Beneath the Mountain

The game was enjoyable to learn the buildings, units, and rune abilities. However, even on the easiest mode, I was unable to build to stop the multiple waves that end up spawning on top of one another. I guess my vision of what I thought this game was doesn't match the never ending need to have a near perfect build and game play to stay ahead of the curve. I hope the developers find a better balance in the end. Back to back spawns with no downtime is just killer...

This game hits home on so many levels can't wait to see this game grow. Played a solid 12hrs and had a blast there are some minor bugs but none that I thought were game breaking. I recommend putting your headphones on max and put a dwarf on hold position inside a gate and listen to the sound while you sleep. IMO one of the better EA's I have played in awhile if you don't have extra cash or want to see further development or if you cannot justify another steam purchase to your wife either way definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Simply put - yes. Buy it, or at the very least wish list it.

It has a ton of potential, is a mostly complete game already, and the issues it has are simply quality of life and some optimization issues. Those things should easily be rectified as the development goes along.

I experienced no performance issues, no major bugs, and nothing preventing the game from being enjoyed. If you are the type of player that must have a flawless UI and lots of quality of life, maybe hold off until the game is closer to finished, but otherwise feel free to jump in and enjoy this one asap.

Design & Presentation
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 5
Gameplay
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛ 4
Story or Uniqueness
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬛ 4
Quality & Performance
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ 3
Content & Price
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ 3
Sound
🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ 3

Score
🟩 x22

Score Board:
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⬛ 00-09 Garbage
⬛ 10-15 Only if you really into it
⬛ 16-19 It’s okay, worth a look
🟩 20-23 Good Game
⬛ 24-27 Above Averange Game
⬛ 28-29 Aweseome Game
⬛ 30 Masterpiece
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It is a Early Access title, don't expect something else

- My biggest issue with it is the Unit AI, it's not awefull, but not fleshed out yet.
- Most things work flawlessly, some just miss something to feel complete (hence EA)
- Early game is slow paced - Mid game is defending yourself and progressing through tech - Late game is defending yourself and progressing through the map
- I really like the art style, absolutly nailed it
- Gameplay is fun

It looks and plays like dungeon keeper, and in ten years maybe it will be as good as dungeon keeper. They certainly seem ambitious with the number of systems they want to have in place, but none of them feel properly fleshed out or necessary now. The performance gets sketchy toward the end as well, noticeably bad frame rate for me at around 150 units. Yes, they were all archers, because that's all you need.

People say it's like Dungeon Keeper, and that's true. That's exactly what it looks and feels like - it seems like that's the end goal.

Except Dungeon Keeper was clean and innovative and had boatloads of atmosphere and a story whereas this, at this point in its development, has bugs and runs slowly and has a less than stellar interface and has a bad tutorial.

Perhaps those issues will be addressed over time but even if they are, Dungeon Keeper is from 1997. You don't need to pay $25 for something like this unless it innovates or is exceptionally good, and I'm not seeing that here.

So much potential as a new style dungeon sim-like, not quite dungeon keeper but something fresh and differrent!

Cant wait till it gets fleshed out more and has some quality of life touch ups.

Id say buy the game support the devs, its solid to play and very fun with plenty of unique charm and style.

overall very fun and shows a lot of promise!

Some feedback worth considering:
- giving walls the room to place archer troops on (they feel kinda useless at the moment)
- currently maxxed out mining picks and still unable to remove some blocks as they are locked?
- an 'unlearn talent' button if you want to try a different build for your king
- runekeepers as actual casters not melee casters - only ranged unit is archer with no aoe abilities besides king's whirlwind talent

- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE a rotate camera option. So difficult to see troops behind buildings or even constructing railroads

So far I really enjoy the game. I mean... you create a dwarven empire from scratch. Who would not find that awesome?

The game is still in early access so expect a few bugs. Units getting stuck frequently, no control groups and a few glitches but nothing really game breaking.

I'm really looking forward to a more polished game and will definitely continue playing.

This game is really fun. I do think it's worth playing. Really love the blend of dungeon keeper with dwarves.
However, I will say that as of this date (nov 2022) it's not really worth the $20-25 price tag. As fun as the mechanics are, there isn't really more than a dozen or so hours of content here for most people. My feel on this one is that it's more like a $10 game.

This game is what I wished War for the Overworld would have been. Ive only just begun to play it, but I am very excited to see how this game will grow! My biggest gripes right now is the lack of unit control groups and the formation grounds being too much of a hassle to deal with.

Look at my play time. I finished in that time. Once you figure this game out, you can beat it in 35 minutes or about. You make the call. I just wish I was twenty minutes faster. Just missed the refund window...

This is the exact thing I've been looking for in a colony sim. The upgrade paths for both buildings and units are simple, straightforward, and effective. You can effectively protect the entirety of the colony with proper bottle-necking, trap placement, and construction of walls. Resource production and management are simple and easy to manage.

My only complaint, and this is very minor considering that this is an early access title, is that once I reached the second level of the mountain and began construction there, I experienced a dramatic drop in my frame rates. Whether that is because I had reached a point where the number of my units + the number of enemies overloaded the game or something else, I'm not sure. I'm extremely excited to see where the development of this game goes. It is well worth the money. A few optimization updates and I can see myself sinking dozens if not hundreds of hours into this game.

Nothing makes me feel like I am taking back Erebor and bringing honor back to the house of Durin more than this game. It has an incredible amount of potential here and for what is released so far it is incredible. Although I dont recommend playinig the game on anything except easy, easy feels like hard.

This is a pretty good game. I find it to be a challenge, but there's 5 different difficulty settings and perhaps I need to drop down one from the middle.

I see comments talking about performance problems, and I haven't experienced that despite my aging but once good computer. I think that most of those problems may have been fixed, and I think this game is completely playable. Outside of the initial loading screen, I don't think I've seen my FPS ever drop below the 80s, and my computer isn't really a powerhouse by any modern standards. I see that there was a performance patch on October 19th, perhaps that's what did it.

Love the graphics and style.

So far this game is looking good!
It mixes some old favorites and brings something fresh to the table. This is a temporary review as to be fair its a little early. As stated the game is early in so it has some things to iron out and the dev has been showing progress and promise!

Awesome game... except LAG. Just a crazy amount of lag when there are two "big" armies on the field. We are talking 20 or 30 units fighting another 20 or 30 units. It's something a game 20 years could handle, but despite the mediocre graphics somehow this game just cannot handle what it is trying to put out.

I can play Total War Warhammer 3 on Ultra settings with over 60fps no problems at all, with thousands of units, blood effects, spell effects, kill effects.

I understand this is a small indie developer but the lag makes the game unplayable and is really unavoidable. Add to that the graphics tears that happen, lack of ability to be able to group your units or buildings like in a standard RTS game, lack of a mini map, nothing early game to combat how dark the game is... and more.

This game has so much potential and I look forward to the day I can possibly turn this into a positive review but for now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and would say wait and see what bug fixes and improvements come before spending your money.

Has alot of potential if the devs keep up the good work. Im definitely a fan from what iv played so far!

So this review is based on the 100+ hours of gameplay during initial development and release of the game:

TLDR: Great game by a great dev, well worth a buy and a steal at the current price.

Game:

• Excellent mix of RTS and tactical gameplay combining interestingly differentiated units with an array of traps you can place to defeat a host of varied enemy creatures both invading your mountain home and to be found as you delve deeper into the mines. Really thematic feel to this as well.

• Can choose your own playstyle and then invest in different perks you earn as you play to really personalise your army/traps/king/miners and even enemy:

• Want to smack some greenskins around with just gym rat miners? Yup you can if you spec them right.
• Want to have an elite small army cleaving its way through everything? Yep that too.
• What about killing everything with traps? Sure thing, with the right bait!
• What about line combat with literally a line of ranged units protected by a shield wall of melee. Oh yeah baby, you got it!
• Focus resources on improving industry at the cost of military and then spamming zerg units? Of course!

• Lots of little and large nice things like unit levelling, tons of cool upgrades and perks to choose from that have distinct ingame effects (like giving miners grenades to kill creature eggs) and watching miners zip around on minecarts. Doesn't lock you into either micro or macro madness being able to play your own way.

Map setup:

• So it is important to note that the dev has left in functionality to allow you to generate huge maps with ridiculous amounts of enemies. You will need a good computer to play these. Most developers would cut this so people wouldn't complain about performance issues and in doing so cut out some really good fun for those of us who can run them. These max settings should probably be listed as experimental or something but if you see people complaining about performance this is why. Normal map generation runs perfectly.

• The generation options for the maps are extensive allowing you to change everything from starting gold to numbers of enemies lurking in caves to strength and timing of invasions. There's a lot of replayability in adjusting these alone not to mention in how much you can change while you're actually playing.

Developer:

Excellent developer, really listens to their community and as far as I can tell never stops working! Also importantly, this game seems to be a labour of love where they enjoy what they're doing and are proud of what they have made and only want to see it get better and better. Check out the current roadmap for some really exciting stuff coming down the pipeline.

The devs "forgot" to flag the game as Early Access on the store page. Ok. Fine. Maybe I'll remember to re-buy it when they finish it. Refunded.

Dwarf Dungeon Keeper. I really like this game, its just ...very early access.

The buildings seem to big for the map, takes far too long to make space for building before you are attacked. Starting areas might want more easy to break ground to make room for houses and a barracks and gradually get tougher (stone, mental etc) and than there is more need for upgrades.

The idea is great, looks good it's just not balanced very well, I will definitely revisit again.

This game looks like it has potential, though has quite a few bugs, performance issues, and lacking features. As of writing this wasn't listed as early access. I played just shy of the 2 hours for a refund and refunded. I felt like I had explored a lot of what was available and the 5-10fps was killing me during raids.

Pros:

• Cool concept, feels a little like dungeon keeper.
• Graphics are decent, lighting is interesting.

Cons:

• Widescreen support is limited, tool tips are off the side of the screen.
• Super laggy (10 fps during raids) w/ ryzen 3950x rtx 3080 and 64gb ram
• AI pathfinding needs work, guessing this is where the fps lag comes from
• Lots of features are not implemented yet (prestige, many upgrades)
• Selecting something behind another object is super painful
• No tutorial, so some things are unclear EX: dots on the upgrade list, does that mean the max upgrades per path?
• Limited units / buildings, very barebones
• Unclear how to set squads (maybe I missed it, no tutorial)
• Bugs: Tooltips dissappear and blink in and out repeatedly, units getting stuck on things, traps hitting far away from trap, etc

Its ok, needs some work for sure. Attacking is a bit janky, and the waves become hard really fast. Seems like a game that you need to know what to do to survive but hilariously didnt launch with a tutorial. You cannot slow down the game speed either which is big if you arent good at micromanagement like me. Its basically an early access title without having the early access banner on the store page which is a bit disingenuous if you ask me. Hopefully itll turn out great, we need good dwarf games.

Addictive game, even in Early Access! (NOTE: Steam page might not reflect EA, this should be corrected soon per the dev)

If you've ever wanted to build your own Dwarven City you are going to have a lot of fun here, but, it's not all beer drinking and gold mining. Defending your city from orcs at the gates and the creatures that dwell beneath the mountain is a consistent challenge. Really enjoyable so far, and did I mention addictive?

Developer is responsive, I would expect consistent updates!

The AI and pathfinding is pretty janky, and everything feels pretty unfinished. For what feels like a very early access game (that's not listed as so) in the colony sim genre, the base price of $24.99 is very high.

I purchased the game because I played a beta of sorts awhile back (I think it may have been the demo), but nothing has really changed since then. It still feels like a very early beta. For a single developer i'm beyond impressed, but I can't in good faith recommend an "unfinished" game at this price to anyone.

A rather good take on a dwarf themed RTS.
Be mindfull as of currently there is no tutorial yet but the dev is working on it.

Having played the demo there have definitly been improvements.
You have a good variety of buildings each serving their purpose, of which some can be upgraded to be more productive.

While combat may see simple and can easily devolve into a brawl, it works best when you put some thought into your defences, use formations and the placement of your King. (dependend on their build)
Traps are some of your best assets during attacks so use them where ever possible but be mindfull of friendly fire.
Many of these do require a tile, so be mindfull where you mine.
Creating deathmazes and chokepoints for you infantry will get you through a lot of waves but you can only win by going deeper.
Of course the deeper you go the more dangerous it will be and sooner or later you will face off against something that can decimate your dwarves if you are caught of guard.
So it tends to be smart to prepare some traps in case something comes UP to YOU. (don't worry you can demolish traps and buildings after they served their purpose or your OCD starts triggering, god only knows how often that last one happened with me after i kept expanding.)

It still needs some polishing in a few places but it has a solid foundation.

The dev also included a roadmap in the menu, showing what they have in the pipeline for this year and next, from new units and their upgrades to game mechanics.

So if you don't mind being patient, like the idea of building a impressive dwarven city, facing ever increasing hordes of foes while boldly braving the dark places of the world, this game is honestly among the best you can get.

Having a lot of fun with the game so far. This is a challenging game, but in that makes it a very replayable experience as you learn from your mistakes. The wave timer keeps you from just cruising along and keeps you motivated. Highly recommend!

Hi Devs!

I think this game is very nice and the dwarf setting is awesome,
but pls, the difficulty lvls are really bad.....
easy isnt eays at all :-(
I am always dying at the second wave xD
I would like to have more time to explore and build without incoming waves,
otherwise its hard to enjoy the beautiful flair of the dwarfen setting wich is well done.
Maybe you implement a sandbox mode?

Ok I found out you can do your own Settings for WavePower and WaveTime^^.
Right side of the PlayButton. That makes it way more easier :-)

TLDR; it's still in early access with a lot of promise going forward. The developer is super responsive and working his butt off. The game itself has a lot of replayability due to the various techs you can upgrade and try to synergise. I played it for hours beta testing, and the current game is heaps of fun. Keep in mind, it's fresh Early Access.

In short: Dungeons III, Dwarves edition. Build and defend your base while you dig deeper, while the enemy becomes stronger. An enjoyable and thematic strategy game massively hindered by poor performance. Scrolling, zooming and groups of more than 20 entities become a lag-fest. This needs more time in the oven and, in the worst case, a total engine rebuild.

Good time, if your desire for Dwarven Dungeon Keeper is greater than the amounts of frames you will miss.

Bad time, as soon as any combat breaks out and you want to use active abilities.

I love it, it currently has pathing issues, but the Devs are extremely communicative and the game is a blast! Tricky to get going as the tutorial isn't ready yet, but I love it!

Game play is fun and all but the frame drops are kinda headache inducing. you dont even have to expand much for it to happen just zoom out a little. I hope it gets some fixes since I enjoy that game but not looking to play again until stable. Also late game the ui will crap itself and go black and white and break for a few seconds now and then even while not moving the camera.

Not yet. Don't buy this game until they put a tutorial in it because you'll likely just give up on it as I have and it's a shame because it looks like it might be good at some point. For it's current state it should be a free demo until there's a tutorial.
I'll return to it then

Here's the game currently.
1. It's too dark to see where you're digging.
2. You'll very quickly break open a block and a bunch of monsters come out and kill all your guys
3. The end.
4. (optional) Repeat until rage quit.

Disclaimer: I've been playing Beneath the Mountain for many months. I did not get the game for free because I didn't expect to. It was only after I purchased it that I saw the developer had given me a product key. I gave that key to someone else because I like the game enough to support the developer.

This is essentially a fusion of a colony sim with tower defense but without the towers. In place of towers, you have fighting units and traps. This is not a survival sim, so don't worry about hunger or thirst. It does, however, have a roguelike element in that once your king dies, you've lost.

The objective is to survive wave after wave of enemies while growing your colony to the point that you can fight the demon at the end and claim the "Heart of the Mountain" gem next to the demon. The only rule is that your king must survive.

It has multiple difficulties and the maps are procedurally generated so each time you play a new game, it will be unique.

The developer is very good at taking feedback and really tries hard to make the game enjoyable.

While there are issues during this Early Access version, the bugs are being squashed and improvements are constant. I highly recommend this game.

This was a fun game with a lot of potential when the demo came out, and now that it is in early access it continues to get better. This game so far is a fun combination of base building, strategy, and tower defense. It's not quite perfect, but it does have a lot going for it.
Compared to the demo, the early access version of the game appears to have many more enemy types, which adds to the challenge. In the demo you could dig in, trap up, and once you had a few acid traps the waves were fairly easy. In the early access version with more variety of enemies, and their added types and different skills, the challenge has gone up. The simple strategies that worked in the demo wont work the same way now. A simple example is on the 1st level goblin/orc access route. In the demo this was one easy to defend lane. In the early access this is 2 or more routes that after a few waves will both be hit at the same time. This forces the development of new strategy. Do we now use miners more as reserve troops? Build troops and traps in different orders? Many fun strategy questions to work through in the updated early access game, and it seems like that evolution will continue as more things get added to the game.

A very fun game. A little rough around the edges but so much potential. Hope to see the game progress in the future.

game has potential - minor jank but it's fun, challenging and atmospheric

idk why people are complaining about no tutorial. put lamps, dig walls, make buildings and units. kill urks. your brain has gotta be marble-smooth if u can't figure it out

Very fun, dwarves, booze.... mushrooms. lots of orcs and demons to kill. and one seriously powerful dwarf king. dwarven fortress meets dungeon keeper. 10/10

Avoid this game till they actually implement the Tutorial.
Nothings explained and even on the easiest difficulty you start getting hit by triple waves after like 4-5 waves?
I've never encountered a game that I've just been absolutely stone walled in terms in progression.

There's probably a big thing I'm missing here, but with no Tutorial and the easiest difficulty still being crazy..
... I've just had a bad time.

Very nice game for an Early Access
If u need a Tutorial to find ur way in a game than better wait till that is done but if u take like 2 or 3 tryes ur self u know what to build at what point. With the variants of the map making it keeps it fresh for now.

While the game does have some pathing issues it is still a fun game that you can quickly get lost in

Pretty fun game with some great building blocks. Certainly needs some performance optimizations but I am very excited to see what other content is added prior to the full release.

Main problem for me is it feels like you are going to get killed its only a matter of when. Combat is bad, & graphic are poor. Some people like it, am not a fan myself.

Refund requested.

Lacks balance or any sort of explanation on even core game features. There is no tutorial, and the game seems to really have no balance.
It's effectively a wave-survival base builder, but the waves that come, ramp up pretty quick.
There is a research system, but majority of research I found to be useless. There are key things you must get, after that, there is no big point of research.

I have a Ryzen 9 5900x, 64gb ram, and a RTX 2070 super, and I still suffer a ton of issues with performance of the game, or frame drops and stuttering.
Key features are missing as well. You have to designate each and every block you build or mine one at a time.
There is very little priority control aside 'right click to dig this first' which is just... Dwarfs will go to any blue blocks first, not an order they were put in.
I have no idea who's idea it was to program in bridge sections with directional control as well. It's a bridge platform, it doesn't need a 'turn' or 't-intersection'. Why these are pieces, makes no sense to me in the least, since it's not exactly a logistics game.

Overall, I feel like the amount of time I sunk into this has been disappointing. No balancing, missing basic QoL, and such terrible performance...
This needs to go in the oven for another few months at least.

Ok, so this is quite raw EA title with everything that comes with it. Quite poor performance, especially in lategame big fights, ai of your units tends to get stuck, annoying especially with engies and overall clunky. BUT i really enjoyed the flow of the game, the feel of the dwarf struggle, the constant pressure from the enemies on the top, while you have to dive deeper for more gold and the endgame. If they manage to smooth the game, while giving it more content and better ui, it has a great promise.

Has potential but in its current state i can not recommend as it's VERY rough around the edges, worth keeping an eye on.

This is already an interesting game, good to see a dwarf RTS/builder like this. Yes there is at present no tutorial.
That being said its not difficult to figure out, unless you have literally never played a game from this genre before, in which case you will still be able to figure it out playing with the U.I.
Tips:
- Space bar pauses the game.
- recruit 4 more miners immediately.
- Clear space for buildings.
-build 2 houses first. 1 house =5 dwarfs
-build barracks.
-recruit 5 of each starting unit.
If you manage to do that before the first raid arrives you will be able to survive the first few waves.

- enemies will ignore walls without a gate.
-sparkling in the dark are resources
-miners will stop mining when the gold reaches 1000, build treasuries to increase the gold limit.
-PAY ATTENTION to walls when you mine, with out troops, opening up a room accidentally to early WILL end your game.
-There is another build menu across from the others. (took me forever to realize that one.) i knew i was missing something.
-most buildings have upgrades.
-you can edit the game in settings before you begin a game.
-setting the delay for raids all the way up seems to be creative mode.
- F1 pulls up a cheat menu.
The game does tell you most of this if you look, that and a little YouTube. Personally you could keep the tutorial out as far as i am concerned. would it have been helpful? sure, a little.

The game does have a frame rate issue after a certain amount of units enter combat, i believe this is the game, and not our systems as my computer stomps on the recommended specs. So there is that little chip in the Dwarven armor.

It would be great if you could man walls and especially towers. they are glorified torches in their present state.

Overall its a great game so far, that needs a little polish. I look forward to seeing the finished product.

No tutorial yet, but oh my god this game is so much fun, it didn't take me much to figure out, after a few attempts I think I've gotten the hang of it, the tutorial's being made as we speak, I'd recommend waiting for it but oh my god I'm having so much fun

So I have a few hours into this game and think its....good , has potential but its not worth $25 usd at the moment.

The pros , its fairly easy and straight forward. Somewhat nice to look at. Combat is ok , not the greatest. Nice little mix of defense and offense.

The cons , lack of tutorials , only one current level , lack of current content.Frame drops and stuttering. Nothing to spend resources on. I wish you could tell the engineers what to work on. Last con would be there needs to be an explanation for each slider in the customize play through menu, I am just guessing at this point.

I think this game will turn out great once it launches and has a campaign. I see potential and will probably play few hundred hours if it continues on its current path. I would say catch this game on sale and it will be worth it.

Just some friendly feedback, I played alot of Dungeons 3 - kind of similar to this game. Id honestly say that the miners need a buff for the mining part a little to op as well using 20 miners as an army to out number. The tutorial is not available and there is no clear objective other than to defend? I would also recommend adding more gold to gather. maybe give more than 1 point when leveling up(unless this is supposed to be a 3 hour gaming sesh type game, which is fine) All said id say the game is great just a little too slow and no clear objective.

games performance is god-awful, i have a pretty beefy system and still dropped down to 2fps at times, game seems very repetitive. seems like it has potential but needs a LOT of work before its good