Dungeon Manager ZV

Basically your the big bad guy and you create an elaborate dungeon through menu navigating and trying to outlast these fools who are acting like adventurers in a video game. Definitely worth an experience and inspiration to transferring monster management to table top games.

It looks like a really stupid game that you could probably write yourself. But it's addictive and I've had a lot of fun with it. There's strategy in creating a dungeon that not only is inviting to adventurers, but snuffs out anyone who gets too far.

I don't want to oversell DM ZV. It's really not all that deep, and likely I'll play it furiously for a few days then never pick it up again. But it's super cheap and worth what I paid for it.

One of my favorite games. It is fairy simple, but becomes much more difficult as the dungeon grows: both in size and in popularity. I like trying to keep my monsters alive by putting them in positions where they can grow relatively safely. It is kind of relaxing to play, as most of the game runs by itself. Though you have to be wary of leaving monsters alone too long, as there is perma-death for your main dungeon creatures. All in all it is a game where your monsters take a fair amount of work to grow, you become kind of attached to them. Try different fusions or room combinations to help them get stronger and generally try to protect your dungeon inhabitants.

Dungeon Manager ZV is really good, I don't have as much of a playtime as I wish I did on it but I find myself constantly thinking about this game.

What is so good about it?

This game hits a very specific micro-management game and idle/clicker game. Min-maxing this game is surprisingly satisfying and watching the simulations happen in real time, with the ability to speed or slow them down at will is pretty fantastic, it also has a decent replayability, you will most likely "beat" the "campaign" in about 5 or 6 hours, but to get all the achievements or to aim for a high score on the leaderboards you'll spend another 10~15 hours at very least.

The dynamic difficulty, the "endless" aspect and freedom of being able to do things however you want at your own pace are some of the most enjoyable aspects of this game, which make it very special to me.

I'm gonna be real with you here, this game is basically a "spreadsheet" game, all you get is a couple of menus and that's where the whole game happens, so if you have some imagination then by all means you should play this game, if you don't think you can handle a game where you're staring at mostly text, then I would suggest checking "Dungeon Manager ZV: Resurrection" and "Dungeon Manager ZV 2" instead, as they to seem to be more visually appealing.

I have not played them at the moment of writing this review (I plan on doing so) but if the system of the sequels is similar to this game, then they are most likely gems of their own.

My only complaint about this game is that it's locked to a 640x480 resolution and you can't really do windowed mode because of it, but it's understandable for an old "indie" japanese game (2004).

If you like simulation/clicker/management games, this is a really good title to check out.

The game has no resolution options, besides fullscreen that resize the entire desktop.
I must have missed where the developer mentions this. Essentially, it is about 1/4th of a 1920x1200 screen, requiring significant eye strain to play for any length of time.

Time is what I tried to give it and ignore the resolution issue, but as the game progresses that lack of resolution begins to make keeping track of everything increasingly difficult. Also, the fact that there are nearly no keyboard shortcuts makes the repeated mouse movements painful. You will be opening and closing the same windows, int he same places, over and over and over... Even on slow, the repition causes wrist pain. At least for me it did.

DL;DR
Hard to look at for any length of time and cow clicker repetitive...
I can't imagine the boasting about its popularity is true.

This is rather boring. "Dungeon Antfarm Manager" would be more apt. there really isn't much you can do, or need to do. you'll use the speedup button 24/7, listening to cheesy sound effects. There is some depth, but nothing groundbreaking, and it is neat to see how many heroes you can nab before your monsters are all killed, but honestly there isn't much to say about the game except its boring.

Great game towards the end of the night when the time for twitchy arcade games are past, and you just want to click through menus furiously and try and tempt one more party of adventurers in too deep then snatch their stuff!

You play as a manager for a dungeon/mine and have to allocate resources and hire monsters (through pop up menus) to balance challenging adventurers (but letting them go) to increase your reputation (and get better parties) AND crushing the heroes and taking their treasures for your dungeon's boss room.

The game has a speed control so if you click and read really fast you can, or if you'd rather take it easy and maybe check out and recognize each hero (the game has names and information on each one, and the ones that escape sometimes return!) you can set it slow and watch the whole scenario play out.

Highly recommend as a second game between playing action ones.

I expected a text based dungeon simulation to have a ton of depth and complexity. This is ridiculously simplistic. The "dungeon" is 10 floors of 3x3 rooms that are all exactly the same, the only real thing to manage is the monsters which have no custimization or depth and very little variety. You combine them and move them around and they level up, that's it. And there's very few monsters you can get. Heroes just appear and get farmed and there's so little depth there is no room for anything but the most simplistic strategy.

Don't waste your money.

Whether or not this game will appeal to you can pretty much be answered by one simple question: "Could you ever see yourself playing a text based management sim?" If your answer is pretty much any variant of yes or maybe, you will probably enjoy this game. It isn't strictly text based, but it's close. If the answer is no, hell no, or "that's a thing?" then stay FAR, FAR away. This game is not for you.

Pros:
-Non-standard maze building...Having a stacked 3x3 grid pushes you to be a bit more creative with your space.
-On the fly difficulty adjustment. There are two aspects to the difficulty of the game, fame and threat (the latter isn't called such, but shush). Fame determines how frequently you get visitors to your dungeon (and is based on a combination of the MacGuffin you choose for your dungeon and how much satisfaction the npcs had before returning to whence they came (Assuming you let them go). The latter gradually accumulates (and cannot be modified by the player) Fame determines how frequently adventurers stop by on their way to your dungeon.Threat on the other hand is based off of who you mark as your final boss as well as accumulating based on your monsters levels; this generates the enemies' level.

Cons
-No snarky dialog. Every game about being evil needs snarky dialog.
-Cheap kills. There are equips that have a % chance to insta-kill whatever the hero is fighting per attack, often at a pretty good chance too. One (at least) of these equips doubles the attack speed of the hero. Said heroes will probably be attacking 5 or more times for every monster attack you can make. Hah, nothing gets past my super powerful, aaaaand it's dead. I lost a level 20 V-Golem this way (perhaps not a top tier monster, but close), at the time one of if not my most powerful monster. The only reason my dungeon survived the invasion of a swordmaster with said attack speed buffing insta-kill bot artifact is because he got himself stuck in a side hall that I'd created and slowly whittled himself to death on my traps (my zombies sure as hell couldn't do anything to him)
-Unless you know in advance what all of the equips do, there's really no way for you to know ahead of time that said hero will be one-shotting all your dudes, because it'll tell you the name of the equip, but not what it does. So you won't know that putting your L20 V-Golem a room ahead of his L8 self with half a dozen zombies in a floor that boosts earth creatures (such as a V-Golem) is a quick recipe to lose that V-Golem. I'm not bitter.

I enjoy the genre: if I were asked how much I would buy this game for, knowing what I know but not otherwise owning it, I'd probably pay 4-5 bucks for it. So, if you're interested, wishlist it and pick it up on sale.

And seriously Valve, can we get a better rating system already?

I wanted to like this game, but the lack of strategic options killed it for me. Even though I like simulation games (Capitalism 2, OOTP16, etc.) there wasn't enough depth in this game to keep me interested. I'd give it a score of 4/10.

Pros:
+ interesting premise

Cons:
- Lack of strategy. Maybe I'm not playing it right, but there doesn't seem like much to do.
- The game is more about balance than getting strong. You have to let heroes kill your monsters and steal your treasure, instead of working to create an impenetrable dungeon.
- You aren't really creating a dungeon, in that you only have a 3x3 grid to work with, which severely limits strategic possibilities.
- Just 13 mb, so you can imagine the lack of content.
- Severe lack of customiziation to your monsters. You create a monster, and if it defeats an enemy, it grows stronger. That's it.

I killed a few hours with this game, but I could've spent those hours playing something better...

Game is fun to begin with but there is very little to be done once your dungeon is established except sit there and click yes or no to prevent people escaping. Once you have finished the game there is an option to continue on but there is little point to this because unless you like doing nothing there is no more game to be played. Also after you max out your Zombies, traps, tiles, and floor levels there really isn't anything left to do.

Would I play it again? Probably not unless they release an amazing update they brings more into the game than just sitting there and waiting.

Are there any good points to the game? Yes - some, the concept is fun and interesting to begin with and the monster merging can also be good, while often also frustrating because unless you have the right item you can't merge the monsters.

I saw this game compared to the football manager games, but it really does not work all that well. I also noticed a large number of reviews saying that there is just not enough content for the game.

There are some interesting concepts availible here, but there is also a lack of variety in the basic dungeon design and populating scheme.

The game is built around a 3 X 3 matrix for each floor, where each room automatically connects to any neighboring room. The 'heroes' flow into the dungeon in semi-random directions working their way down to the bottom or until they take enough damage that they want to go back out and try to work their way back to escape.

There are 16 possible floors where each room starting at level 1 can have 2+(1 X floor level) at a max of 9 of zombie defenders as well as a single trap that also has a level based on floor level max 9. So on level 3 you can have 5 zombies per room as well as a single L3 trap. Additionally you can place hero items into rooms as well as a single monster defender. You have to make certain that your monster defenders do not die otherwise you loose them permanately, this causes a bunch of active micro-management where I pull out the near death monster and replace it with a monster that is healthy. The real goal here is to level up the monsters as high as possible and then mix the different monsters using a few different monster recipies.

All this actually sounds pretty decent except that your room monster is your main damage dealer and your zombies are expensive blockers to protect your monsters. With the limited resource maximum a wave of powerful heroes can easily wipe out your resources while you are desperately trying to keep your high leveled, demon type units from getting wiped out. Early on with low levels of fame it is fairly manageable, but when your fame rises your monsters that you have leveled up to preprare to make stronger evoved monsters that can actually tank late game heroes, this really is all about micromangement. The lack of variety in the auto spawn meaning just weak zombies means that as you progress you are going to get overwhelmed.

My most recent game I kept pulling back deeper and eliminating all the zombies and monsters that cost a significant amount to respawn each time they are killed and I have 3 populated rooms at this time. 1 is an evolved golom, while the other two are dragons. All three can tank and still do some damage to passing heroes. And I kill enough of them to make more than the zombies and traps cost me as well as the resurection. Anything else I put in just drains my resources for no real gain while being very hectic.

It has a lot of points I like and tickles a certain itch, but a lot of areas that it could expand on and make it a really good game. It feels too minimalist and grindy for me overall, although it's still a fun game to play. Mileage may vary, but the sheer chaos of a high level dungeon might make it more worth it.

It has some good things to recommend it, but overall the gameplay is just a bit too shallow. Had potential, but lacks mazes like Dungeon Warfare or Desktop Tower Defense, there's some translation errors and bad grammar, plus the fullscreen resolution doesn't seem to actually be supported, along with other random crashes.

Gameplay wise, it's fusing monsters like old-style digimon, with a lot of incremental-type grinding to get them up to level 30 and some guesswork involved. It's a game you play for about 30 minutes only because you'll probably get bored and play something a little more cerebral instead after a while or just let it go in the background unsupervised.

I already went past the 2 hour refund mark but I don't think I can really recommend this game.

TL, DR: This is a mix of SimTower and Unholy Heights. Breeding, building and the slow accumulation of power and resources. If you enjoyed one or both of the above games, you should give this a try.

This game plays like SimTower, you gradually accumulate more resources and build to expand your domain. In exchange for a simpler building system, this game adds complexity in the form of monsters that you need to nurture and cross breed to evolve ever stronger monsters. The gameplay is surprisingly addictive; I'm writing this at 2am in the morning after a "short" session became 2 hours. Although there are no graphics, the user interface is functional and the status of your dungeon is clearly presented. I think this game is worth its asking price if you're looking for a game that has the intensity of an RTS, the atmosphere of Dungeon Keeper, and easily-understood game mechanics.

The game is "fine". Don't expect flashy graphics, this wasn't made to have them.

Sadly the content is also simply lacking though.
Completion can be expected to be done within 10 hours.
I currently feel no need to go back to this game.

Suggestions:
Customising the monsters: currently they level up and gain a little defense and health, i'd like to see multiple target hits, instant kill abilities and to be able to see more than just "Level, hp & defense"
Would like to see a "campaign style" play. Although not really sure if it'll work for this.
Ability to have more than 1 dungeon at a time. Given this isn't a competitor to other dungeon design games and is meant to different, i think this is a way to make it different. (by this i mean having some form of overworld view and being able to buy new locations(possibly with maximum depths and maximum level of adventurer?)
Make it 5x5xX, this then allows for more complex dungeons
Cap's on the resources are very low, a lot more could be done with it.
An "easy" way of levelling weak monsters so that you can combine them would be good (preferably using a second dungeon?) or just simply pay for levels with resources? heck the resource is basically "souls of dead adventurer's" so them being able to give exp isn't too much of a leap of faith.
Eventually you just basically get adventurer's to go to 9 depth asap and just kill them there, make nearer to the surface more useful?
Allow monsters to evolve naturally instead of forcing combines to make them better
Needs just simply more fusions and more creativity with what they can do.

Plus sides:
I experienced no bugs. (one or two bits where the text didn't fit)
Simplistic - Was very easy to work out roughly what to do.


6 hours is still more than the other reviews and as i stated, i've literally finished it. Would recommend at 99p. But at this amount you get too little. Most games on kongregate have more content than this.
Save your money, will review again when i see updates, but i don't think there's really going to be any changes big enough to really change it.

A very interesting and original case to Dungeon Keeper using spreadsheets :)

Seriously funny and intelligent game that allows you to create your simplified dungeon structure, create and level your monster and manage your fame that atracts the adventurers coming to die in your dungeon, allowing you to gather more ressources to make the dungeon more difficult, attract more heroes, etc...

This is a definitely recommended game that will give you some serious fun and a good challenge.

I went into this game not expecting much. To be honest I was expecting to refund it immediately. Somewhere along the line though, it caught my interest. Not sure why, but it's addicting. I think it's the seemingly simple gameplay. I can sit back and kick up my feet, all the while I'm trouncing the "heroes" that come into my dungeon (call me malevolent, but it's very entertaining). During my few hours of gameplay I've been peeling back layers of strategy. Should I put my slime on the third floor or the fourth? Wait...I should build him up so I can put him on the sixth floor! Unless of course that hero kills him before hand...nah I'll just replace him with this level 1 I just summoned.

It's moments like these that kept me playing. The constant micro kept me going. For some people this is a turn off, but being a relatively relaxed player myself I still found this game very entertaining without the need for ton's of key strokes. I can do everything with the mouse. It's just a matter of thinking things through once you get the hang out how it's designed. That may seem complex, but I assure you it has a very nice learning curve. Fun and intuitive. A double bonus in my book.

TL:DR - If you have an active imagination and don't mind using your brain a little then give this game a try. If you need really good graphics then pass this one by.

Addendum: This is my first review. I welcome all criticism.

(Clarification : Since some people wonder how I know so much about the game - I owned it prior to the steam release, so I've booked in quite a chunk of playtime, some 50 hours, outside of it's english release. Therefore I know whereof I speak.)

This is why we shouldn't leave Japan on its' own. No, really, I'm serious. We do that and instead of Football Manager they come up with this?!?!

No, really, we must never leave Japan alone, this is what happens when we do. They create games where you're monster mixing slimes, golems and demons?!?!

The kind of game where five minutes can become an hour, and an hour can become half a day....

Okay, this sounds interesting and all, but how on earth do you make sense of it? How does ANY of this make sense?!?! HALP!!!

An interesting, niche game. A short summary:

In this game you are the master of a new dungeon. Starting with a single floor you have a 3x3 grid of possible rooms. Excavating each room takes resources. In each room you can then deploy zombies or more powerful monsters to stop adventurers from progressing further in your dungeon. On each floor you can have up and down stairways, allowing acess to the floor above/below. Each added level increases the strength of invaders but also allows you to place more formidable traps and monsters. At least 15 floors can be constructed and on the lower floors you can find and breed some more special monsters such as dragons or esoteric demons.

The objective is to protect your most valuable item, the Knight's Emblem from being stolen. All the items in the game have certain effects associated with them. Some will boost the power of traps or reduce the cost of resurrecting your zombies. In the hands of adventurers the items will increase their attack, defense or other attributes making them more formidable foes.

Additionally you wish to attract as many powerful adventurers to your dungeon as possible so you can collect their magic items and life force. So that you can lure ever more powerful adventurers and repeat the process. You may also allow adventurers to escape so that they can tell their friends about your dungeon. You actually want this to happen as simply being inundated with level one novices is not particularly exciting or gainful. As time passes new classes arrive and higher levelled and better equipped adventurers too. Eventually organized parties will attempt to reach the depths of your dungeon.

You constantly balance between increasing the strength of your dungeon and monsters while also allowing adventurers to experience thrill and sucess, encouraging them to return. While you steal their items, you can also allow them to escape with your own. Allowing adventurers to live with valuable loot makes them extremely happy and increases the fame and allure of your dungeon even more.

The game is not graphically stimulating, but it does something new, that I have not seen expressed as a game before. If you like the idea of managing a dungeon and have a modest imagination I would suggest you try the game. It is quite reasonably priced and runs very well.