Dungeon Keeper was my very first video game addiction. I stayed up late and got up early before school just to get in a few more hours with the game. It had so many mechanics all rolled into a delicious little strategy game that was so different than anything else at the time with weird little quirks and details that didn’t have to be in there, but were.

Let me list all the stuff I remember being blown away by and that no game since has really properly captured anymore.

• The spell sounds and voice acting were amazing. IMPUS NETRUM - NYHAHAHAHA!
• It’s a strategy game but also a full on 3D shooter, if you use the Symbiosis spell. Not just that, but creatures have their individual view points, skills and abilities. Need to exhaust a gas trap? Run over it 50 times with a big red devil thing (I played in German as a kid, don’t remember the names of everything). Want to scout around? Become a fly and literally fly around with hex-cell vision!
• There was little debris falling from the dungeon ceilings, making splashing sounds in water.
• Creatures hat pointless details like their blood group, just because.
• You could find special items to transfer creatures from one level to the next (hello level 10 captured knight)
• Finding diamond veins was truly an accomplishment and changed the map
• Horny was a mad lad, needed his own dungeon and would slaughter your own creatures
• The animosity between certain creature types, requiring separate dormitories or hard choices: Spiders vs. Bugs and Flies, Skeletons vs. Fat horned red demons, Skeletons vs. Vampires and more
• The torture animations
• The humor on the map choices
• The voiced insults you could throw around
• The race against time as your imps barely managed to get the walls reinforced when the dwarves come digging
• The intro
• The creatures all having various abilities like trolls working in the workshop, wizards and vampires researching in the library
• The temple allowing you to combine creatures into new/better creatures or to insult the gods
• Ghosts rising from dead heroes in the graveyard
• Being able to raise a little lizard thing into a dragon
• The various types of doors with the swirling magic door which just looked so cool
• The Indiana Jones stone ball trap that literally killed everything in it’s path, not just hurt or injured, no, flat out kill ANYTHING including level 10 creatures your own included. NO MERCY
• The Iron Maidens, oh my
• The chicken farms
• The speed up spell
• Pressing CTRL+R to get slightly less pixelated graphics on the dungeon textures
• The fact that you could drop your creatures without them getting stunned from the fall and be active immediately to fight - This is likely my biggest gripe with almost all “spiritual successors” including Dungeon Keeper 2. Always hated that I need to sort of kind of anticipate enemy arrival times like Deutsche Bahn and fail to deliver my creatures on time like American Market Makers

Honestly, I can gush about this game so much and it has inspired a life long love in me for Imps and Imp-inspired creatures. This is where my username and online presence today comes from and I love the little critters dearly.

What was your favorite part?