PRACTICAL DUNGEON KEEPING

 

The drawback to doing a D&D-inspired comic is that there's already a bunch of them out there. On one hand, it means there must be a demand for D&D-inspired comics.
But on the other hand, there's already a bunch of D&D-inspired comics out there. I can dress it up a little and say "It's like The Office, or This Is Spinal Tap. Bits of drama interspersed with bits of interview. Mostly from the point of view of the people who work in the dungeon", but still.
I have a LOT of D&D and Pathfinder* books, but D&D and Pathfinder aren't the only ingredients.
I was thinking of Dungeon Keeper, a darkly funny management game where you build a dungeon (natch). You have little implike underlings (they look suspiciously like flying saucer aliens) who dig out and build rooms and corridors, fortify the walls, install traps and doors, mine for gold and gems, and do most of the maintenance. All well and good, but you also have to hire staff (giant bugs, demon spawn, dragons, orcs, trolls, warlocks, etc.) in your underground war against the Forces of Good who are perfectly well aware of your setting up shop beneath their feet. And your employees (save the Imps, who don't even sleep) need housing, food, and pay. Some of them don't get along and will fight if they wind up sharing living space. And while all this is going on, the Forces of Good are interminably digging their way towards you. Luckily, your employees can learn combat skills, research spells and traps (you did build a library, didn't you?), build doors and traps, and explore their surroundings. And you (represented by a giant floating hand that can pick up treasure and minions) watch what happens, occasionally intervening with spells and suchlike. There was also a multiplayer mode where you went up against rival dungeon keepers (AI or human), but the original, unused multiplayer concept intrigued me. You were to build the dungeon as usual, but then the other players were going to be the ones invading your dungeon... I imagine something like that is possible if they ironed out whatever stopped them from going that way...
One of the neater details of the game was how the level map would change as your progressed. You would be looking out at a gorgeous landscape dotted with villages and towns, each representing a level, culminating with the final level being the city of Skybird Trill (another nice detail. All the towns have friendly names like "Eversmile" and "Flowerhat", and there's a little description of how nice these places are, and all of this is told to you by an unseen mentor voiced by Richard Ridings. After you have finished a level, the mentor tells you how the place has changed, including the name: "Brana Hauk".). There's birdsong on the air. After you complete a level, you return to the landscape, but there's a difference. The places you've been to look a little less friendly. Darker. Bloodier. Wave your cursor over one of the blasted places, and there's the sound of a tolling bell.
Dungeon Keeper had an expansion (The Deeper Dungeons), and secret levels (some accessible only on the nights of a full moon), and a sequel... and an online game that for some reason is only available in China, and a mobile game that... I haven't heard such good things about. Fans of the original have done their own take on the game, I have read.
Dungeon Keeper and Dungeon Keeper 2 are available via GOG, which is probably for the good because my current computer wouldn't run either of them when I tried installing them from the original disks a while back...

*Pathfinder takes 3rd Ed. D&D as a jumping off point and goes a little further. It's basically "D&D 3.75" but they are in the middle of an upgrade...