Hello fellow gamers, hope you are doing well.
I recently came across this new game and soon everyone seems to be playing it. I couldn't run away from seeing gamers playing and reviewing this game.
I am talking about the Dome Keeper.
The premise of the game is simple, you crash into this hostile place where you have to survive wave after wave of monsters trying to break into your Dome and between these waves, you go and dig to collect resources and hidden relics for upgrading your Dome and abilities. Can you survive for long?
Simple...right? Well, not that straightforward. You have so many upgrades and abilities to choose from. Will you go for extra defence or just focus on killing the monsters quickly? Should you upgrade your carrying capacity first or your jetpack speed? Can you grab an extra couple of resources and risk damaging your dome cause the waves come at constant intervals?
When I started the game, I had no idea when will the first wave come, the music change did tell me but I was already late digging for more resources. So the very first upgrade I did was adding Hostile Proximity Meter which will tell me the time until the next wave and I can now dig peacefully for those valuable resources.
But you just have a min or so before the next wave comes and each new wave is increasing in difficulty. So it was a race against time all the time.
The underground/dig area is divided into colour-coded sections, you can see I reached the blue zone in the above screenshot. Although I didn't feel much change in drop rates of resources it was much harder to dig so I had to upgrade my drill.
Each section had a unique relic hidden somewhere which can give unique abilities. I found the first one easily.
I dragged it back to my dome. You have 3 options with each special relic you find. I chose the Probe that allowed me to send a wave in each direction and can detect if there are resources in the ground without digging them. It was cool but you have to recharge it every time you use that.
Anyways, I kept on collecting more resources, upgrading my dome, lasers and jetpacks. After like 10 waves new monsters started to appear and each wave was getting stronger and stronger.
I added the ability to now see how many waves have passed and you can also buy this thing which allows you to see your dome's health. You can see in the above screenshot that my dome was taking some beating.
I managed to get another relic and now I get some tough choices to pick from. I chose a hut that collects water passively. Yup, you need water to somehow defend your dome and it is used for upgrading your shield as well. That's some powerful water...lol
I found a unique ore as well. It was like a booster that gave me extra speed. But it wore off quickly.
It might look like a boring game from afar but it has an addictive gaming loop of Dig, Defends and Upgrade. We are wired to go for better things all the time and this game knows it very well. It bombards us with the list of all the upgrades as soon as the game starts and all we do is work on getting every upgrade.
I eventually saw my demise at wave 18. My dome broke into pieces killing me instantly. What a brutal way to die. In a strange place/planet/galaxy? who knows... but my character dies instantly when the dome's shield breaks.
Here are my final stats from the first run.
Survived for 17 waves with 73 monsters killed. You can start another run but you will lose all your progress except only a Gadget that you can choose now. It will help you in your next run.
Let me tell you about the things that I didn't like in this game.
Lack of Content
It has no lore elements. Nothing to state what happened with our protagonist, where are we stuck or who were are fighting against. It would be cool if we could dig up lore and stuff from the ground as well. But, it is still a new game but the developers are planning to add more content in the future. It does have some potential though.
Low replayability for some
Once you lose you lose. All hard-earned progress will be lost and you have to start from scratch other than just a gadget. Some people might find that frustrating. But some of the most frustrating games are very successful...right?
And the things that make this game interesting are
Engaging Gameplay
The gameplay loop is well implemented, and the dig, defend and upgrade formula seems to work well here. You end up saying just one more wave and suddenly you are at the fifth wave after that. So yes, it is engaging.
Upcoming promised content
You can see in the main menu that there is a lot of upcoming content listed to be released like Pets and Engineering that will change the game entirely. I expect them to deliver them in time.
Environment and sound design
Some people hate the pixel graphics but I do love them and it looks like a well-polished game so far. The sound design was also great not something spectacular but not too shabby.
Let me know if you would like to try the game as well. This game is not for everything. Do you like survival games? or tower defence games? or both? Do tell me in the comments below.
Namaste 🙏
Note:
- All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
- Banner created in Canva.
- All the screenshots are from the game Dome Keeper.