There are four schools of magic in the game that players can gain access to and each has a unique mechanic. The first us the more traditional Arcane magic, which offers offensive spells like fireball and magic missile. This school use charges, which are commonly found in the world in "books." When you run out of charges in one spell it's time to witch to another - or find more charges (luckily they are everywhere and on a myriad of different monsters as loot drops)..



Next is the Celestial school of magic, which is combines, defensive, healing, buff and status effects. This magic use crystals that you can purchase or collect. These crystals are charge-based, which means you'll have to wait for your crystal charge before you can use that particular spell again.

Nether magic is a school that use components that you mix together to create summoning spells, weapon enhancements and offensive anti energy type spells. The spells require various bizarre components that tend to be in the witch doctor vein like eyes, flesh, various plants, etc. The school feels like a combination between earth magic, voodoo and black magic.



Finally there's rune magic which uses runes that you must find and scribe that allow you to enhance your person and your equipment. This magic is the most interesting because it provides a super charge to your character in some tough spots and adds some zing to your weapons that is good for getting out of harrowing situations. All four schools can use a nice quick slot feature for easy access. By going into your inventory, hovering you mouse over a spell and hitting the 1 -8 key you can slot your magic for quick access and access while fighting by hitting the corresponding key. Using it in conjunction with the quick change key, you can easily switch back and forth between melee and magic.

Rogues



Rogues in Dungeon Lords, just like fighters and mages, have a lot to work with. The game supports all the usual skills including lockpicking, Disarming traps, scouting, spotting and evaluating, sneaking, stealing etc. The rogue skills are pretty useful and having a few of them is probably a pretty good idea. The diabolic skill set also offers a few skills that could be mighty useful in a thief's arsenal like backstabbing, bloodying and unarmed combat.

A thief is most useful for opening treasure chest and sneaking about to get the jump on enemies. But the former is ultimately more important than the latter. Dungeon Lords uses an interesting shape system for disarming or violently bashing chests open. The way it works is timed based - if your skills in disarm or lock-pick are high ten things go slower, and if you're a complete dullard in the art of thievery then things go blazingly fast. This is important because unlocking a chest requires a bit of matching the corresponding shapes in the line with the shapes at the bottom of the treasure chest screen. Failing usually results in a nasty trap being set off, so having the right skills is a must. Lockpicks work the same way as if you're disarming - you match shapes. The difference is that lockpicks - and treasure chests - have levels that can help or hurt your chances significantly. While picking up these skills might seem insubstantial, they are very important - unless you enjoy spending your time dead in front of treasure boxes...

The World



The world is an interesting mix of lush grasslands, blackened swamps, ancient ruins, temples, mountains, hill tops, cities, towns, underground passages and more. The world has a day and night cycle, making travel at times taxing, but the stars and the moon will help a weary traveler something to follow in areas where it's blacker than 24 hour old truck stop coffee. There's usually a road to follow in the countryside, but roads sometimes end leading players into unchartered territory where mountains suddenly bring your journey to a dead stop or swamps that seem to go on forever.

The world is full of light and darkness, shades of gray and bright orange hues pouring out of homes and shop windows. Dungeon Lords' world is beautiful, treacherous and sometimes overwhelming. Bradley created the engine from scratch, and there's no denying that his hard work is paying visual dividends back.

The Bad and the Worse



And while you're following that road that leads to some unfamiliar city or foreboding keep, you're going to get attacked by things - and hard. Things that go bump in the night (you can actually hear them coming). In places where you wouldn't expect it, things suddenly charge at you from all directions and surround you. Whether it be a pack of wolves, a band of thieves or goblins, a click of undead or a lone fire drake, there are no safe havens in the wilderness or even in the cities.

But beyond the waylaying in the wilderness or the occasional sneak attack in the towns, there are other more violent creatures waiting for players in the dungeons and temples around the world. Dungeon Lords is populated with all kinds of creatures that just don't seem to like you. From vipers to rats to undead creatures and giant trolls, your hero is marked for death. Luckily there's a lot of variety in the things that want to lay you down for the dirt nap, and most of them can be killed with some persistence, so wits and some tactics..

The End



Besides all that we've mentioned, Dungeon Lords does offer some puzzles to solve, some keys to locate, a little bit of jumping, some damsels top save, some quests to take on, some guilds to join, some larger than life monsters to battle and some spectacular locations to visit. The game strikes a great balance between fighting, spelunking and role-playing.

Dungeon Lords should take about 40 or so hours to complete, not including side quests and getting lost in the dark, giving players a lot of bang for their buck. While this particular version of Dungeon Lords still needs some time to work out some of the kinks and add some missing content, Bradley's game is shaping up nicely. Dungeon Lords is a pretty solid action RPG experience at this stage and we think fans of this genre will eat it up. Look for the game to be ready for prime time this April on the PC - and here's to hoping DreamCatcher and Heuristic consider bringing this game to a console platform as well.



In the meantime check out these screenshots from the game, which show off some of the races and my journey under and into the fair city of Fargrove.