It has been a really good experience, but IMHO with potential for much more depending on the Devs vision/intent.
The best:
1) The Exploration-Roguelike part feels like an awesome addition to the “dungeon lair” game: areas like the zombie tombs, elven towns and the spider den makes you to change strategy’s/equipment/creatures to combat and sometimes drop special items on top making them both rewarding and interesting. In fact the first time I found the vampire lord I thought that all the special/legendary creatures would be added via quests/exploration and I still think that would be awesome: Defeat the dragon and kidnap his egg-child to get a little dragon later. Find the exit to a labyrinth to get a Minotaur. Defeat a Death Knight to force him into submission etc…
2) Exploring or using other peoples dungeons/traps is other awesome idea, but somehow not fully supported. Destroying other Keepers dungeon could be better rewarded (special item? leader-board with most dungeons defeated?), as man made dungeons can be a real pain to defeat. Other implementation that could be good is rating other keepers dungeons: encouraging people to make some awesome ones and sharing them. (and maybe only dungeons with X stars give the rewards, to reduce possible abuse of the system)
3) Random attack + “complex” interactions: burning the enemy’s wooden floor to decimate its creatures (and maybe some yours), having a dragon in your entrance when some dwarfs try to attack you and then watch them burn, raiding those pointy eared elfs at night so they don’t destroy your forces in an instant, having your legendary vampire fight without head (but shouldn’t he recover it if he sleeps in his tomb?)…. all those kind of things are what bring life to the game. More of them would be awesome!
4) The music, totally fitting!
What IMHO needs to be polished:
A) Many game-play systems are still obscured/not really intuitive if you don’t use a wiki. Hardcore players wont have problem with it, but many people will be dissuaded when they don’t understand many things. Some examples:
– Undead vampires/zombies cant sustain sun and that’s awesome, but somehow ghost can
– You research legendary creatures but its not really explained that you need succubus to get them, if there is a max amount you can have or what happens if you loose them
– Without the wiki you cant understand how to get prisoners
– Some spells need graphic feedback and better description (like most master spells)
– Many interface / common use things are not really that visible: remove construction and fill up tunnel are “correct error” tools, and as such should be always visible (probably reinforce wall too, but maybe first it should be explained what is its use -boulders-)
B) Again a more casual related thing: many players leave games when they don’t find the promise of fun in the first minutes of the game. And KeeperRLs early game is totally peaceful and really doesn’t promote some early goal like “survive your first 3 days”, “explore your first region” or “defeat the first miniboss” that can keep people encouraged. I know that many people want time to make a perfect dungeon or don’t need goals because they construct them, but if we see other games normally the 100% peaceful mode is an option and not part of the campaign. Examples: In Dungeon Keeper and Majesty you are attacked on the first levels (ofc by easily to dispatch minions) and even in “one map” games like Minecraft, Starbound or Kingdom: New Lands you will be attacked the first night.
The goals can be even seamlessly integrated to the game: by discovering in the library the location of artifacts, informing the player that in X days there will be a “an invasion” or some tribe/creature demanding tribute or that you leave their domains.
C) Personality and Balance. Right now some creatures have really unique things, but others are just bland or, worse useless. Some examples:
– Beast are a little stronger early game, but with 0 incentive to attack or need to defend on that time, you can skip them all with humanoids. You may use a bat/raven to explore, but then you kill them or are killed. (For some reason even good creatures like to kill innocent, non attacking animals xD). War for the overworld solves this by making them count another kind of population, but in my opinion its better to make them still useful/relevant later by giving them other utility’s. (things like maybe Werewolfs are created from wolfs, ravens can spot invisible creatures and have amazing evasion etc…)
– Zombies are useless, you never want them (I would make them just mindless neutral creatures that attack living things -even yours- and can propagate their infection when its host dies, creating an equally leveled zombi that does the same -maybe a spell creates them?-)
– Ghost are the same if you have another ritual creature
– Things that are just plain upgrades (like ogres being just a little slow, but far better orcs)
I know that these are only my opinions, but if I use my time to write them is because I really like the game and hope that they may help to make it better.
