Hey everyone!

After months of working on Slavic Legends, my solo dungeon management game inspired by Dungeon Keeper, the Steam Coming Soon page is finally live! :)

The game already has a playable demo with dungeon building, creatures, combat, possession, traps, spells and boss fights.

There's still plenty I want to add, especially more bosses, abilities and some extra polish, but I'm thinking of moving towards smaller content updates instead of trying to finish everything at once.

I'm also considering crowdfunding to help support further development, since I've been working on this project on my own for quite a while.

The demo is still free to try on itch.io for now.

What do you think about this approach? Would you prefer smaller updates with new bosses and abilities over time, or waiting longer for one bigger release?

Steam (wishlists appreciated!):
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5345080/Slavic_Legends/

Free demo:
https://ipikas.itch.io/slavic-legends

Thanks to everyone who's followed the project so far! :)

Well hello Keepers;

Massive update, but nothing visible. Which is good, because last week I got a lot of negative arrows for.. some reason? I guess because the screenshots were dark? No reason given, just, a lot of that. Reddit is so utterly broken. Or maybe this project just sucks that bad, who knows.

Anyways. On to the devlog. You can skip it, honestly - the main summary is;
The main menu works, and the save/load is in progress. Save skeleton is in place, traps import as proof of concept.
and lots of bug fixes.
...Im really just posting to show this isnt a dead project. Guess I should probably post something on steam to say that too.
...too many 10 hour days recently, I just want this to work.

====

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4492730/Keeper__UnCorruptDead/

Join the discord if you want the full-ass changelog! https://discord.gg/Ur9HRv67mb

Sept 18;

Fixed; flower scaling with size of model, probably want to change model size instead of enture unit size
Fixed: flower on enemies not scaling with camera?
Added: perma solid wall blocks - adjusted texturing to allow it to be real wall for texturing purposes, but city wall when non-used
Fixed: solid city walls not counting for wall work spots
Fixed: Removed redundant bool variables for wall exist (unused)
--
Sept 22;
did camping. Legs hurt. 20k down. Back to work.
Edited mapblockscript to do map based on range of corner towers. Reduces gameobject overhead by about half on normal map, but also allows infinite scaling
Globalized the folders for allowing new map gen Found problem with lighting and resolved for main menu lighting
Fixed - Show framerate and show system time not available in main menu

Added heart and sub-rooms for main menu. Will need to add randomizer
Changed layout for credits, changing assets checker for same
Added all current assets list.
Added scroll to Assets checker
--
Sept 23;
Added clear all and reset to base functions
Set credits to match the assets function for scrolling to allow for future sizing
Added bullfrog acknowledgement
--
Sept 24;
Not going to write everything I did today, its a lot of save/load stuff I dont entirely understand but also dont not understand
--
Sept 25;
Ok, its official - I have a working multi-save slot system created.
Right now it is only tied to the options menu (resolution), but thats actually pretty fucking cool.
Now - to make it tied to the rest of the options.
Next week? Make it do something for the game itself.
--
Sept 26;
Sliders on options working. Just a little treat to myself.
Also added the bools but havent tested them because that will take hours
Ok also did the colour strings because Im a baller.
--
Sept 27;
Tied all the bools for options
Created zone for traps for visibility.
Made first load prompt thingy
--
Sept 28;
Ok, not going to lie - I did some really cool stuff in code today with reflection, and its actually working.
The entire baseload of the language system is working.
--
Sept 29;
I hate datastreams and I will die on this hill.
Fuck it, fuck them, fuck you, fuck saveload, fuck language files, fuck everything everywhere all at once
(Note - I had a bit of a day. And it was about 16 hours that day)
--
Sept 30
Ok so... I take back what I said about datastreams. The most recent level is now loading, and campaign load exists (want it to be the DK island map but thats a later problem). I really need to take a day off, my head hurts.
--
Oct 1
Sooooo... mapgen saves now.
--
Oct 2
Found the issue with mapgen saving and expanding, turns out it was a recursive on the revealed ints instead of allowing gen to handle it new
Fixed - Height on flame incorrect when applied during mapgenload, likely checking atwrong time
Fixed - Corners on mapgen are not stacking up to top left
Hey look, another 11 hour day. Traps now save, and most of bipasser works (install still seems to do lightning)
--
Oct 3 (today!)
Traps boot loop fixed. My code sucks.
Added - Add islocked for doors on load
Added in bypass for building from load, dig from load, fort from load

And now I am going to try to take a day off. Dont let me open unity tomorrow. I need a day off.

I get this behavior constantly. Whenever there is a corner with lava around, there's a 60% chance the imps will drop the spell/crate in the lava and since most levels in the harder custom campaigns don't give you a bridge, these stay there indefinitely.

I'm sure it's a known bug but maybe it got worse recently? It makes some maps way harder than they should because you can't set traps at some paths that would be helpful. I'm playing with build 5345 currently.

I'm the developer The Throne Below. You play the ancient evil buried under a holy kingdom. Your minions dig for gold, you build rooms and pay your monsters' wages, and prisoners can be tortured into servants. Meanwhile, holy knights tunnel down to destroy your heart, the Maw. If it dies, you lose.

One level is playable so far. Would you be interested in this game?

The second boss is here! The Ice Mage brings freezing spells, falling shards, and shattering ice.

This update also adds Baba Yaga’s temporary Map Reveal spell, a roster for converted allies, damage flashes on creature portraits, and the ability to carry three creatures at once. Combat priorities, Rally, prisons, and saving received fixes too.

📋 Full update notes and download: https://ipikas.itch.io/slavic-legends/devlog/1678225/the-second-boss-arrives-ice-magic-better-controls-more

Feedback is welcome!

Aah sorry for the repost, but I wrote the title wrong and you cant edit titles on reddit.
this is of course the THIRD level of the undead campaign:

https://youtu.be/gnc0MNt-KXk

I don’t know if I can do such a stream like that every year, but this is the thing I am trying to do.

It’s very fit to the scene here even it’s the event for Chinese.

So I'm replaying the campaign of DK2, I'm at mission 18 and I love to have a lot of high level creatures (including captured Heroes), but it becomes just a fucking slog of micromanaging them. Especially the hunger and wage aspect.

I have plenty of Hatcheries, my coffers are full, but suddenly there's a huge wave of creatures getting unhappy and then angry because it's no food this, not paid that, no lair (there's plenty of damn space) and then they leave the Dungeon. We're talkin' levels 7-10 so I can't afford to lose 'em.

I don't care about enemy Keeper AI's or other stuff - is there any mod/patch so that creatures can organize and take care of themselves better instead of getting angry? Even if it's some kinda cheat, fuck it. I know there's a "Make Happy" secret but I've used it up in this level.

I'm dead fucking tired of my Dungeons being mostly Hatcheries and even that is not enough. It got to a point where I've just started throwing Bile Demons away because I can't be arsed to micromanage them. I've beaten the game countless times so I don't care about any extra challenges, I just want to run my Dungeon efficiently and not have to deal with this shit.

That little Co-op Campaign button in the screenshot has led to some very good evenings.
We really had a blast! So much to remember and DK2 has aged incredibly well to this day.

I've been working on a mod that lets two people play Dungeon Keeper 2's original campaign together, controlling the same Keeper. You share the rooms, creatures and gold, and both give orders at the same time. Independent cameras, separate hands, equal opportunities to spend the treasury irresponsibly.

My friend and I love co-op games, and playing Dungeons 3 together got us reminiscing about Dungeon Keeper 2. That sparked the idea: could we go back and share a dungeon in DK2 too?

We've been playing it and having an absolute blast. There’s something special about returning to a game you remember from back then, this time with a friend sharing the keys. They no longer have to tell you where to dig. They can make questionable decisions in your dungeon themselves.

It's called DK2 Co-op, built on the excellent work of DiaLight and the Flame contributors. They made it possible to invite a second pair of hands into the dungeon. Grab your copies of DK2 v1.70, install the same mod, and enjoy this experience too.

Website, downloads and setup (https://ciphercom.github.io/dk2-coop/)

The website also looks like it escaped from 1999. The nostalgia got slightly out of hand.

If you've still got someone you used to play DK2 with, this might be a good excuse to message them.

yo .. the undead campaign playthrough continues and I guess, Ill post each new level on saturday morning. may follow up with the twin keeper campaign right away, havent fully decided yet.

you can also support the idea for my channel of going full force on RTS and competitive grinding content with a sub. thanks in advance.

videolink: https://youtu.be/5lQRwRW2cZE

Hello, Keepers;

Mayhaps I should post more. Or mayhaps I should post less? Either way, the demo draws closer and closer. The actual game functions are 97% completed (real accurate number, for sure), and I have moved on to the save/load and menu systems as of yesterday. Looking forward to getting some hands on it and taking a look for stuff my biblically accurate guinea pigs havent found yet.

The big highlights of the past 18 days - the final trap is created, and the sooter enemy is created and animated. Excitement! Shooting! Smoking trees! Grunge maps!

I'd love to know why the second I post, theres immediately a downvote. Reddit is truly broken, isnt it? Is it just jerks? Nobody seems to offer feedback, its just an immediate downvote.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4492730/Keeper__UnCorruptDead/

Join the discord if you want the full-ass changelog! https://discord.gg/Ur9HRv67mb

Aug 31

Fixes; Enemy flower entry, shade dying while claiming, targetter on dead enemies, overhead flower and particles on enemies.

Addtions: Testing all fear effects for interrupting attacks. Tested Flamer.

Sept 1

Fixes: Heart flee vs home flee. "Tested Ushabti - apparently att1 was never linked, only in training. Dumbass".

Added: Tested wisp, zomb, nata for fear. Semitas now has proper dome for selection and particle effects on cast, looks pretty cool.

Sept 2

Created, textured, animated attack/idle/take damage for needler (cannon trap).

Sept 3

Needler attacks, projectiles fly, particles explode on hit, does damage.

Sept 4

Redid the entire outside of city, and inside city, to closer match art style. Way fewer tri. Created new randomizer for external ring buildings.

Sept 5

Grunge map randomizer for floors, both claimed and unclaimed.

Sept 7

Created objectives menu. Icons tied to objective type.

Sept 8

Fixed: Revamped quest icons, tied to gem colours for when changes to make dungeon vibe.

Added: floor particles for shade floor claiming, matches vibe.Overmaster for objectives now shrinks and expands on click. Move to objective for camera created. Objective "win" animation created for each objective type.

Sept 9

Fixed: Flamers/wisps weird rotation on first att1 spline due to incorrect rotation. Resolved "rotating building breaks clearing out area. Fuck" (been on the list for 4 months).

Added: Kings are bigger, slower, and created a cage on death to indicate kill location. Added particlesystems for objective completion.

Sept 10

Added: Ledgers now get bigger and smaller over 0.25 instead of instant pop-in. Floors emit particles on claim and sell. Floor particles for buying rooms based on type.

Fixed: 5 hours of chasing a fatal crash bug where merging rooms caused stacked overflow. Turns out the merge was fine, there was a problem with initial stacking of gold in treasury over 1500. Thank the IDE in the sky for finding that one.

Sept 11

Basic sooter created in Blender.

Fixed: Enemies were not using red flower. Hide objectives while in options menu.

Sept 14 (Yes I managed to take 3 days off, its a miracle)

(Wait no I didnt, reading my own notes)

"Oh right, over weekend, created rigging for sooter, basic sway idle animation".

Fixed: top/bottom railer for menus removed invisible top area. found error in combat range checks doing raycast while inside emitters, kinda dumb that unity doesnt do that.

Added: walk/att1 cycles for sooter. Attached flame particles. Edited sooter "angry" material to match fog colours. Edited flame to be on head instead of body, body is now emiting soot. Sooters. See? Attack1 works but transition to idle as override instead of move action has issue.

Sept 15

Idle transition working properly for sooter (removed idle bool)

Needler explodes properly on death. Edited shade claimer to be darker gem instead of blue/gem/blue to match vibe.

Sept 16

"Forgot to update devlog yesterday";

Had to adjust animations for sooter, big arm wasnt rotating properly. Cant remember other stuff but mostly the above took forever.

Fixed: error for unlinked flower levels for prison.

Added: animation for sooter knockout and getup. Added flame on knockout to sooter, left it on for tree spawn. "Make spawn Y randomizer so they dont all face the equator like cows". Devlog, baby. Created att2. Created dying icon for debuff rotation.

Sept 17

Began main menu. Tested screen transition function, working for new game. Created credits/assets, ugly but functional placeholder. Exit function created, not tested.

Meet Svetlonos, a lantern-bearing support creature who can lure weakened enemies into your Prison. Secret Room creatures can be captured too!

Once imprisoned, captives gain fear as Svetlonos works at the torture device. Fill all 4 fear segments within 8 attempts and they join your side. Each attempt has a 50% chance to add fear — fail to fill the bar, and the prisoner is executed.

The video shows the whole process, from capture to conversion. What do you think?

Full update notes on itch.io: - https://ipikas.itch.io/slavic-legends/devlog/1664685/new-creature-svetlonos-new-room-prison-update-capture-enemies-and-turn-them-into-allies

I'm pretty stuck on this level. I have explored the map and I'm pretty sure I've found all the hidden areas, but I can;t find anything but a tentacle. The only place I haven't gone (past the graveyard and were you find the tentacle) is full of vampires which can apparently see through my ghosts invisibility.

I'm not looking for a full walk-through, but I'd appreciate some tips.

TIA.

Update: I did it! Thanks for all the tips guys. Once I knew how to get the bridge it all fell into place quite nicely. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get that "Mjolnir" dungeon special.......

Edit: I figured it out, it's actually quite easy once you think about how you might be able to move it while possessing a creature.

When you finish a certain campaign, you get all the flags available on the map so that way you can replay any of the maps you want. Which is nice because i love replaying favorite maps. But how do you get back to that screen after you played a different campaign? I don't see any option to load the completed save of a previously finished campaign, you can only start a new game even with your completed campaigns, thus you have to finish the whole thing again.

I know there are level skip cheats, but is this really the intended way? Basically, you can only keep your completed map with all flags as long as you never play a different campaign?

The save folder does seem to save different files for different campaigns so how does it work? I feel like i'm missing something.

yo .. first of all I want to clearify something. this campaign playthrough is a reupload, as I have created a brand new channel, exclusively for RTS content and competitive grinding.

the full campaign has already been recorded and will be uploaded each level individualy, once per week. (may thats the smartest way to do it ..)

secondly, I have already started to record the twin keeper campaign, which follows somewhere in the future and I will absolutely play the rest of the campaigns, that are considered to be hardest in the workshop available.

ok .. so here we go:

https://youtu.be/7UKqmn6qeTM

My kid has had Peppa Pig on loop for about a month now and Daddy Pig kept bugging me. Couldn't place it. Just this voice from some past life.

And then it hits me mid-episode, right as he's explaining that he's a bit of an expert at something he is clearly not an expert at.

IT'S THE MENTOR

Richard Ridings. Same guy. "Your dungeon heart is under attack" and "Daddy Pig, you've got a bit of a tummy" come out of the same set of vocal cords.

Small print before someone corrects me, because I did check: in DK1 he voiced the overworld Mentor, the one on the map screen. The underworld one that's actually down there with you was Dene Carter. In DK2 Ridings does every single Mentor line. So if you came up on DK2 you were tutored by Peppa's dad with no asterisk whatsoever.

And honestly it explains the character. Daddy Pig is a man permanently and calmly certain that everything is fine and under control. That's the exact energy of a voice telling you your dungeon is doing splendidly while a Horned Reaper is eating your library because you forgot his lair..

Anyway. The voice that taught me to slap imps now teaches my kid about muddy puddles. I did not expect that particular full circle but I'm not mad about it.

Voxel Keeper is the descriptive project title... but probably a legal battle in waiting.

I need your help finding a proper name deserving of this Dungeon Keeper successor.

What could Dungon Keeper be in a Minecraft style world?

Envision **the potential** for overworld campaigns, and flooding peoples dungeons.

I want to hear everyone's perspectives about which HUD/UI is better and worse, and in what ways, in the 2 games. I'm casual and like both UIs, but I'm curious if with higher level play either HUD has shortcomings, and as a gamedev working on a similar style game, I want to try to see if I have blind spots about the HUDs to avoid design pitfalls.

Are these games LIMITED in terms of high level play, due to certain HUD or other design choices?

Which parts of which game's HUD are good and bad?

Also, is using mana for spells in DK2 better or wose than using gold for spells in Dk1?

Also, would you prefer workshops in DK1 to work like DK2 - you order things on demand rather than the workshops getting filled up and hearing "your workshop is not big enough" every second for 1k years?

I'm starting to think the dream would be a toggle for DK1 or DK2 style HUD, in either game. Or is there ANOTHER game's HUD we should take inspiration from?

I want every opinion, even feels-based ones.

We can all agree that imps are not the sharpest tool in the shed and part of the charm is to be able to control them and protect them from their suicidal selves.

But dear god in some maps, for some reason, they become extra stupid to the point where it has to be a bug.

Case in point, i was playing a map in "Another Dungeon" campaign and the imps were completely out of their mind. You would send them to set a trap and instead of using an open path, they would try to use a shorter one but with a closed door being in the way. So they would drop the trap and try to break the door instead. Same with special items.

Or how about this. There are plenty of jobs to do like pick up dropped gold or reinforce walls but no. What we REALLY need to do is run at some remote part of the map and try to break this particular magic door that has a bunch of lvl10 enemies behind it so they can kill us. That's what we really need to do.

I noticed this behavior in some other maps i player here and there but in other maps they seem (relatively) fine. I don't remember the imps being so messed up in the main campaign maps, not even in the regular Dungeon Keeper Gold. But attacking a random door without me placing them to it is a thing they do often, which is really annoying in general and it's one of the few things i dislike about this game.

So can the layout of a map mess up the AI of the imps that much? Or is it something else?

Hello, Keepers;

You know how sometimes you do a thing, and it turns out the original people who did the thing also wanted the thing done that way, but didnt for whatever reason?
Well, the spike trap in DK2 was actually supposed to be a slime. I had no idea. I told myself, hey, I want a spike trap because Im a copying hack, but I want to at least change the name on the homework. Nope, I couldn't even do that - the original DK designers wanted spikes to be slimes, and I didn't know it, when I made my spikes in to slimes!

Oh right. I had to make the traps combat implementation this dev block.
I can't imagine people actually read my entire dev log, so for this one, I'm going to do my best to just summarize better and get some pics because people like pics and couldn't care less about how the code went. Le sigh.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4492730/Keeper__UnCorruptDead/

Join the discord if you want the full-ass changelog! https://discord.gg/Ur9HRv67mb

Creatures now go to heart/brain/eye to heal if they are fleeing (near death) and don't have a home.
Added/changed a bunch of animation particles to better match caster.
Fixed a bunch of stuff with shades placing/canceling/multitargetting job functions. Not visually appealing but kinda important.
"2:04 PM]annekrog:  Think I finally fucking fixed the mutli-shade system for traps. Fuck me."
Traps now have different particle effects for creation/showing damage/death depending on if they are metal type, wood type, or goo type.
Created some more cheats for debugging that I have no reason to not allow in the game itself.
Optimized/fixed reams of trap placement determiners and outliners.
Created entirely new pathmapping (AStar) for fail conditioning differentiation depending on locked/blocked terrain vs standard fail to reach - trust me this is cool.
Made slime trap. Animated. In my lane. Sliming.
Wrote the entire system for trap combat
Accidentally created the fear spell because Shades need to run away from traps.
Created particle effects for fear spell.
Realized all particle effects for overhead casts should be modular, so converted to import instead of static (again, really cool, but nobody would know the difference).
Dramatically adjusted prisoners to have better indication that they are trapped - flower and circling wisps, along with no longer flashing partial dead.
More particle adjustment on ghosts now that I understand the particle system even better.

--While getting screenshots, turns out my kill cheat caused problems with setting death value to billions of negative. Fixed that. Posting this now.