Roel van Tiel
Netherlands
Nijmegen
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Target audience of review
So you’re thinking of this game and want to read whether it is interesting enough to buy. This review is meant for you. Bear in mind, every review is an opinion, and this is mine. I’ll try to be objective but it’s bound to be skewed to what I like. You might like different things in a game!
This review is built in a certain structure which I hope to maintain for every review I write.
First, this is my main conclusion: If you like being an Evil Overlord, scheming how to use his minions and superior intelligence to really mess up some adventurers, look no further. You have found your game.
Second, I’ll be going into five sections:
Target Audience of the game
Who will be attracted to this game? Who is it for?
Components
quality, playability of components and art.
The Game Itself
the basic idea, as short as possible. No rules.
Other Traits
playing time, setup time, price/quality, etc.
Conclusion
what’s to like? What’s to not like? Overall verdict.
Target Audience of the game
This is a game for the following people
- you like being the evil overlord! 
- you like a challenge 
- you like to beat up said challenge, especially when some righteous paladin is involved 
- you like minions! 
- you like them especially when working hard for you 
- you like recruiting monsters, especially when they are big, evil, or both 
- (optional) you have played Dungeon Keeper or Overlord, and enjoyed it! 
- (optional) secretly, you’ve wished Frodo got it and Sauron could show he’s not “such a bad person after all”... 
If those descriptions suit you, look no further. You’ve found what you wanted.
Components
Quality of this game is very good. Boards are nice and sturdy, as well as the cardboard components.
Money, minions and food are a bit boring but functional. But best of all are the imps: the game includes nice and tiny imp figures, yours to command.
Only drawback is the board on which to keep all components. It doesn’t add too much to gameplay other than giving you a visual reminder of what has been played and what is to come. The two sided season-board is a nice touch though as it clearly depicts the two phases of the game (more on that below).
The art of the game totally captures the atmosphere. That of light-hearted evilness. Very well done. The box is sturdy and holds the components well, and has some nice art on it if you’re into the theme.
The Game Itself
Basic idea can be summed up in two phases. During the summer season you are making preparations, sending out minions and imps to work for you, hiring monsters and expanding your dungeons. During the winter season some stupid party comes by and tries to demolish your property. You won’t let that happen though. This is repeated with a different twist and more bad-ass adventurers the next year after which the Ministry of Dungeons will grade your performance.
This leads to a game where planning is key. Any evil overlord worth his salt knows that however fun it might seem to ride ten trillion Goblins to slaughter, you won’t last very long when all you needed was a Dragon. Planning for what is coming your way is key, after all, somehow the ‘good ones’ are always out to get you. Even when you do nothing wrong!
Thus you send out your minions to take home the best monsters, the best traps, the most food, the most gold, new imps or other actions but they cannot perform all of them. Next to that, other aspiring overlords in the region are sending their minions as well. Alas, yuou cannot attack them directly. That would show bad manners to your peers, and your reputation is bad enough already. And while there are ‘goody goodies’ around, every overlord will understand the silent agreement that it’s just common sense to get those out of the way first.
As per turn all actions are planned up front, timing becomes important. Will you try to go before anyone else, securing that your minions come home with something, or wait and hope for a later (usually better) action? As possible actions in each category are limited, you run the risk of having your minion come home with nothing. Thus guessing other overlords course of actions is factored in. As if you don’t have hard enough a time to get your dungeon ‘adventurer-ready’!
During season, this results in tough decisions: what do you want? You only have three minions, so you cannot get everything. What result of an action do you prefer? Hmm... the second one is usually best. So make sure I go second in that action. Will the others take that action too? Let’s see... analyse, analyse. Oh and the adventurers get distributed on evil-rating. Let’s see, I do want that thief, but not that priest. So I should buy an evil monster. Oh wait, if I’m too evil, I’ll get that paladin...
During the adventurers visit, you have to put your acquired monsters and traps to best action. That requires some puzzling, and if you haven’t looked at the possible spells you’ll encounter and are unlucky to have a wizard and/or paladin in the visiting party, even the best planning can be naught!
This is a game of careful planning and manoeuvring. Don’t mistake it for a slaughterfest. That is something for the mindless fighters trying to hack up your smoothly running dungeon.
Other Traits
Playing time is about 2 to 2,5 hours, mainly because of the time it takes analysing the best course of action. And of course resolving the battles could be done in parallel, but usually it’s too much joy watching all those pesky ‘goodies’ die.
Setup time is ok, about 15 minutes. Pretty much for a euro-game, but as it is a meaty game after which your brains will be spent anyway, some 15 minutes trash-talk about hacking goodies and bragging about being the most evil lord will get you in the mood so it’s not bad.
Price/quality is ok. It’s a good game, with very nice components and an excellent opportunity to bring out the dark side in you. But E53,- is pricey for a game you will only bring to the table with like-minded people. So all in all, not overpriced, but not a bargain either.
This game is best with 4 players . This results in more tension when sending out your minions and that is a very important aspect of the game. The downside is a longer playing time, however.
Conclusion
What’s to like
+ Being an overlord
+ Having minions
+ Tactical challenging
+ Ample opportunities for trash-talk and bragging
+ Nice buildup to the slash-fest
+ Nice atmosphere of light-hearted evil
What’s not to like
- Sometimes too much of a brain burner
- Can revolve slow sometimes
- Not suited for most women (somehow, most miss that evil streak)
- Not suited for most casual gamers
Overall verdict: I would personally give this game a 9/10. WARNING: this is a very subjective rating, as I like planning, minions and the atmosphere of this game appeals very much to me!
Trying to be more objective: the game system is worth about a 7/10. Therefore, I expect that once the novelty wears off for me my rating will drop a point because of this (and this also keeps it from getting a subjective 10/10). There are times I’d like to be an evil overlord without overstretching my brains. Sadly, Dungeon Lords won’t be the game for those times. It is a game targeted at a shallow niche. IF you fall into that however, it’s a brilliant game. Luckily, I do.
Now go forth and enslave, my fellow overlords.
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Evil Roy
United Kingdom
Sutton
Surrey
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
sucrates wrote: During the summer season you are making preparations, sending out minions and imps to work for you, hiring monsters and expanding your dungeons. During the winter season some stupid party comes by and tries to demolish your property.
This is not strictly true. You send out your minions in all four seasons but at the end of winter the aventurers come and invade your dungeon. This is of course irrelevant to your review but I like nitpicking.
sucrates wrote: Overall verdict: I would personally give this game a 9/10. WARNING: this is a very subjective rating, as I like planning, minions and the atmosphere of this game appeals very much to me!
Trying to be more objective: the game system is worth about a 7/10. Therefore, I expect that once the novelty wears off for me my rating will drop a point because of this (and this also keeps it from getting a subjective 10/10).
Your review stresses the theme, which I agree is brilliantly done, but underneath lies an excellent game system which you gloss over. For me it's that that makes it a great game and certainly worth more than 7/10.
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
Evil Roy wrote:
Your review stresses the theme, which I agree is brilliantly done, but underneath lies an excellent game system which you gloss over. For me it's that that makes it a great game and certainly worth more than 7/10.
No. I agree with Roel that if this game comes without its theme, it'll most likely completely be forgotten in 1 year.
Each turn what you need to do is to outguess your opponents and try to land in the 2nd place, which is most of the time the sweet spot. You spend 2+ hours and repeat this action x times, which, in my opinion, should never get over 7/10.
Nice review Roel! I enjoy your review format very much and please continue your hard work!
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Mialee, AKA She-Who-Is-Pwned-By-Doors
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
Evil Roy wrote: This is not strictly true. You send out your minions in all four seasons but at the end of winter the aventurers come and invade your dungeon. This is of course irrelevant to your review but I like nitpicking.
Actually, the adventurers come at the BEGINNING of winter, since Autumn is the last season before the attack, and I like nitpicking too
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Jack Smith
United Kingdom
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
Very balanced review I think. I like the theme but it does seem to give the impression the game will be easier than it actually is. This is not a criticism but it does mean it will fall flat for some people. So 7/10 is fair.
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Hogan Brimacombe
Canada
Edmonton
Alberta
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
I think your review of the components is good, but not enough praise is given to the individual dungeon boards. Akin to the IT guy whos answering machine message starts with (is it turned on? Is it plugged in? ) the most common answer i give to questions about this game is "Look at the board!"
When do fast spells happen? "Look at the board!"
Does fatigue come before or after conquering? "Look at the board!"
When do my monsters attack? "Look at the board!"
When does healing happen?"Look at the board!"
Where should i put all the various pieces in this game like imps, food, gold, imprisoned adventurers, traps, etc? "Look at the board!"
In summary, all of you should buy this game, so you too can...
"Look at the board!"
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Roel van Tiel
Netherlands
Nijmegen
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
Being an IT guy in RL...I'd start with "do you have the right board?" 
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Mike Clarke
Canada
New Westminster
B.C.
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Re: Review of Dungeon Lords
sucrates wrote:
What’s not to like
- Sometimes too much of a brain burner
- Can revolve slow sometimes
- Not suited for most women (somehow, most miss that evil streak)
- Not suited for most casual gamers
I have to disagree. In my case it's true the wife wasn't taken with the evil dungeonlord theme. However, everything is so darned cute in the end, it really wasn't an issue for her. The board is so colourful and engaging it's a pleasure to play on it.
And the type of worker placement/planning is something that women actually DO like...after awhile it was like: remember in our younger years when all we wanted to do was go exploring and crack heads in some evil dungeon?
But now we're raising a family. We've found this nice little underground home. We've squirreled away our hard earned treasures and employed some of the locals to help us protect them.
And if these jerks from the local tavern think they can come in and just TAKE them...well....
If you have a significant other who doesn't like being evil, don't talk the game up. Just get it on the table and get her to play it.
From that point on, bless Vlaada's little heart, it sells itself.
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Posted Tue Mar 8, 2011 7:50 pm
