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.
Another thing to give credit to Night Owl, is the key feature of their Facebook game: You don’t have to have any friends to be on top, and you don’t have to be Facebook friends to be in-game friends. There is a distinct separation of in-game vs. real-life with the friends list. The feature – or lack-of in Facebook’s eyes – means you won’t have to harass friends to play and your Wall will remain clean (if you want it to).
You can set people to be “trusted” and it allows that random person you’ve never met to just go to your dungeon and collect resources for you – maximizing your gathering – and that is it! They have no control over your dungeon. All they get is a meta-game link to your profile.
The last thing I want to be happy to announce is the scale. Tribal Wars has a huge one, but it’s very circular in nature, and is limited to that one world you select. Dungeon Overlord is all one server (for now at least).
Look at the picture to the left. Each mountain has 5 starter dungeons that cannot be conquered, but attacked and knocked down, with 20 expansion dungeons. Multiply that amount by 50-100, and you have one zone. Multiply that by 50 and you have one continent. There are tons of continents, and after you reach a specific point, you can become intercontinental. The scale is immense, nearly astronomical, I will never doubt that.
I plan on playing well out of Beta (which is ending very soon). If you feel this has your interest, hop in and play! It’s now in Public Beta, but will be going live in just a few more weeks.
this is a great game that lets people fight as well as get to know each other , i’ve been very happy with it even through all the gliches, up until i’m not allowed to view alliance members power level, nor their pictures (it has become VERY diff. after the name change to know who is who with no pictures) but over all everyone of my friend play and love this game . also i have met people i would have never met if it wasn’t for this game -people from around the world !