Underworld Overseer from Myron Games wears its inspiration on its sleeve, but is this tribute to the Dungeon Keeper games of old worth your time?
For many of us, there have likely been days when we’ve wished to become an evil overlord, setting up a dungeon base far away from everyone with devoted minions catering to your every need. The only thing to spoil it would be those pesky adventurers barging in looking for loot. This is the fantasy that Underworld Overseer lets you fulfill.
Though clearly inspired by Bullfrog’s classic Dungeon Keeper, Myron Games have drawn on their experience with god simulator Deisim, mixing in real-time strategy elements to create a compelling VR experience.
You assume the role of a powerful Overseer who needs to expand, protect, and manage an underground lair. Helping you are a small army of minions, as well as fiendish traps and even mighty magic spells. However, there are other logistical elements to consider beyond fending off waves of heroes, which elevates this game far above your standard tower defense game.
The tutorial level serves as a great introduction, and it helps that the straightforward controls are reasonably intuitive. The grip button changes position, left analog stick handles locomotion and the right analog stick snap-turns the camera. A pop-up menu lets you select which option you want by pushing the virtual button, which is quite satisfying.
Creating some rooms using the mining tool is the first thing to do, achieved by clicking and dragging across the spaces you want your minions to dig out. Different types of rooms include basic ‘Work Rooms’ which become populated with the appropriate type of minion, such as a Mage Cultist in libraries, or the Warrior in the training room. ‘Utility Rooms’ provide less exciting but more functional purposes, such as farms for growing food to feed your minion army, or work rooms for them to bunk down after a long day of minioning.
This range of options is what drives most of the strategic elements. Different types of Heroes will come loudly knocking at your door, and these come in a range of forms. Making sure you have a variety of tactical options in the form of magic or melee-focussed minions, and that those minions are fed and rested is the key to success.
Of course, minions aren’t your only tool to keep pesky heroes away. Progressing unlocks a fun range of traps, like spike traps that send adventurers to a pointy doom. Later levels let you access awesome magical spells like Fireball and Chain Lightning, which are great fun but cost a fair amount of Mana and that takes time to regenerate. So, it’s best to pick the perfect moment to unleash hell.
There is an option to reinforce walls in newly excavated areas, but this is honestly a waste of time. Attackers will generally cut through your walls like soft cheese, reinforced or not. It’s better to put your minions to work on more useful tasks.
The art style is cel-shaded, which gives it something of a ‘Saturday morning cartoon’ feel to it. This can feel slightly incongruous when you are meant to be in a deep dungeon, yet everything around you is colorful and brightly lit. That admittedly makes it easier to see what you are doing, though a few more shadows might add to the general ambience. Still, the crisp graphics are sharp and there are great designs for both the minions and the environment.
It’s somewhat disappointing that there isn’t much in the way of story or narrative. You have the initial set-up of the evil overlord in your underground lair being attacked by heroes, but that’s all. This results in similarly bare-bones objectives for each level. All you need to do is destroy a wave of attackers, shore up your defenses, and wait for the next wave to spawn. Some tactical puzzles or variations in objectives would be a welcome addition.
This could even tie into a story if this were added. Historically, RTS games like Dune: Battle of Arrakis and Starcraft did an excellent job of blending story with gameplay by tying the objectives to the story. I wonder if good results could be gained from this game, or perhaps a sequel, doing the same.
Comfort
Underworld Overseer can be played sitting or standing. The camera can be set to snap turning, and the static player perspective helps keep things comfortable.
There is one peculiarity of the game that nagged at me. The information on the overall state of your dungeon is inexplicably displayed above your head. Seeing this requires awkwardly cranking your neck up, which can become somewhere between uncomfortable or even painful. Changing this to be more easily visible would be a positive change.
Underworld Overseer – Final Verdict
If you enjoyed the Dungeon Keeper series back in the day, you will absolutely get a kick out of this VR homage. Though it has its faults in the lack of story and could use more varied objectives, Underworld Overseer is a solid and highly polished game with a great amount of content to keep players engaged. Excellent audio and visual design makes this pleasant on the eyes and ears.
If you want to pretend to be an evil overlord for a while, then Underworld Overseer is exactly what you are looking for.
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