(WFTO dev here)
When I made the decision to do this I was in a pretty emotional state (it was less than a day after the news), and honestly, over the following week before the deal going live part of me became really concerned that it may be perceived the wrong way.
How wrong I was... I am so incredibly proud of the result, it’s incredible what we managed to achieve working together. I really, really appreciate all the support from the team at Chrono and everyone else that helped spread the word. You all rock.
Whenever donations were mentioned TB said he always preferred that people at least get something for their money. I’m glad we managed to honour that wish whilst still doing so much.
<3
(And for those that may not have seen it: here is why we did this)
Hi Guys,
Noontide from the Brightrock Games team here (Developer of War for the Overworld). It's impossible to overstate the incredible contributions that John made to us and the industry.
I am not joking when I say that without him our company and game would likely not exist. You can read the story of how he helped us and what he meant to us in our latest blog post.
Making this sale about giving back to him and supporting Genna and Orion in some way as a thank you to him is the very least we could do to repay him back in some small way.
Happy to answer any questions about the game or anything as well.
It's hard to put into words how much we love Dungeon Keeper.
I didn't know what else to write after that and deleted about 5 different versions of this message.
And I still don't really know what to say. We love the franchise, we've been playing it since it existed, and this is the game we want to make. We literally became game developers to do just this.
It's ok, this isn't the end of DK. This is just EA's awful take on the game, not the definitive reimagining. ~~Peter Molyneux's team~~ Subterranean Games is still working on the real reimagining of DK, called War for the Overworld. Let's hope that one is good.
Thank you /u/chronozak from Chrono.gg. I asked if the chrono /tb link would still continue to benefit TB's family in /r/gamedeals yesterday he said they were cooking something special, but this is really perfect.
The devs also made a post on Steam highlighting how crucial TB was to getting them to their funding goal. Also a nice photo when Josh from the dev team met John and Genna at Cox Con 2015.
Well done to all who put this together.
Hi Guys,
Noontide from the Brightrock Games team here (Developer of War for the Overworld). It's impossible to overstate the incredible contributions that John made to us and the industry.
I am not joking when I say that without him our company and game would likely not exist. You can read the story of how he helped us and what he meant to us in our latest blog post.
Making this sale about giving back to him and supporting Genna and Orion in some way as a thank you to him is the very least we could do to repay him back in some small way.
Happy to answer any questions about the game or anything as well.
The Cynical imp was originally an April fools thing they did in 2014:
https://wftogame.com/unit-spotlight-the-cynical-imp/
Obviously referencing TB, he was a backer of their Kickstarter I believe.
As someone who grew up on and adored Bullfrog games I've been keeping a close eye one War for the Overworld too. https://wftogame.com/
Spiritual successor to Dungeon Keeper, endorsed by Peter Molyneux and with the original voiceover artist. That plus its getting regular updates.
Thought it worth a mention in addition to the above.
War for the Overworld. This was originally a Kickstarter heavily inspired by Dungeon Keeper.
Unfortunately, due to EA being massive pricks, they had to scrap most of the artwork and potential copyright issues. However, their new approach is looking amazing and shows great potential for a very DK-esque strategy game.
> I think people really tend to underestimate that impact.
I think it was quite well known that he could have a profound effect on a userbase. Some indie devs used to refer to "The TotalBiscuit effect" which was basically that a game covered on his channel would receive a massive surge of purchases.
The devs of War for the Overworld released a graph showing how TBs video in effect jumped them in their funding goal. Full blog post here. An effect so prolific that when he passed away, they and Chrono.gg teamed up to do a TB sale, and sent all proceeds to Genna to help pay off the big debt hole they were in when he died.
Another dev noted that even just being mentioned as a footnote in a tumblr post caused a spike in sales for him.
It was commented elsewhere in this thread that his video on Warframe really helped those devs.
I don't think anyone would say we'd take that state over the state it is now, but given the options available it was the best choice we had. I wrote a full post on this shortly after release to explain everything.
Dungeon Keeper 2. It is actually being remade and looks pretty awesome so far. Official site and trailer. It's being released in a few weeks :)
To clarify: We post a news update every week, patches are less often. We actually haven't done a patch for about 2.5 months now as we've been adding some major technical features, and subsequently introducing many, many bugs.
However, we're in the process of cleaning up after those features now and there's going to be a pretty awesome patch released before the end of the year.
Nerd³ Plays/FW - War For The Overworld
It's a game inspired by Dungeon Keeper, and it may just be the successor to Dungeon Keeper we all want (like Cities: Skylines was to Sim City).
> War for the Overworld is a brand new Dungeon Management Game (equal parts God Game & RTS) from Subterranean Games. Within WFTO you take on the role of an Underlord who has the power to dig your own dungeons and fill them with rooms, devious minions and defenses, as the goodly heroes attempt to infiltrate your dungeon in a vain attempt at glory or riches your army will dispose of them, though you could always help by casting vicious spells and rituals… before beginning an assault on their own lands.
Thanks for the writeup, it confirms the impression I had about it. While I hold no grudge againts anyone who enjoys these kind of pop-in-pop-out gradual progression games, you really would need to try Dungeon Keeper (1 or 2) to appreciate the irony at display here. The original Dungeon Keeper was actually quite ground-breaking and defined it's own genre. So far no other game really managed to fill the void after Dungeon Keeper 2 (here's hoping WFTO will soon!). Calling this derivative mobile game "too inovative" is just insultingly absurd in that context.
If any DK fans like me just die a little thinking about how sad the death of DK is, please please please check out War for the Overworld. Its early access on steam currently and though far for completion its the best successor of DK's legacy iv found.
A memorial from the War For The Overworld devs. According to them, TB's videos were absolutely instrumental in developing the game not once, but twice.
The best way to make sure you don't miss out is to sign up to our Newsletter we try to push it out fairly regularly with news but big things will always trigger a push!
Yeah our first release was pretty terrible, I'm ashamed to say. But we've been pushing out updates ever since and we're now working on new content as well as some other goodies. Just have a quick scroll through here to get an idea, and there are more patches like it before it.
Well, Dungeon Keeper 2 is still the last official game (if you ignore horrible abominations that should never have been born). On the other hand, War for the Overworld is getting close to feature completion and is a sequel in all but name. Might want to check that out if you already know the series. If not, give DK2 a try. It's about $2-3 on GoG!
Out of interest, have you heard of War for the Overworld? It's fully aimed as a successor to the series. In fact, the cancelled Dungeon Keeper 3 subtitle was even going to be 'War for the Overworld'. If you like the look, maybe tweet the devs or contact them through their website (it's built in Unity).
It's (at the very least) far better than the mess that was Dungeon Keeper mobile.
> Anyone that thinks the Steam DRM is going to prevent piracy is fooling themselves, it's trivial to crack.
Doesn't that ("trivial to crack") also fit just about every form of DRM that doesn't require working with a remote server to actually provide part of the game's functionality?
(Well, I'm not going to say it's "trivial" -- but the game does get usually cracked, and usually pretty quickly, though new DRM systems might take a bit longer.)
> but I can't think of any examples of games that use the check and nothing else.
So, what else do games use? Only a small fraction of the games on Steam have a 3rd party DRM listed (to be fair, I imagine this list is incomplete, but I'm not finding a way to get it out of steamdb) so what do all these Steam games that don't use a 3rd party DRM but do use some form of DRM other than what Steam itself provides use?
Looking at your game War for the Overworld ... what do you use? This page makes it clear that you've got a DRM free version available and also suggests that the Steam version uses the Steam DRM. I take it that you're only checking the DRM to make sure that the Steam specific features would work as you suggested? (And to be clear -- that seems quite reasonable to me.)
When will a proper DRM-free version come to gog.com? And why takes it you so long?
(Disclaimer, I'm an original backer and backed you because I thought a non-DRM version would be a no-brainer in such a community backed setup. Expected it would take only minimal additional time (not years) .... sadly I was wrong, you completely entangled the game with steamworks :/ )
Honestly, too many to tell in short order simply because, hey, we've actually finished the game now and we've done an insane amount of work on it. Check out our home page posts for a bit of a catch up on how we've been keeping busy.
If you're still interested I might suggest holding off just a few more weeks - We've got v1.4 coming out very soon and I'd prefer you get the best experience possible. Pop the game on your Steam wishlist and you'll be notified when it happens.
Forgot the name but there was a Dungeon Keeper like which was being developed. Not the same name, but possibly a good replacement.
Edit: Found it. War for the Overworld. No idea if it's any good though. But it looked promising.
Here's a link to the actual patch notes, in case there are others that just want to info without the presentation.
Some pretty good stuff in there, I'd say.
Thanks and that leads me to my other problem with this system. Every mod that I want to use should want to be paid (if its not worth something I wouldn't be using it). But I don't think there is a fair pricing that still allows me to add 150+ mods to my game. No one (except someone standing on morals) would make their mod free when everyone else is charging a buck. As soon as the mods cost more than the base game I feel like we have a problem. I just strongly feel this is the wrong way to go about monetizing mods, we need something more like adds on mod pages. But then we run into the issue of how do we get people to visit without obnoxiously forcing them to go there for every update.
Anyways I forgot this bit in the last post. This is the only thing that has made me slightly hopeful for this system.
>A code setup is integrated into the workshop that detects mods that could conflict, heck, even do all the tweaking etc. This tool won't be an agenda or even really possible for Valve or game devs to make if they don't have an incentive or a way to pay for it. Labour is not free.
Better API's could very well be a result of this system as games focus on modding as an additional revenue stream. Sadly I think this is a bit to optimistic as from what I've seen of the gaming industry lately they can't even release their base game without it being a buggy mess, giving them more to do seems like a recipe for disaster. Also I think this is considerably harder to do than you give it credit; We recently saw a talented group of modders turned indie devs fail and have to put out an unfinished/buggy game because their goal to make a powerful modding API turned out to be way out of reach.
The fee DLC isn't out yet but they are offering an "Early Adopter" bonus if you purchase before May 2nd.
> We are happy to announce our “Early Adopter” bonus! Everyone who purchases the game before the 2nd of May 2015 will be given WFTO’s first Campaign DLC for free. > > This expansion will be a short campaign that supplements the story of the main campaign. It also contains a new Dungeon Theme for use in Multiplayer. We plan to release this DLC later this year. > > See the Early Adopter FAQ for more details!
The closest thing to Dorfort that has any sort of multiplayer is [Dungeon Keeper](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper_(series).
Neither Dungeon Keeper nor Dungeon Keeper 2 remotely resemble MMOs, and only supports LAN play; however, you could probably organize matches and play on a VPN. I am not sure which game you would have more success finding players for, 1997 and 1999 are both ancient release dates.
There was (is?) a Dungeon Keeper MMO in Asia. Contrary to the title it was just another cookie cutter Diku. Definitely not what you are looking for.
War for the Overworld, the de facto Dungeon Keeper 3, also recently got multiplayer.
(blargh early access) Again, not even close to an MMO, but it has a decent player base (... well, it has a player base) and it will probably be the closest you will find to what you are looking for.
War for the Overworld sounds like a great game for you, shame it's not released yet. However you can still follow its development and wait a bit (it releases at the beginning of April). It's a really good remake of Dungeon Keeper.
Sorry I didn't link any actual released games that you can buy finished immediately, I just really wanted to turn your attention to WFTO.
this game is apparently going to be the spiritual successor to DK, they even have Peter Molyneux's blessing! "War for the Overworld" was the working title for DK3 and everything, it's not the original style of DK but it looks like it's going to be brilliant
You were born too late?
I don't know.
If it makes you feel any better I only just finished it a few weeks ago, even though I played it when it came out.
It sucks when English isn't your native language, I had no clue what I was doing back then.
Edit: Oh also, if you didn't know the series is getting a spiritual revival in the coming game War for the Overworld and it is now avalable on steam Early Access, though in an Alpha stage
You should check this out. It might be what you are looking for. War for the Overworld It's being developed by Subterranean Games and seems to stay true to the Dungeon Keeper games
There will be no Overworld in War For The Overworld. Only underlords and dungeons. Check out the official page: they've done two major posts in the last two days summarizing the last year of development and concerning their plans on the future of the game.
Saw the Big eye first, thought - Ha, Dalek!
Then I saw the other eyes and now I am convinced it's an Oculus from War for the Overworld (yes, it's the inofficial Dungeon Keeper 3 in my book)
Disclaimer: I'm a dev.
If you're not a fan of reading, then you can jump right into playing the game itself right in your browser. Google Chrome & Firefox most readily supported, others may have issues. Please note it can take a little while to load so don't panic if there's a blank screen!
You can also download the offline versions here
There is a spiritual successor to DKII available in steam. It even includes voiceover from the original voice actor. Leaving it here since this series is one of my all time favorites.
> One of your imps does a great impression of you. He can even do the ears!
Glad to see another DK2 fan. Check out War for the Overworld, if you haven't heard of it. Last played it in Early Access, wasn't great, wasn't bad, I'll bet it's improved since then.
Why don't you just read the patch notes? https://wftogame.com/patch-1-3-release-notes/ Last update added a map editor, which is guaranteed to result in many interesting custom maps. They are some out already.
I'd check it again if I were you, there's been 30 patches since launch, with a crazy average of like 6.3 changes or fixes per day since 1.0: https://wftogame.com/state-of-the-game-10-08-2015/
Edit: forgot the PER DAY bit
It's pretty fun but half the game is practically missing still. The campaign mode is complete and they'll be adding a huge skirmish and multiplayer update to fix the missing content.
Have you tried the Dungeon Keeper series?
There is also a new game, called Dungeons 2 coming out soon.
https://wftogame.com/ - War for the Overworld seems like it might fit in with what you want.
There is also the Overlord game.
You are in control of a dungeon, and get to set up all the traps and etc, and fight against the heroes.
I guess, that Age of Wonders 3(along with the other Age of Wonders) might fill that void. If you play as the bad guys.
War for the Overworld because I loved Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2.
Stardrive 2 because it looks like an even better version of MOOII with humor and cool space battles.
Credit where it's due, Black and White was still better than Master of Orion 3.
BTW, check out War for the Overworld. Supposed to be a successor to dungeon Keeper. (I make no claims to whether it's any good, just that it's worth checking out)
Nerd Cubed Plays and Reviews War for the over world. I played it at EGX Rezzed and it is the true successor to the Dungeon Keeper series, plus they have the original voice actor as well. https://wftogame.com
> I would gladly pay that for a fully functioning version of the current travesty they released for Android.
You might be interested in that there are a couple indie games in development seeking to take up the pickaxe:
Hahaha, that was a while ago then. I have never had a feeling of "greatness" when thinking of EA.
I loved Bullfrog games. I loved Westwood games. It was their role as a publisher of other studios that they did well. When they went all "in-house"... well, we know what happened.
With the release of the DK-microtransaction game... well, my hopes for a DK sequel are gone. Although there is a game out there which is like DK waiting to be released.
Dungeon Keeper is an awesome game! And War for the Overworld (Steam WFTO) is likely going to be a great successor. But not for mobile.
Dan I know how you love the dungeon keeper series so I found out about a group of video game modders who have been working of a sort of remake of dungeon keeper that is also inspired by games like starcraft etc. The game is really great and well made and sticks to the feel of old dungeon keeper. Game Link: https://wftogame.com/ Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/subterraneangames/war-for-the-overworld
Update #21: PayPal, Steam Greenlight, Flex Goals & Evil Laugh Winner
Or you can go to the games website and you will find a large paypal button.