Legend of Keepers: Who's the Dungeon Master Now?

Recently I've been craving a good dungeon-maker game. My first thoughts turned to old hits like Dungeon Keeper and the now defunct Dungeon Empires (too bad it's no longer around, I really liked that game), but in hunting for those games, I stumbled upon a little steam game called Legend of Keepers. This particular demo or "prologue" is of a game in development and was pretty fun!

It feels like you should be fighting Voltron, doesn't it? I call false advertisement!

In essence, you've been hired to engineer dungeon room encounters to keep adventurers at bay. It plays a bit like the card game Boss Monster without the complexity.

Play inside your dungeon goes a bit like this:

1. You place monsters in your dungeon. 
2. You place traps in your dungeon. 
3. Adventurers proceed through your dungeon.
4. Trap rooms activate and do damage or reduce morale of adventurers.
5. Monster combat is turn-based and you play back and forth until the adventurers die (or run away in fear) or your monsters die.
6. If the adventurers make it to the final room, they fight the boss of the dungeon and do damage.
7. Choose from 3 random rewards and complete the week.  

I really liked the Ulazra's Quagmire ability. 

Think of your boss at the end of the dungeon as a tower in a tower defense game. If he takes damage from one group of adventurers, he'll still have the damage applied to him when the next group of adventurers attack him in the coming weeks.

Your boss is pretty tough, but can he make it through to the end? No problem!

Ultimately you'll be playing through 52 weeks of the dungeon's life cycle. In a way, the progression feels a little like another game I've talked about, Slay the Spire, but without the mystery and unknown of a branching path and definitely in reverse . . . you're the villain of the story here. After combat, you'll have a few weeks of random encounters, merchants, and monster therapist visits before the next group of adventurer's enters your dungeon.

It's tough work . . . your monsters are gonna need some quality time to get through it.

You use these "off weeks" as time to heal monsters, resurrect them from the dead, improve your traps, and buy new nefarious surprises for your dungeon.

The Circular Saw trap is also one of my favorites. Bzzzzzt! DIE ADVENTURERS!

There can be a bit of strategy here. For instance, you can get an artifact that improves skeleton statistics and focus on skeletons in one room, which could lead to extra bonuses depending on your monster passive abilities.

If you enjoy the thought of making your own dungeon, this is definitely worth the free download, but if you REALLY enjoy the game you can go one step further and get the "supporter's edition" of the game for 5 bucks and unlock a new dungeon boss and dungeon theme.

I'll be looking forward to a full release of the game in the future. Consider yourself added to my watchlist, Legend of Keepers! GG!

Happy Dueling