You read that right. Night Owl Games has made a game it proclaims to be the first hardcore Facebook game to date. Frankly, after playing it since PAX Prime this year, I have to agree. Not only is Dungeon Overlord substantially more intense than say, Farmville, it has Mrs. Mordil and I logging in daily to check up on our dungeons and strategize together.

The first thing I have to comment on for Night Owl was the quality of the graphics the company offers for the game. Dungeon Overlord is a 2D game, but all the models and objects have great detail due to them first creating everything as a 3D model, then converting it to 2D. Making DO a perfect blend of 2D and 3D models.

After noticing that, and jumping into the meat of the gameplay, I felt right at home due to my playing of Tribal Wars all that time ago. The gameplay is very similar, in the fact that time is the handicap; with different “rooms” as the buildings from Tribal Wars.

However, there are so many more resources you need to gather to create things – and upgrade, of course – that the game constantly has you strategizing to earn the needed rewards. Taking it a step further, not every dungeon offers the same resource nodes, or the same number of nodes, forcing players to explore and conquer new lands out of necessity. From simple gold and iron, the quicksilver and diamonds, you need a plethora of resources to support your dungeon empire.

Also a different feature one must notice: all you have to start out with in a new dungeon is the “Vault” which holds all your gold. It’ll take some time to get it to Scrooge McDuck levels.

After the jump is the introduction video created by Night Owl Games. Read on for my last first comments, and gameplay footage. Continue Reading