Gameplay

Gameplay

This page is describing the game play according to the 0.5.0 version. On 0.4.9, spells aren't available for instance, and workers do spawn automatically from the temple.

Game objectives

The current state of the game is an pre-Alpha, many things are being corrected and even more added. We appreciate any feedback from our players, you can direct it to our forums.

Open Dungeons is an open source, real time strategy game sharing game elements with the Dungeon Keeper series and Evil Genius. Players will build an underground dungeon which is inhabited by creatures or human heroes, care for them and fight others for control of the underground by indirectly commanding them, directly casting spells in combat, and luring enemies into traps.

Your main concern when starting a map is digging your dungeon outline, digging for gold, capturing a creature portal and building the rooms needed to attract minions to aid you in your cause. After that, you need to keep expanding and train your creatures to face the many perils of the undergrounds composed by feral beasts, other Deep Lords and other pesky humans from the surface.

The missions goals will vary but killing all of your enemies is the most common objective.

Main menu

When starting OpenDungeons, you will be able to choose between Skirmish, Multiplayer, Replays, Map editor and Quit. For obvious reasons, we shall not (yet) insult your intelligence and won't be speaking of the obscure functionality hidden behind the Quit button.

The Map editor button and map editing is described here.

The Replays menu will permit you to watch previous games played both in skirmish and in in multiplayer. You can simply select one of the gameplay and click start. For now, there is no quick move forward or backward functionality there, you'll just have to watch it until advanced boredom, and press Escape to quit.

The Campaign mode doesn't exist yet. Support for this will come once all the in-game functionalities are more or less known and most of it implemented.

Minor details out of the way, let's focus on the main gameplay.

Skirmish/Multiplayer

The Skirmish mode is permitting you to play a single-player map against other Keeper and Heroes opponents. Certain maps are also made of only feral creatures to be defeated and have no other opponents.

The multiplayer mode will permit you to play against friends, if such a thing is existing in this type of game, and you can either Host a game, or join an existing game.

When joining a game, you will have to type your avatar name and the IP of the machine hosting a game.

The map selection window

Hosting a game and skirmish are sharing the map selection window sequence. This window will show you a list of available maps on the left and info on the given selection on the right.

A small map preview will also be displayed later. A small description and the number of available players starting location (aka seats or player slots) are indicated.

The seat selection window

Once you've chosen your map and click on Host/Start Game, you'll be presented to the seat/faction selection window. This window will let your faction (Hero or Keeper), your slot and possibly your team. Certain maps won't let you decide certain options while others are completely open. This is depending mostly on the map maker whims, don't blame us.

In multiplayer mode, the Host will have to wait for all the client to join. The clients avatar name will appear on the first free slot available once connected. The clients will then also see the Faction selection window but only the host can choose the options for now... Eh eh.

Once you have filled all the Seats, and clicked on start game. The real thing will begin...

In-Game

Game keys

Action	Keyboard	Mouse
Move around	WASD or arrows	-
Rotate	Q/E	-
Zoom in/out	Home/End	Mouse wheel
Tilt view	Page down/up	-
Switch between predefined views	V	-
Select a tile / Grab an item / Grab a creature	-	Left Click
Drop a creature / Slap a creature	-	Right Click
Move back to your temple	T	-
Chat	Enter	-
Take a screenshot	PrintScreen	-
Toggle the objectives window	F3	-
Toggle the research window	F4	-
Save the game	F5	-
Toggle keeper hand / Tile selector view	F9	-
Toggle the in-game menu	F10	-
Toggle debug info	F11	-
Open/Close dev console	F12	-

Starters

When playing, you will have a starting view on your temple, the Core room that is representing your authority. You can consider you a loser if it is destroyed so protect it fiercely!

Kobolds or Dwarf workers are the only creatures that spread your evil or light influence by claiming tiles of your color on reachable grounds.

The 'Summon Worker' Spell will spawn them when on your ground (may it be your temple or already claimed tiles) and those will be able to dig dirt and shape it to later create rooms. As every spells, this will cost mana, and the more tiles you have claimed, the more mana you get, and the more workers you can summon.

Those little weaklings will also turn ground tiles connected to your temple into claimed tiles, which are nicely shaped with nice and damp slippery stones with your color in their middle.

The main GUI

The GUI will tell you how much gold and mana you have on the top-left border of the screen. The game minimap will also let you see the terrain more general shape, and you also be able to click on it to quickly go to the desired location.

Your objectives will be shown on the bottom-right part of the screen. The bottom-left part of the screen will be the most interesting one...

Creatures/ Rooms / Traps

See the Rooms page.

Creatures

Depending on your faction, the set of available creatures will differ. Yet, there are two types of creatures, Workers and Fighters.

The workers (Kobolds for Keepers) are small and shy weakling that alone can dig dirt, claim tiles and bring stuff around. They are very afraid of enemies fighters and can only fight other's workers. The fighters are all the other kind of creatures, and have each their strength, weakness and skills. Only them can efficiently defend your dungeon and attack the enemies.

In the creatures tab, the first button will permit to grab Worker (that can later be dropped on the map using the right click.) and the second one can be used to grab fighters. You can of course grab a creature directly on map with a left-click if you're quick enough, but it is more convenient not to seek for each ones sometimes.

Rooms

There are three tabs shown on the bottom left part of the screen. The room tab will permit you to select a room and click on the dungeon to tell where you want this room built.

Note that rooms requires gold to be built, but there is an exception: Treasury rooms are used to store your gold, and thus the first tile is free of charge.

It is also important to know that Rooms can only be built on claimed tiles only. Thus, your first priority will be to make your kobolds claim at least one tile, and dig gold that they'll bring back to your treasury rooms.

Traps

Traps are acting almost the same way, except that building a trap doesn't activate it yet, as it also need to be shaped in a Forge by one of your minion first and then brought on the desired location by one of your workers.