Create your own dungeon, lure monsters in and defeat them... that's the job of a dungeon maker. The magic shovel opens the path to your future. Can you create a dungeon to attract the meanest monsters...?

Dungeon Maker offers the opportunity to create unique dungeons by giving the player total control over where they choose to place tunnels and chambers. Having created a maze, traps can then be set in order to entice monsters to enter.

The more desirable the dungeons are, the more colourful monsters that can be attracted, resulting in catching rarer and larger beasts. Having lured a monster into the dungeon, defeating them and taking their treasures boost strength and gives access to new skills.

Gamers can design their own battleground, choose where distinct monsters spawn, set traps and attract rare beasts, kill monsters in order to create recipes with their meat and gain strength from recipes derived from fallen foes.

You start the game as a novice dungeon maker equipped with your magic shovel and must enter a local cave in order to start making your dungeon. As you clear the ground you have the choice to construct a number of traps for monsters. These start fairly simply with rooms with straw beds in them - monsters will fall asleep here allowing you to come back and capture them.

Your local town has a number of shops from which you can buy items to furnish your dungeon, food ingredients, weapons, armour and magic. You can also head home to cook a meal (which will improve your stats depending on what you eat) and rest in order to let your stats return to normal.

Each day you have to head off into the caves and battle any monsters you've captured, as well as laying more traps to catch bigger and rarer beasts.

For those well versed in this genre, Dungeon Maker offers something a little different. But it's not the seasoned gamer that this is aimed at (who will no doubt find it a little limiting). No, this is really a great introduction for those totally new to this style of game - and for that alone this release deserves to be given as much praise as possible. The ability to trade your dungeons with friends is also a great addition.

This is fun and very addictive, and will no doubt provide hours of fun.

8

Pete Boomer