and while it's very enjoyable, the difficulty ramps up very fast. I've yet to be able to complete a game because the heroes get crazy strong eventually and the ecosystem I create never quite works the way I want it to. Still it's become a cult hit with a lot of people enjoying the gameplay and creating some very amusing and interesting mazes just chock full of horrible creations which murder the poo poo out of the heroes. There are 3 games in the series, What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord?, What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? 2, and a third game called "No Heroes Allowed". ----- Dwarf Fortress plays along in a similar manner with these games and its popularity has spawned all kinds of indie imitators and competitors. Too complex to describe in a few short sentences, there's a thread on it Here. I love the game but it goes way beyond complex and the (lack of) graphics has always been a struggle for me. It allows greater freedom to create than any other game in this list and has a plethora of features always being added. The UI is overly complex, the game is riddled with bugs and unfinished featuers, but it's worth looking at if you can look past those flaws. These days a number of indie developers have been inspired by Dwarf Fortress and earlier base-building-sim games. Gnomoria, Prison Architect, RimWorld, KeeperRL... these are just a few of what's been coming out recently, in active development, etc. But I find that while all of them are fun, I always end up returning to DK2 and EG. Part of it is that I like the graphics and animations (EG's torture sequences amuse the hell out of me, you just can't get that in a 2D sprite game) and part is the fact that they have more clearly defined goals. Linear progression through the game, unlocking new content as you go. Sandbox is great but having a clearly defined start and end point with goals in between that give you direction is something I personally like in my games. What is your favorite base-building sim games? What is on the horizon that you're looking forward to? What in past games do you find yourself missing in the current games, or what do you think current games do that past games could be updated with to improve them? Let's discuss. khy fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 13, 2015 19:55
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My favorite base building game is Spacebase DF9
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Feb 13, 2015 20:09
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im playing the stonehearth alpha. its unfinished so not worth more than a few hours of gameplay, but its fun. also not very evil
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Feb 13, 2015 20:14
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Lord Lambeth posted:My favorite base building game is Spacebase DF9 For some reason I thought I remembered hearing that it was cancelled or stopped being supported or something like that? Davincie posted:im playing the stonehearth alpha. its unfinished so not worth more than a few hours of gameplay, but its fun. also not very evil
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Feb 13, 2015 20:16
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the graphics are sort of minecraft like i guess but the game play is pure small scale builder. you can design all the houses yourself, you give people jobs (blacksmith, famer etc.) and build a small village to defend against monsters. no direct control of your units, you just say certain things have to be done and they do it in time. basically the same as dk and evil genius, but mostly top side (you can dig in mountains) and no big objectives yet. maybe a very simplified dwarf fortess? never actually played more then 10 minutes of that and spacebase df9 got a rushed final release and the developers pretty much ran with the money
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Feb 13, 2015 20:28
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In Minecraft you can destroy your friends creations which makes you pretty evil I guess. Also in Dwarf Fortress you can make your dwarfs evil dwarfs.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:32
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circ dick soleil posted:In Minecraft you can destroy your friends creations which makes you pretty evil I guess. I wouldn't mind playing a version of Minecraft where I control multiple characters and tag out blocks for them to dig. Create a big dungeon full of traps created by my minions, that sort of thing. Use a DK-esque possession spell to take control of a minion and wander through your dungeon in first person. One of the things I like about EG, DK, and so on is the fact that you play as a sort of overlord character who instructs armies to perform his bidding. I prefer this to a first-person type of game where you have to do all the work yourself. Tag out the rock, wait for your imps/dwarves/minions to mine it out, tell them what to build there, then wait for them to build it. That's the sort of gameplay I prefer.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:39
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I've been having a lot of fun with Rimworld. It's early access but the developer is really great about pushing out updates and it's so moddable you can get a pretty complete feeling experience. I've spent a lot of hours on it. It's not strictly evil, you control a group of colonists who've crashlanded on a backwards, nearly uninhabited planet and you have to survive. But if you want you can survive by eating your dead enemies, or you can capture people and harvest their organs for sale to space pirates.
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Feb 13, 2015 20:42
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Blisster posted:I've been having a lot of fun with Rimworld. It's early access but the developer is really great about pushing out updates and it's so moddable you can get a pretty complete feeling experience. I've spent a lot of hours on it. There's been quite a glut of 2D top-down base-building games lately. What makes RimWorld stand out from the other games it draws its inspiration from?
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Feb 13, 2015 20:54
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No one seems to know about War for the Overworld which is so weird for how insanely good it's looking so far. People say they wish they had a new Dungeon Keeper but somehow haven't heard about it. The fault obviously lies with their marketing or something like that because how many of us still sit around jerking it to old DK2 memories and would likely pay hundreds of dollars for that sequel they teased?
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Feb 13, 2015 20:59
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Dark_Swordmaster posted:No one seems to know about War for the Overworld which is so weird for how insanely good it's looking so far. People say they wish they had a new Dungeon Keeper but somehow haven't heard about it. The fault obviously lies with their marketing or something like that because how many of us still sit around jerking it to old DK2 memories and would likely pay hundreds of dollars for that sequel they teased? A $30 price point for a game that is still in Early Access makes me wary, but they seem to be nearing a release (April 2nd for finished product according to the page). It does look interesting, have you played it yet? Any personal experience with the game you can share?
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Feb 13, 2015 21:04
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I haven't as I've also been burnt by EA and I'm keeping my distance, BUT they've had weekly updates that are pretty good at talking openly about what they're doing, the various firsthand accounts I've read on the Steam forums and some other places speak well of it, and the more recent YouTube videos look good if you don't get a shitlord's channel. I may be the nostalgic guinea pig and eat $30 to find out. I really, really miss DK2. e: Just for a suggestion you might make the DK1/2 header link to their GoG pages, same with other games you list up there.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:12
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I think Prison Architect evokes some of the same evil base building as Dungeon Keeper. Except your base is a prison. The game is also in early access. I've purchased it myself and it's been getting regular updates. Also does Dungeon Keeper 2 still have issues running on windows 7/8?
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Feb 13, 2015 21:22
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Brutakas posted:I think Prison Architect evokes some of the same evil base building as Dungeon Keeper. Except your base is a prison. The game is also in early access. I've purchased it myself and it's been getting regular updates. The GOG games version of DK2 works perfectly fine on windows 7 as I have it at home. I don't know about Windows 8 issues however...
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Feb 13, 2015 21:26
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I've been in the WFTO EA since it got onto steam and it has made steady progress. Right now it looks iffy whether or not they'll live up to *everything* they wanted to get into 1.0 but it is quite playable already. Apparently they have a really big update coming and they accidentally pushed release back due to a misunderstanding with the euro ratings board though, so it might make a big leap forward in the next month or two. They already have plans and funding to continue doing stuff post release according to their weekly updates as well. It is certainly no space base. Anyone on the fence is probably better off waiting a little while to see how it looks after the next big update. They do have the DK2 narrator voicing the game, and it is already plenty of fun. Anyone that loved DK2 has likely already stopped reading and bought this to go hear Richard Riding again.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:29
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Carnalfex posted:I've been in the WFTO EA since it got onto steam and it has made steady progress. Right now it looks iffy whether or not they'll live up to *everything* they wanted to get into 1.0 but it is quite playable already. Apparently they have a really big update coming and they accidentally pushed release back due to a misunderstanding with the euro ratings board though, so it might make a big leap forward in the next month or two. They already have plans and funding to continue doing stuff post release according to their weekly updates as well. It is certainly no space base. Anyone on the fence is probably better off waiting a little while to see how it looks after the next big update. They do have the DK2 narrator voicing the game, and it is already plenty of fun. Anyone that loved DK2 has likely already stopped reading and bought this to go hear Richard Riding again. Welp, I'm sold. Since the campaign won't be unlocked until release in April, is it just sandbox "My Pet Dungeon" ish stuff only right now?
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Feb 13, 2015 21:31
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You can already skirmish against AI on the few skirmish maps that are in the game right now, and....I want to say multiplayer is in? I know they have been working on it and testing it and lots of beta testers have been using multiplayer, I just don't remember if it is in the current public build. Yes there is a beta for the beta. edit: I think the first couple of story missions are already in, but with placeholder voice acting.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:36
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGHmr3D4Mnc Best Narrator for an 'evil dungeon' game ever.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:40
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Yeah, they have been talking about working with Richard doing lots of recording sessions so I am pretty psyched to hear the finished stuff. Right now there are just some placeholders. I just checked and yes, the first 3 campaign missions are playable as well as multiplayer.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:45
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Does the Deception series count? I know that series is about killing a bunch of people invading your castle with traps and poo poo.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:48
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Yo Evil Genius is one of my favourite games and is hella rad and great, welp, thats all, I'm out.
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Feb 13, 2015 21:54
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Carnalfex posted:Yeah, they have been talking about working with Richard doing lots of recording sessions so I am pretty psyched to hear the finished stuff. Right now there are just some placeholders. It'll feel weird not having him call us keeper all the time, though
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Feb 13, 2015 22:02
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In the "Complex" multiplayer level of Goldeneye 64, there was an area with false walls that you could walk through, and pretend that it was an evil base by putting mines near the entrances and there were guns and armor inside too.
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Feb 13, 2015 23:02
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khy posted:There's been quite a glut of 2D top-down base-building games lately. What makes RimWorld stand out from the other games it draws its inspiration from? I haven't played a bazillion 2D base building games, but RimWorld feels like it has struck a really good balance between complexity and approachability. You have enough tools at your disposal to make interesting bases and to set amusing goals for yourself, but you don't have to spend ten hours just figuring out the ridiculous interface. You can min/max your survivors' gear and building materials to get the best possible stats, or you can put them all in the same shirt/pants combo and build everything out of wood. The graphics are straight Prison Architect which works. The combat system is pretty deep compared to most base building games. For example, over the course of various battles my best miner had all of his limbs shot off and replaced with bionic limbs and was eventually left mentally retarded by a glancing headshot. He was relegated to a base cleaner because he could no longer talk or move very quickly and the long walk to the mine nearly killed him. In his final battle his jaw was shattered while trying to rescue a friend, and he later died of starvation. It gets updated relatively frequently and has a pretty solid modding community. It's challenging enough to be enjoyable, but you'll figure out most of the game's tricks after a couple of bases. It's not the most amazing game in the world, but I love base builders and I definitely got my $30 out of it. Each time a new update comes out with some cool feature (the last update brought temperatures and seasons), I get another good 10 hours out of it before I start playing something else. And on topic: cannibalism. Abuse your prisoners. Harvest their organs and sell them on the black market. Befriend neighboring villages and summon their worthless pawns to fight your battles for you. tl;dr It's like a very simple DF with mouse controls, better graphics and only one level on the Z axis. kedo fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 01:41
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kedo posted:I haven't played a bazillion 2D base building games, but RimWorld feels like it has struck a really good balance between complexity and approachability. You have enough tools at your disposal to make interesting bases and to set amusing goals for yourself, but you don't have to spend ten hours just figuring out the ridiculous interface. This is what attracted me to the game. I love reading about Dwarf Fortress but actually playing it is a chore. Rimworld is really good about letting you play the way you want, the events in the game are run by an AI "storyteller," so you can have a peaceful base building game, or one that ramps up in difficulty over time, or one that's totally random. The last update added weather, and embarking in a desert makes the game quite different from embarking in snowy mountains. There are a good variety of events including enemy raids and sieges, infestations of alpha beavers who rapidly eat all the trees in the area, or psychic waves that cause all squirrels to go insane. The combat system is indeed pretty good, positioning and tactics are actually important. Similar to Dwarf Fortress individual body parts/organs can be damaged. Eventually you end up with a group of grizzled veterans who are all missing fingers and toes or have cybernetic limbs. Colonist have a decent amount of personality, they get different levels of skills in different tasks and then a few quirks like "nudist" or "verbally abusive" or "psycopath" It still has a way to go before it's as deep as Dwarf Fortress but the developer is good about putting out updates and with mods there's enough fun stuff to add to the game that it hardly matters it's early access. Edit: I haven't expressed my love for Dungeon Keeper 2 yet in this thread, and that is a mistake. One of my top 5 games of all time I'd have to say. I loved to set up a little closet full of a dozen skeletons and unleash them all when the heroes came by. Skeletons had the best battlecry. Blisster fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 06:09
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Nothing scratches the same itch as Evil Genius for me. I really, really wish it got a proper sequel, or that the first game wasn't as heavily flawed as it is. (The social minion system is really odd in how it interacts with active combat, and combat itself is really poorly handled.)
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Feb 14, 2015 06:35
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Anonymous Robot posted:Nothing scratches the same itch as Evil Genius for me. I really, really wish it got a proper sequel, or that the first game wasn't as heavily flawed as it is. (The social minion system is really odd in how it interacts with active combat, and combat itself is really poorly handled.) I found that the social minion system was amazing with one small change : Not making all the guys working in your hotel lose loyalty. I modded in my own little change to the game that added loyalty spheres to the hotel objects because honestly there was no loving point to having a hotel if every time your minions go to staff it they immediately start deserting in droves. But yes, I would DESPERATELY like an EG 2 game. One where I can post guards to a room without having to lock everyone out of it. One where I can have intelligent security forces that automatically tag enemies in sight of a surveillance camera. One in which AoI's earn money and it isn't just siphoned from the nether into my pockets. One in which the traps can be used without half my loving workforce getting caught by them. I love the game so much but god it hits so many wrong notes... EDIT : GO TO BED khy fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 08:28
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The James Bond theme works extremely well for the game and its aesthetic, but if they wanted to do something different for a hypothetical sequel, a GI Joe/Cobra kind of theme would be rad too.
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Feb 14, 2015 08:38
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What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? is absolutely great.
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Feb 14, 2015 08:52
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Heran Bago posted:What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? is absolutely great. I've played it and I enjoy it but the problem I have had with it is that I always had difficulties getting the mana/nutrients/whatever to concentrate in a spot so that it would turn into a dragon or whatever. I could get maybe 1/3rd to 1/2 way through the game but the heroes would become more powerful than I could keep up with and splat. It was VERY unforgiving in its difficulty (At least, the first one was)
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Feb 15, 2015 01:13
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It's not evil, but does Startopia count? I found its 'build the environment just so to attract the right dudes' to be pretty drat fun. Build a seedy entertainment deck with rough bars and love nests and the casinos, and you'd get the 'rougher' type of aliens, but you'd scare away the rich and snooty aliens. And so on. Also, did Dungeon Keeper age well at all? Or should I just skip to DK2?
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Feb 15, 2015 01:43
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StrixNebulosa posted:It's not evil, but does Startopia count? I found its 'build the environment just so to attract the right dudes' to be pretty drat fun. Build a seedy entertainment deck with rough bars and love nests and the casinos, and you'd get the 'rougher' type of aliens, but you'd scare away the rich and snooty aliens. And so on. Skip to DK2. DK2 has fantastic voice acting as I linked to earlier, it's 3D (Albeit early 3D so the models are low poly counts), and the story is far better. And yes, Startopia owns. I used to play it on gametap before I upgraded to 64-bit and had problems with 99% of their games not working on 64-bit. Have they ever fixed that? If so, I ought to resub...
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Feb 15, 2015 05:41
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Startopia is on GoG and apprently works well. It was on sale recently and may still be. Such an INSANELY good game. Don't skip DK. It's really good and DOES hold up, I promise.
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Feb 15, 2015 06:23
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khy posted:Skip to DK2. DK2 has fantastic voice acting as I linked to earlier, it's 3D (Albeit early 3D so the models are low poly counts), and the story is far better. Dunno about gametap, but I've got a 64-bit system and it works fine here. I think at this rate I oughta give both DKs a go!
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Feb 15, 2015 06:36
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StrixNebulosa posted:Dunno about gametap, but I've got a 64-bit system and it works fine here. It wasn't startopia that was 64-bit incompatible, it was Gametap. I saw it on GOG but I don't think it's on special anymore...
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Feb 15, 2015 08:50
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I'm glad to hear that War for the Overworld is looking good. I've been waiting for a proper Dungeon Keeper successor for a while.
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Feb 15, 2015 09:05
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I love Evil Genius so much. Only real fault I had with it is how lethal traps are pointless compared to nonlethal, since they'll just pile up bodies that'll rack up your notoriety and then Bruce Lee is in your base kicking your rear end.
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Feb 15, 2015 11:14
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DeathChicken posted:I love Evil Genius so much. Only real fault I had with it is how lethal traps are pointless compared to nonlethal, since they'll just pile up bodies that'll rack up your notoriety and then Bruce Lee is in your base kicking your rear end. The game runs on James Bond logic; you're supposed to capture your enemies and gloat over them, not dispose of them efficiently!
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Feb 15, 2015 11:52
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Keep an eye on Tomb of Tyrants. It's in Early Access, being updated more than weekly, and is a sort of... Puzzle RPG reverse Tiny Tower, that's evil?
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Feb 15, 2015 12:31
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There's a serious hole (right next to that space sim-fightin' games) in my heart left by the DK games / Evil Genius, but I'll be keeping an eye on War for the Overworld (it certainly *looks* just like a Dungeon keeper 3, so lets hope it lives up to the looks).
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Feb 15, 2015 12:47
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