14 DAY TRIAL // When A Game of Dwarves was first announced by Paradox Interactive, a lot of people saw the game as an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Dwarf Fortress by offering a title with much of the same core ideas and a graphics interface that would appeal to a larger player base.
But when I managed to see the game during Gamescom 2012, the developer doing the demo cited Theme Hospital and other old management games as the core inspiration for the team and said that the focus is on a fun, easy-to-learn mix between management and strategy that has some surprising depth.
Basically, the player always starts in a cube with a depth of 50 spaces with a few basic types of dwarves and their prince.
He then has to secure food and other resources before completing missions, fighting enemies ranging from beasts to monsters and creating a well-developed underworld home for his subjects.
Each dwarf can learn a specialized role and will be better at his job as long as he is happy and as he gains extra experience points.
As gamers progress, they can also learn new techs which open up more game options and the Prince also gets his own set of upgrades that will carry from one mission to another.
Currently, the team is creating a campaign of 20 missions that are mandatory and another 20 ones that act as separate challenges and an open sandbox mode is also included.
The team has not yet decided if A Game of Dwarves will have a multiplayer mode, but as long as the game is successful and the community actually asks for one, it can apparently be patched in.
There are also some plans to offer editor tools that would allow the fan community to expand on the experience that Paradox itself delivers.
The game should be out before the end of the year.