Summary
There’s just something so inherently interesting about playing the ‘bad guy’ every now and again. There are so many games out there about a hero going through the standard hero’s journey to be a big hero and save the world in the end, but what about a game featuring a villain just trying to build their dream dungeon?
Well, while this might sound like too niche of a concept, there are actually a fair number of games that scratch that itch. Granted, the gameplay loops and general genres of these games widely differ from game to game, but all of them share a common goal of the player managing or building a dungeon and fighting off intruders.
Updated October 15th, 2024 by Jacob Buchalter:Games in which players are completely in control of their own dungeon are few and far between. Often, players are put in charge of a town or an area and must protect it from monsters by hiring heroes, upgrading the buildings, or inventing new weapons. However, dungeon management games are a bit different. In these games, players are typically in control of the villain who has their very own dungeon. And, with this dungeon, players will need to do everything in their power to stop adventurers and heroes from conquering their dungeon. This can be done through traps, summoning monsters, mazes, and much more, but it’s hard to really ‘nail’ this type of game. Here’s a look at some of the best games in this hyper-specific genre, and we’ll even go over what exactly makes them such great examples.
September 25th, 2024
$14.99
Dungeon Tycoonis by far the most recently released addition to this list, coming out less than a month ago (at the time of updating this). And, after putting some time into it, we can safely say this is one of the best dungeon management games in existence.Dungeon Tycoonmay not boast quite the same amount of complexity as some of the other games on this list, but it has the perfect balance in exchange. The adorable voxel-esque artstyle, the balance players have to find between killing heroes or letting them progress, and the sheer control players have over every aspect of their dungeon is truly incredible.
One of the most unique aspects this dungeon management game brings to the table is this balance between killing and exploiting heroes. If players kill heroes who come in constantly, they’ll have fewer ‘customers’ coming through but will be able to spend more souls on upgrades. However, if they let heroes progress too far, the heroes will level up and outscale the player’s monsters, so it’s a very delicate balance. All-in-all, the only area Dungeon Tycoon really arguably falls short in is the story, but even then it’s good enough and the gameplay more than makes up for anything the story or narrative lacks.
N/A (Multiple Games)
$9.99-$29.99
TheOrcs Must Diegames technically might not count as games where one can ‘build their own dungeon’, but this is a hyper-specific subgenre of games, so anything that even comes close to matching the requirements is going to be included. In theOrcs Must Diegames, players spend their time building an absolute meat shredder of traps in the different levels, and it’s their job to both takedown and trick the incoming onslaught of orcs into these traps to build up combo points, look cool, and have fun in co-op.
It’s much less building their own dungeon fortress and more like building their own Sen’s Fortress from the originalDark SoulsAKA a whole above-ground and underground dungeon absolutely teeming with traps with every step the orcs take. WhileOrcs Must Die: Unchainedwas a bit of a divergence in terms of gameplay, the original Orcs Must Die and Orcs Must Die 3 are great games to check out for anyone who likes Tower Defense games and dungeon-building games.
February 14th, 2013
$19.99
Impireis a game that absolutely wears its inspirations on its sleeves, those of course being beloved Dungeon Building games likeDungeon KeeperandKeeperRL. However, while it does try,Impireis a far cry from these games, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of quality. This is a game with a lot of bugs, a lot of decent ideas with poor execution, and a lot of tedious gameplay. So, if it’s not the most beloved game out there, why is it on this list?
Well, again, the subgenre of games where players can build their own dungeon is incredibly small, and it only felt fair to include any and every game that even came close to fitting into this category, even if the game itself has a lot of issues. Plus, though our experience withImpirewas less than stellar, that doesn’t mean that’ll be the same experience for everyone, so at the very least it’s worth mentioning that this game exists.
June 23rd, 2009
$9.99
InOverlord 2players will be spending the majority of their time exploring the various biomes, solving puzzles, and overthrowing the Romanesque kingdom in direct opposition to the Overlord, but there are some base-building sections as well. The ‘hub’ area forOverlordis the Netherworld, and while players don’t actually build onto or manage this hub dungeon very much, they do upgrade and explore it at length.
September 28th, 2004
March 30th, 2021
$39.99
Next up are two of the most well-known games on here outside of theDungeon Keepergames, bothEvil Geniusgames. In particular let’s talk primarily aboutEvil Genius 2: World Domination, as it basically builds upon the systems introduced in the first game in every way.Evil Genius 2takes place after the events of the firstEvil Geniusin whichthe player has already taken over the world. However, that world domination is starting to falter, and players will need to craft the perfect lair, obtain the proper minions, and complete enough schemes to take total control of the world back.
For those who don’t really want to be constantly building towards objectives,Evil Genius 2does offer a sandbox mode as well, which allows players to really get into the lair-building side of the game. In general, while the humor in this game franchise is lighthearted, it’s pretty heavy mechanically, which is typically something any fans of these dungeon manager-type games will be excited to hear.
April 29th, 2021
Moving on to a game calledLegend of Keepers: Career of a Dungeon Master. And, right off the bat, this game is one of the most ‘on brand’ games on this list for a Dungeon Building game. In thisroguelike management simulator, players take control of a ‘Keeper’ employed by the monster-run Dungeons Company who is paid to defend the company’s dungeon full of treasures from those greedy humans.
In any other dungeon-crawling game, players would be in control of a party of adventurers as they steadily make their way through a dungeon full of traps, puzzle rooms, and all sorts of monsters. Well in this game, players are building that dungeon in reverse, and doing their best to stop the humans from making it to the Keeper. And all the while, they’ll steadily recruit new monsters, build dungeons in new areas of the map, and even go on company retreats.
November 9th, 2023
$49.99
Up next is a game that’s much more about the ‘dungeon management’ than it is about defending the dungeon. InDungeons 4, players once again take control of Thayla, a very evil and very witty Dungeon Master who uses an army of ‘Snots’ (basically little goblins) to steadily build up the perfect dungeon underground.
Building the dungeon itself is a lot of what makes up this game, as the more ‘action-oriented’ sections of the game are intentionally much simpler by design. While it seems like fans seem divided on whether this game improves upon the last game or not, all-in-allDungeons 4is a game people can easily sink a ton of hours into.
March 31st, 2015
Readers of this list are very quickly going to notice a pattern with all of the entries on here, all of them are heavily influenced by the originalDungeon Keeperseries in some way. And,KeeperRLis no different, though it does twist the formula much more towards the roguelike genre than most of the other games on here.
There are a lot of comparisons between this game andDwarf Fortress, though this game is a bit simpler and also has both dungeon ‘keeping’ and dungeon ‘defending’ in its gameplay loop. Essentially.KeeperRLis a deceptively complicated game despite its graphical style, and it has a pretty absurd amount of replayability to boot.
War for the Overworld
April 2nd, 2015
$29.99
As far asDungeon Keeper-inspired games go,War for the Overworldmight be the one that’s the most ‘faithful’ spiritual successor. But, sinceDungeon Keeper 2is a game that came out all the way back in 1999,War for the Overworldbuilds upon the back ofDungeon Keeper 2while also modernizing a lot of the more ‘dated’ aspects.
There are a ton of different ways to experience this game, whether it’s singleplayer, multiplayer, or even through the Steam Workshop experiencing player-made custom scenarios.
November 15th, 2023
$24.99
Moving on to probably one of the most recent dungeon-building games on here,Naheulbeuk’s Dungeon Master.Outside of its difficult-to-pronounce title,NDMis a game that falls into thesubcategory of ‘quirky comedic’ Dungeon Builders.
In this world, Dungeons are managed like companies, and the one the players are given control of has not been managed well up to this point. It’s a game that’s very similar to other well-known titles likeDungeon Keeper 2orEvil Genius, but still manages to add a few new things to the subgenre and make its own identity known.
