GamesSimulationThis Stardew Valley-like puts you in charge of an MMO studio where you can “playtest your RPG at any time"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesSimulationThis Stardew Valley-like puts you in charge of an MMO studio where you can “playtest your RPG at any time"When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Let’s Build a Dungeon Announce Trailer | Game Dev Simulator | Steam | Xbox - YouTubeWatch On
Let’s Build a Dungeon Announce Trailer | Game Dev Simulator | Steam | Xbox - YouTube
Let’s Build a Dungeon Announce Trailer | Game Dev Simulator | Steam | Xbox - YouTube
If you’ve ever wanted to play your own MMORPG, the upcoming indie gameLet’s Build a Dungeonshould be on your wishlist. From the developers behind Let’s Build a Zoo, Let’s Build a Dungeon is a management sim not dissimilar to Stardew Valley, but instead of running a farm, you’re running a game studio.
Instead of raising crops and livestock, you recruit and manage game developers, manage development schedules and advertising strategies, and make tough decisions about when to release your project, whether it needs to be delayed, and whether you should “bow to community requests, or stay true to your creative vision.”
In Let’s Build a Dungeon, you’re at the top of a fledgling MMORPG studio, and it’s up to you to build a compelling-enough fantasy world that you maintain an active player base, but you also have to balance the books. The game gives you the tools to design quests, towns, monsters, and dungeons all tailored to your virtual players' demands. And at any point, you can hop into your own game and see the game you built from a player’s perspective, and while you’re there, you can ban unruly users who aren’t respecting the rules you built into the game.“Will you build a monster catching RPG? A cozy farming simulator? Or maybe a magic-fueled action adventure? Whatever you build, build it your way with thousands of objects, environments, characters and enemies to choose from,” reads the game’s Steam description. “Place every tree, build every quest and decide on job classes for visiting virtual players as you watch them explore in real time.”
If anything, it sounds like Let’s Build a Dungeon could help you sympathize with community managers and engineers working on your favorite live-service game. Developer and publisher Springloaded says you’ll need to manage minute elements of your game like drop rates and enemy stats to make sure players aren’t struggling too much with the XP grind. Even more harrowing, “the more time spent in your world, the happier your investors will be.”
If this game lives up to its promise, it could be a genuinely insightful demo of what it’s like to be a game developer. After all, Springloaded says the idea of the game came from a desire to give a “glimpse into our past 12 years of developing games as an indie studio.”
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There’s no release date for Let’s Build a Dungeon just yet, but you can sign up for the yet-undated betahere.
In the meantime, here are all of theupcoming indie gamesto keep on your radar.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1
Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
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3Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure”
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Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure”
4Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: “The best adventure Indy has embarked on in over 30 years”
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