War for the Overworld (DK remake)

I played it a bit and I was disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high. However I never finished it. It contained some puzzle missions, which I hate. The one that did me in is where a bunch of heroes are moving across the map and you are only allowed to let like 10 of them get by. I tried it several times and just gave up. I did try a skirmish game once, but again it was just kind of “meh”. I can’t specifically say why.

My one friend said it was just ok, he has under 8 hours played on it according to steam and hasn’t touched it in months. So I decided to go with Dungeons II, mostly because it was cheaper during the sale. So far I am liking Dungeons II. :p

I still have this on my wishlist, they are running a 30% off sale, also a new patch 1.4 was pushed out along with the new Heart of Gold mini expansion dlc.

Heart of Gold Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qS7VcDmOQ4

I saw 18 Steam friends own this, so it might be a good time to give it a re-visit. Also Heart of Gold is apparently free to early adopters of the base game.

Heart of Gold also constitutes the Early Adopter Bonus for those that purchased War for the Overworld on or before May 2nd, 2015 (which includes Kickstarter backers, Early Access customers, and owners of the physical Underlord Edition). These Underlords will be able to download Heart of Gold from Steam for free when it launches.

And some classic Neil Young music… because!

+1, like, etc

I bought this last year and got a refund shortly after. There were too many bugs and not enough personality to grab me. With the new patch is it significantly improved?

Most of the major bugs were patched not long after release, which is around the time I played the campaign through. I really enjoyed it and it made me laugh out loud a number of times, thanks in no small part to the script and Richard Ridings’ delivery. I can only imagine the game’s a lot more solid now.

My biggest criticism with War for the Overworld is that, aside from a few levels, the campaign doesn’t do a particularly good job of introducing you to all the different creatures, rooms, spells, defences etc. so you’re never quite sure how best to use them, which is a shame because I think there’s a lot more strategy to this than meets the eye. There’s certainly a lot of room for experimentation.

I wouldn’t mind giving it another spin though, a year later, especially with the DLC.

I bought this last year too, a while after it was patched. It was “ok”, it didn’t grab me like the original DK. However, it did something that I hate in games, which are the puzzle levels. There was one level where a bunch of heroes were trying to make it from one side of the map to the other, bypassing your base. You could only let a few get through or you would lose the scenario. I tried this like 5 times and could never even get close to beating it, so I never finished the campaign.

I did try the skirmish a bit, but it was just “meh”. I can’t point at anything specifically wrong, but it couldn’t draw me in like the original DK and DK2 did.

Hahaha, oh man, I think that was actually my favourite level! In a chat I linked up thread I said:

“One of my favourite levels so far in War for the Overworld has been one where you have to prevent a dwarven army crossing a pass. Gold is super tight. So tight in fact, that I was wondering how the hell I was supposed to mount a defence. Then I spotted Blood Money, a spell that had been gathering dust on my UI which turns prisoners into golden statues that you can mine or slap to break down into gold. Of course, dwarves were constantly flooding into the pass, and eventually into my prison. Bingo: cash flow. A great scenario that expertly shows the utility of a particular spell. More of this please!”

So, uh, yeah, different strokes for different folks I guess DeepT! :-P I’ve read about people completing that level using different strategies but that one seemed perfect, and easily the most elegant to me.

Eurogamer has a long form article about the development of this game, including some of the issues that cropped up for the studio.

[quote]
“No-one had made games before,” Josh says, thinking back to the Kickstarter launch. “Everyone was a fan of Dungeon Keeper, and we were on a Dungeon Keeper fansite, and we all wanted to make a new Dungeon Keeper game because there was no new Dungeon Keeper game.”[/quote]

[quote]
While Dungeon Keeper mobile was a PR disaster for EA, it was a PR gift for War for the Overworld. The furore around the release sent angry Dungeon Keeper fans on the hunt for alternatives, and the light shone brightly on the in-development War for the Overworld.

Josh is diplomatic about Dungeon Keeper on mobile, but can’t contain his glee when he remembers the signal boost it gave War for the Overworld. “Suffice it to say, the coverage of Dungeon Keeper mobile was helpful for us, from a sales standpoint,” he said. “It was quite a significant bump, akin to a Steam sale.”[/quote]

[quote]
“It truly dawned upon us about a couple of weeks beforehand,” Josh says. “We were like, okay, this isn’t going to work. But we were so far gone, and we had our heads so deep in it, that we just kept going. And then release day came around and it was just like, oh, okay.”

War for the Overworld came out and, as you’d expect, players weren’t happy. Entire features had been rolled back. So broken was the game that the four-player multiplayer had to be disabled. The message was loud and clear: why on earth did you release it now?

“We don’t have a chance to do that again,” Josh laments. “That’s the lasting impression of the game now.”[/quote]

[quote]
Two updates are planned. One is the addition of an advanced AI for skirmish mode. This is being built by one of the game’s programmers, a German called Stefan Furcht who’s halfway through his master thesis on video game AI. He’s building War for the Overworld’s AI as his final project. Two birds, one stone.

And then there’s survival mode, which is a feature first mentioned back in 2012 as part of the Kickstarter. “Everything else has just happened before it,” Josh says. “We are going to get to that.”

Beyond that, Josh has designs for two more DLCs, which depend on how things go with War for the Overworld. “I very much want to do them,” he says. And after that, a new game, which is already at the early planning stage. “We’ll probably announce that next year, but we’ll see how it goes.”[/quote]

I really should reinstall this to check it out again.

Same here. The launch was so, so brutal, and I’m still not happy with the increased-RTS focus. But, yeah.

Has it been fixed yet? I know he said he had plans to, but did it actually happen? I didn’t play it right at release, I think I waited a few weeks or months even. However, playing it was very “meh” and I gave up on a scripted mission (which I hated), one where a bunch of guys were trying to make it across the map and you needed to stop a number of them otherwise you would lose. I tried and failed that mission like 5 times before giving up. I tried the skirmish game and, again, I was put off by the experience. I am not sure why, but I found it just dull and repetitive.

I have played the game since release, but not at the latest patch level. Compared to the launch, the build I played was night and day. BUT there are just some fundamental design decisions I don’t like (that can probably be attributed to the novice dev teams) that have turned me off from playing again. I honestly preferred Dungeons 2.

Still, I haven’t picked it up with the latest patches; I might like it more now.

FYI, this is on sale for what is apparently a deeper cut than will be in the upcoming Steam sale, according to the dev on Reddit.

I’m likely gonna pick it up, but would love to hear opinions.

I think it’s come a long way since release and it’s a pretty well done Dungeon Keeper-esque game. I’d say you’d get your $7.50 out of it without a doubt. I keep meaning to get back to it and finish off the campaign, but just too man games!

It’s to coincide with the new 1.5 Crucible update and patch where they’ve totally overhauled the survival mode.

Funnily enough, I just starting reinstalling this before I came on to the forums.

https://wftogame.com/patch-1-5-now-available/

I really enjoyed the game on release despite the myriad bugs. Since then the game’s undergone many patches and content updates with a few more to come before Brightrock focus their resources on their next project. Here’s some more info on the state of the game: https://wftogame.com/state-of-the-game-nov-2016/

At five quid I’d say it’s a bargain and a no brainer if you’re a fan of Dungeon Keeper. It’s certainly worth making your own mind up on at that price!

Edit: what @Shellfishguy said! :-)

Thanks guys, totally sold.

Me, too. I’ve been on the fence a long time but it’s tough to resist this price.

Just played through the tutorial and the first level. Seems less jank than Dungeons, so that’s good. Pretty smooth/polished, though I’m about to kill a man for some hotkeys (which may exist, I haven’t really poked around the UI on my own outside the guided “NOW CLICK THIS” bits I just played through.

If you come across a way to issues orders while paused, please let us know

Uh oh, can you at least slow time down?

edit: I checked seems like you can but only 50%, which is still too twitchy for me. Shame :(