At its core, Impire is a classic Dungeon Keeper inspired management game, in a similar vein to the previously announced A Game of Dwarves. You may not have the levels and building on a 3D plain (and other subtle yet fundamental differences), but you get to build and expand your dungeon however you like, building in corridors, rooms etc... and these all need maintaining via minions, and protection against other nefarious creatures. You get tech points for completing some of the numerous 'achievements' in the game (although it's better to think of them as in-game tasks), which you then use to unlock more rooms and better units. Impire uses a binary resource system - Mushrooms (food) and Material (building stuff), and there are different sources for each. For the most part, you expand your dungeon to get better and more amusing tools to play around with, although there are some basic 'needs' you need to take into account as well – soldiers will need to eat, so you need to build a kitchen, and they'll also need to train etc...
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| I don't think they'll fit... |
It's not all about your Dungeon however - you can go on raids to other 'areas' (which are fully rendered in their own mini area) for a specific reason, be it to get treasure, food, resources, or even for a specific quest. Your 'local' dungeons area also has an outside bit attached to it - called a 'battleground', which is different for each level/map you load, and can have everything from ruins, to caves, to hamlets that you can explore and raid. Some will have quests tied to them, and most (if not all) will have fairly powerful guardians that you will need to overcome. It's a tactical choice to visit these places though, especially in the early game – you have to physically send troops there in order to interact with these areas, and those are minions that aren't looking after your Dungeon, so you had better make more or hope no pesky heroes come along.
Speaking of heroes - With so much going on and so much to do, it's almost too easy for the basic concept to be lost amongst the bustle of content that this game offers - the Dungeon itself. You've all played the hero, you've all gone traipsing into dark foreboding caves for very tenuous reasons, smashing shit up and causing a ruckus as you go, well now you get to play the other side. As your Dungeon levels up, more and more 'heroes' will be attracted to it to try and put you right. They will spawn at random locations, and do generally busy-body goody two shoes things until they are stopped or you have no more dungeon left (Or until they've completed their goal - some NPC heroes have specific targets, and when they complete it they go home).
This mechanic is taken further when you start placing certain rooms in the dungeon that have spaces for NPC heroes. Now, instead of killing them outright, you can capture them and strap them to torture devices, or put them in cages, or simply harvest their souls, and all of this is rendered and animately wonderfully. The team are also not afraid of throwing in some visual puns and homages, like Pokemon or Magicka. Control-wise, Impire, is very slick and easy to easy to use – context is everything. A radial menu summoned with the right mouse button will give you all the options, and depending on where you right click will depend on the options.
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| The top-down management view mode will become more important the larger your dungeon gets |
There will be a campaign that follows the exploits of one particular Imp, who was summoned by a rather naff warlock and so looks puny (which ties into the level up system for the dungeon lord itself), and there's also Skirmish and Multiplayer. Multiplayer especially will be interesting as the team are looking to include a large variety of game modes, such as King of the Hill. At the moment it's been confirmed that up to four-player multiplayer will be supported, and there'll also be two-player co-op on the campaign as well. To keep things interesting, Impire features two distinct factions, one more traditional, and the other undead themed. Both have different looks and play styles, with unique buildings and traits now found in the other faction.
And that's only scratching the surface... but Impire is better seen than heard about – we don't think we, not the press material available can really do it justice, and we've only provided you with a snapshot of the game. Trust me though when I say this is something to look forward too. Management games seem to be making a bit of a resurgence right now, and Impire is a great spin on a tried and true formula that so far seems really fun and interesting to get involved with. What's really surprising is how playable the game is already, and we've still got to wait until Q2 2013 before release. Curses.
Most Anticipated Feature: To see what kind of gameplay revolves around a high-level or end-game dungeon.
