KeeperFX - Dungeon Keeper Fan Expansion
The problem with remaking games is that usually the remakes are abandoned at some stage and never finished. This means that all the work put into such remake is lost, as it usually isn't finished enoughly to be used. Making games requires lots of time, and often volunteers do not have enough will to finish the project.
To download DK-related movies, pictures and manuals, see media page. Pre-release patch. If you wish to have the really latest version, you can download (in other words, checkout) the current source code from GitHub. KeeperFX at GitHub. To recompile this source, you only need MinGW - install it and type 'make all' in your checkout folder. Dungeon Keeper™ 2 Bad guys have all the fun Carve out a living, breathing world and attract a host of devilish creatures to swell the ranks of your dark hordes.
Bearing this in mind, I've decided I won't try to remake the game from start. Instead, I've learned binary formats of EXE and DLL files, and modified the Dungeon Keeper executable file to become a DLL.
With my new DLL, I was able to create very simple executable file which may be used as complete code to run the game. Now I'm incrementally rewriting DK; functions which are not yet rewritten are called from the DLL, so the project functions like whole game, even though it wasn't completely rewritten yet.
Many functions are already rewritten and fixed. Structure of the code allows to take advantages of every rewritten part, by fixing bugs and making new functions. The project is open-source, and its code is downloadable here.
KeeperFX CCP - Campaigns Consolidation Project
Campaigns Consolidation Project is an effort to build all unofficial campaigns into KeeperFX. This allows to select any campaign from the game menu, without replacing map files.
Go to Download page to get the latest version.
Note that you need data files from original Dungeon Keeper CD to play KeeperFX.
Read README file before using any of the programs!
I've got a job to do. I'm here to see Dungeon Keeper 2, the follow up to - duhhh - Dungeon Keeper 1, one of the most complex and controversial strategy games of all time. Complex because it was an ambitious, sprawling, multi-layered, multi-genre title with unusually elegant gameplay, and controversial because while some people loved it (myself included), others derided it as a repetitive, plodding game with an outdated graphics engine. My job is to find out whether the sequel's going to be any good or not. I leave the station and get into a cab.
Inside A Building On A Business Park
Within moments of arriving at Bullfrog's shiny HQ, I'm led to a small, neat conference room and supplied with a mug of instant coffee (a vending machine approximation of cappuccino courtesy of Maxwell House). I take a seat at the table. An impressively huge (and flat) LCD screen occupies most of the wall in front of me. I blink. My eyes are burning from lack of sleep.
Microdia sonix usb camera driver for mac. Dungeon Keeper 2 producer Nick Goldsworthy prods a touch-screen panel, the lights in the room start to dim and the screen comes alive. It's like a scene in a Bond movie. Except instead of a map of the world, the screen is filled with the imposing form of Dungeon Keeper's horned reaper - or Horny, as they persist in calling him.
Dungeon Keeper 2 Free
I'm being shown an impressive FMV sequence created for the game by a French computer animation company previously responsible for some of the eye-popping 'sky traffic' scenes in The Fifth Element (the movie, not the game, dum-dum). It's good. It cheers me up a little.Then Goldsworthy fires up the game itself. TVventy minutes later, I realise I've been gawking so hard at the images on the screen I've forgotten all about my coffee, which is now stone cold. I've been gawking so hard because Dungeon Keeper 2 looks fantastic.
Dungeon Keeper 2 Digital Download
Goblins Dance Before Me
The main difference, the first thing that hits you, is how much better the creatures look now that they've been upgraded from pre-rendered sprites to polygonal models. It isn't just that they now sit more comfortably with their 3D surroundings, they also benefit k from lighting effects, they cast shadows, and they display far smoother animation than before. Everything looks crisper, dearer, and faintly more disgusting. Even the dungeon heart, the source of all your power, looks like a 'proper' organ. You feel you could reach into the screen, poke it, and get an eyeful of goo spurted back at you in return. Lovely.
Dungeon Keeper 2 Download
Nick loads up a thriving dungeon and starts to demonstrate some of the other new features. He drops a troll into a casino room. It starts gambling. He drops a pair of monsters into a combat pit and they stan leathering one another. As the fight progresses, a crowd of onlookers begins to gather - other creatures, hearing the commotion, have come to have a look.
An enemy - a hero - wanders into the dungeon and is spotted by an imp, which becomes visibly startled. It scuttles away. We follow it down a corridor. The imp runs into another room and raises a crowd of tougher beasts. They storm away in the direction of the hero, thirsty for battle.
First-person mode next. Nick possesses a firefly and starts to buzz around. The screen splits into a honeycomb viewpoint - flies have comPound- eyes, after all. As a fly, he's got nasty little teeth; he chomps at a passing chicken to prove how well they work. Meanwhile, countless other beasts are wandering around, going about their business. A set of imps are busy tunnelling through a section of nearby rock. A Bile Demon drags himself by with a nonchalant grunt. It's all quite captivating.
You're left with the impression that you're seeing a thriving, organic community, full of life and character, and humour and nastiness. This was always one of the aims of the original game, but there's something about the crisp, polygonal focus of the sequel that makes the overall vision leap vividly to life. Sitting by and looking on is frustrating; you can't wait to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in yourself.
Screen: Off
With the demonstration over, it's time for the interview - which you can read along the bottom of these pages - to begin. Goldsworthy is refreshingly free from hyperhole - one of the first things he picks out as a major development in the game is the sheer amount of fine-tuning and balancing that's gone on. Incredibly important from a gameplay point of view, but hardly the stuff of screaming advertising slogans. He comes across as a relaxed, attentive kind of guy. Probably nice to work for. The only awkward moment occurs when, suffering from cheap coffee and psychotic exhaustion, I inexplicably ask him what kind of animal he'd most like to have sex with. We ask everybody that question.
There's a long, slightly embarrassed pause before he admits defeat: he can't think of one. I apologise and change the subject.Overall there's a lot of talk about the game, obviously, and it's clearly something he's been talking about a lot of late. He brightens visibly when asked about his first gaming experiences. Turns out he's got a collection of old gaming systems at home. He knows his stuff. It's a passion.
That isn't something you can fake.This won't be a fake; this game won't be a token remake of the original. Dungeon Keeper 2 will, we believe, rock bells.
Focus Pocus
Bullfrog don't muck around, you know. During the production of Dungeon Keeper 2 they've been painstakingly examining every aspect of the game to ensure the gaming public will 'get' it all.And you know what that means: that means 'focus grouping'
And lots of it The help system, for example, was meticulously pieced together during extensive tests on a wide range of players - from jaded testers to virginal r office secretaries who'd only ever played Windows Solitaire - which helped ascertain just how much 'nudging' the player might require in order to start ascending the teaming curve.
Sometimes it takes a long time to get things right The interface for the game, for example, was redesigned more than ten times following feedback from the focus groups. The end result is an ingenious 'toolbar' system which can be customised in-game to suit the player (frequently used icons can be placed on a special 'favourites' bar that's always within easy reach).
Before you start carping on about things being 'designed by committee', shut up and listen: It's not the entire concept that's been focus grouped, just the finer details. Countless games fail because of niggling little irritations which could have been identified during the production process. That's precisely what focus grouping does. So there.
Changing Rooms
In the original Dungeon Keeper there were loads of different kinds of rooms you could build within your dungeon, each of which served a specific purpose. Libraries, for instance, were knowledge centres wherein creatures could teach themselves new spells, while chicken hatcheries served as handy sources of food. All the rooms from the original are retained for the sequel, with a couple of fun additions.
First of all there's a 'barbarian pit' room where creatures learn to fight. It works quite simply: just drop a pair of creatures in and watch as they hammer ten shades of shinola out of one another. They even draw a baying crowd. When close to death, they limp away and recuperate -unless you drop them in with a captured hero, in which case you've got a fight to the death. Oh, the humanity.
Then there's the Casino room, replete with fruit machines and roulette wheels. This works on two levels: it attracts monsters into the dungeon, keeps them entertained, and can actually save you money (the ignorant sods keep pumping their wages into it).Of course, once in a while, someone will hit the jackpot and you have to pay out, probably when you're in a tight fiscal spot already. Still, in true casino-owning-bastard tradition, you can always beat the crap out of the winner and recoup some of your losses as he drops the coins. Just don't let the other creatures spot you or they'll riot.
I'm So Horny, Horny Horny Horny
The Homed Reaper from the original Keeper proved so popular that his role has been substantially increased for the sequel. He's now actually working in conjunction with the Keeper himself (that's you, that is), so you'll be seeing a lot more of him.
Just as well his behaviour has been given something of a tweak, then. He's been invested with more character than before, and reacts to other creatures around him accordingly - throwing scowling glances at cowering imps, that sort of thing. Nice.