It is approaching Christmas which means I have a ton of game reviews to get through.  Oddly I seem to keep going back to A Game of Dwarves and continually play it instead of digging deeper into other games that I should be making progress with.  It is like the game has a way of getting under your skin in a good, clean addicting way.

If you can’t tell, I rather enjoyed my time with A Game of Dwarves, a kind of fortress building/strategy game that requires the player to dig out large tunnels from the ground and root out all of the enemies and treasure found within.  In its simplistic design it has managed to conjure memories of both Evil Genius, Dungeon Keeper 2, and of course the classic Dwarf Fortress.  In odd ways it has found a way to make those games feel new and relevant again.

The game play normally centers on finding hidden rooms within the area that one is digging in, combatting the enemies that might be lurking around, upgrading units over time, and protecting the prince to avoid the dreaded game over screen.  While most of this might sound like so many other attempts in the genre it manages to keep things interesting by throwing in the factor of depth, seemingly at times just to make the player’s mind hurt.

One of the added bonuses to the game, besides it being rather great time to play, is the humor that is included.  The dripping sarcasm basically makes fun of you for not knowing what you are doing; at any given point, it feels like it has something to say about the player’s progress.  Even though this kind of wit is nothing new to the genre, both Dungeon Keeper and Evil Genius had it, it is something that is always nice to know that developers are able to hit the humor spot on when so many other games simply can’t.

Most people out there have a PC that is capable of running this game mainly because the graphics aren’t anything that are going to set the world on fire.  The game is 10 dollars on Steam, which seems like a good deal as it has a strange power of eating away entire weekends when I start playing it.  Everyone out there has been warned, for me I am going to go back to playing it and pretending that the rest of my reviews will finish themselves.

Not As Good As: Dungeon Keeper 2 (But what is)
Also Try: Evil Genius
Wait For It: Expansions

By: Dan Gillman

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