In A Game of Dwarves you play the role of a Dwarven prince on a mission to prove himself worthy of running the kingdom by completing levels across the campaign map.
Each level has the main objectives and some side objectives to be completed. The more objectives completed the more points you get at the end of the level to spend on upgrades for your Dwarven prince.
It would be very hard to write about this game without a comparison to Dungeon Keeper. Like Dungeon Keeper, in A Game of Dwarves, you need to mine out the space to build your city. In A Game of Dwarves you can mine up and down as well to create a subterranean maze filled with stairways, bridges and lots of rooms to keep all your riches.
There are 6 types of dwarves for you to command as you build your underground city. All dwarves start as younglings who do nothing but eat, sleep and gain experience. You can turn these young dwarves into warriors, diggers, workers, crafters, or researchers. Warriors fight enemies, diggers dig, workers harvest plants, crafters build things and researchers get you research points.
As your diggers dig they will come across valuable resources. These resources can be used to build things that your dwarves need like beds, dinner tables, research stations and plants for food. These resources can also be used to build objects which are aesthetically pleasing to keep your dwarves happy.
There is a meter indicating how happy your dwarves are so you need to make sure you build enough pretty things to keep it in the green. As you dig you will encounter goblins, spiders and other nefarious creatures which lurk in the depths of the earth. These creatures are not usually pleased at being disturbed and will usually go on a rampage breaking your stuff and killing your dwarves. One way to stop them is to have some warrior dwarves to hand. They will run to the nearest enemy and fight until the enemy is dead or they are. Another way to deal with these pesky creatures is to build traps and fortifications to stop them from getting at your expensive stuff.
Visually there is nothing outstanding about A Game of Dwarves but it makes up for it with a good variety of objects, flooring, torches and various other decorations with which to transform the dark dirty tunnels.
A Game of Dwarves is published by Paradox Interactive and was developed by Zeal Game Studio who also worked on the titles Starvoid and Dwarfs!?. It is available for pre order on Steam for £7.99. While the graphics won’t blow you away and some of the levels feel a bit repetitive it does provide a good balance between resource management, exploration and combat. For £8, A Game of Dwarves provides a decent amount of bang for your buck and is definetely one to watch out for.