Quick Start Walkthrough
This Quick Start written against Alpha versions of KeeperRL. It is useful if you’ve never played before.
Start Here
Download the free KeeperRL ZIP demo file. Unzip. There is no install required. The program “keeper.exe” is simply run in place.
Alternatively, purchase the graphical and audio version from Steam.
- Press space on the intro to get the main menu
- The Main Menu will come up. The options will be “Play game”, “Change settings”, “View highscores”, “view credits”, “quit”.
- Play the game
- Choose the wizard faction to begin with
- If this is your very first game, play the tutorial first: (Note, some players get lost in the black unexplored area of the map when playing for the first time. To find your keeper again, press ‘k’).
- If this is not your first go, click the “keeper” button and then “confirm”
These videos show other players gaming on KeeperRL.
Keepers are evil tyrants who commit war crimes. If you want to be a hero, try playing an adventurer.
A new campaign map showing map sectors will be displayed. It may look something like this one:
You can experiment with the game set up. When you click confirm a map is generated for you and you will now be launched into the overhead view. Here you can start building your dungeon.
Victory Objective
Claim victory by conquering all the tribes on the campaign map. Next, finalise your defences and upload your map, so that adventurers and keepers belonging to other players can then invade it.
Starting position
You start with your Keeper and 4 minion Imps. The screen may look like this:
You will occasionally see text in orange. These hints will provide you with ideas on what to do next. When playing the tutorial, there are step-by-step instructions at the bottom of the screen. Campaigns have a campaign map, which contain other smaller map sectors and appears before you start the game. The main villains and allies will be found on this master map. View this during the game, using the compass icon.
Game options
Press escape to view the game options. Save the game, abandon it or retire (after winning). Change graphics and sound etc.
You can also pause the game at any time by pressing space. This will give you time to think and issue complex orders. If it looks like you are winning, you can increase the game speed to fast-forward it (until you are invaded).
Later in the game and depending on your level of arrogance, insensitivity and violence, many hostile forces start to get worried about you.
Tabs
The four menu tabs in the top left corner of the screen are as follows:
- Construction (pickaxe icon)
- Minions (horned face icon)
- Research (book icon)
- Help (question mark icon)
Below the mini map in the top right are two buttons
- Campaign Map (compass icon)
- Find keeper (keeper icon)
Resources and resource stats
Along the bottom are your resource stats:
Gold: Can be obtained by looting defeated enemies or mined by imps from yellow gold tiles found in your dungeon. This precious metal is essential for hiring powerful creatures and constructing luxurious rooms.
Wood: Can be obtained by building a resource stockpile and ordering your imps to chop down trees. This natural resource is essential for constructing traps, doors, and other wooden structures in your dungeon.
Iron: Can be obtained by building a resource stockpile and ordering your imps to mine iron tiles found in your dungeon. This metal is essential for crafting weapons, armor, and other metallic structures.
Adamantium: Can be obtained by assaulting adamantium golems and mining their ore, or found deep underground. This rare and powerful metal is essential for crafting the strongest weapons and armor in your dungeon,
Stone: Can be obtained by building a resource stockpile and ordering your imps to mine white stone tiles found in your dungeon. This sturdy material is essential for constructing walls, floors, and other stone structures in your dungeon.
Infernite: Can be obtained by mining only at very deep levels underground. This volatile material is essential for crafting weapons that deal flaming damage, making them particularly effective against enemies that are vulnerable to fire.
Corpses: Can be obtained by defeating enemies in your dungeon. They can be used to raise undead creatures, which can serve as powerful minions and defenders for your dungeon. Raising undead creatures may require graves, coffins or a morgue table.
Angel Piety: A hidden resource that can be obtained by performing acts of worship at a holy altar. This resource can be used to recruit angels, powerful creatures that possess divine abilities.
Demon Piety: A hidden resource that can be obtained by invoking them at a demonic altar. This resource can be used to recruit demons, powerful creatures that possess dark abilities.
(Under the resource stats you can also see your population limit, which turn you are in and how much daylight or night is remaining)
Advanced players may loot enemy dungeons by controlling an imp and carrying resources back to base. (Imps can carry endless items in their magic pockets because they have no maximum weight limit). When an enemy is entirely defeated, you can select the tribes strip and use the pillage option to loot the enemy instead.
Building Your First Dungeon
The main benefit of playing a keeper is that you can build a dungeon. Adventurers can only invade dungeons.
The first thing to do is simply start digging! On the top right are the various action icons. The pickaxe icon (the leftmost one) gives you the orders you can give your imps. The top one is called “Dig or cut tree”. Select that one and have the imps start digging.
You can be as creative as you want when it comes to designing the layout of your dungeon. The imps dig fairly quickly if they are not mining ores; stick to the plain black area and they can dig large rooms in a short time. You will draw out rectangles.
Construction
Various Constructions are possible. Construct items by clicking on the pickaxe icon. Select squares for your Imps to dig and cut. Assign dungeon squares for storage of Resources and items. Build treasure rooms, dormitories, training rooms, libraries, workshops, forges, laboratories, jewellers, ritual rooms, beast lairs, graveyards, prisons and torture chambers etc. To do this you must dig out a space and build the appropriate furniture you desire. The selected construction will highlight in green. Click on map squares to give the orders.
Orders
Use the orders menu from the construction tab to claim tiles, fetch items, prioritise tasks and remove construction. The selected option will highlight in green. Click on the map squares to issue the orders. You can set up forbidden zones and this is the best way to stop your creatures angering nearby inhabitants or to keep them locked in a room out of trouble.
It is possible to reinforce walls and block in tunnels, although it is generally a bad idea to cut yourself off from the outside world completely (If invaders can’t get in, they will dig to destroy your walls, which is usually worse than giving them an “easy” way in strewn with traps). Some creatures like ants and dwarves sometimes prefer to dig their way in anyway.
Installations
Some Installations require research to do. Install doors, bridges, barricades, torches, eyeballs and your prisoner heads in like fashion. You can also install various Traps.
Message boards can be built by Keepers and can be posted to by the public.
Building Rooms and Gathering Resources
Create storage rooms by clicking the “Storage” icon under the orders menu, then mark out the space. The floor will change colour. You normally want both resource and equipment storage. There is currently no limit to the amount you can store on one tile, so you can design it how you like. You can also store resources outside the dungeon.
Now that you have a storage space allocated, you can have the imps start cutting down trees. Use the “Dig or cut tree” option, dig out the mountain, and also mark trees. Do some mining. Rocks inside the mountain will be visible. A treasure chest will give you somewhere to store the gold, but be careful, bandits will scry your wealth.
Summoning Extra Imps
Whenever you have enough gold, the Keeper can summon more imps. Simply click on the imp icon on your immigration panel. I usually add 4 more imps, for a total of 8, very near the beginning of the game, because this greatly speeds up your ability to dig and gather Resources. I then usually add 4 more later on in the game but 12 total seems like enough for me to get things done. I’d rather save my gold for other things later.
Library and Research
The next thing you probably want to build is a library. The library is crucial because the Keeper needs it to research any new spells.
Have the imps dig out another room, usually at least 10x20 but it can be bigger. Make sure you have some wood stockpiled as well.
Then simply build your library in that space from the orders menu. You need a large library to research advanced skills and at this point wood is plentiful so go ahead and build a large library, 10x10 at least. The bookshelves will get in your way, so place them one-by-one at suitable locations. The Keeper will usually immediately move to the library and spend most of the time there.
If you remembered your tutorial steps, you will have attracted some basic creatures to your dungeon already, and killed a few easy enemies.
You should have enough dungeron experience at this point to research some of the technologies, which you can experiment with.
Minions
You need to build other rooms to attract monsters into your dungeon. Some Minions will set up home with you if you just give them a dormitory to rest in. Other monsters would like places to train, or build things. Build a graveyard to keep corpses and you may be able to raise the dead. Other types of undead will come to practice rituals in a ritual room. Animals are attracted into cages, where they can sleep (You may not want too many of those at this stage, although cave bears are quite tough and flying beasts will add their superior line-of-sight to a party).
Direct Control of a Minion
Select the minions icon (the horned face) to see a list of your current types of minion and other minion information. Click on each type of minion to see a list of each individual creature and their level. Click on any individual creature to see the minion management screen where you can control them. There are a list of extra commands when inside a minion, such as casting Spells. After taking over a minion’s will, press “u” to return to the “dark god” mode.
Press ‘t’ to travel to other map sectors on the campaign map. Note that it is possible to select a whole team of minions, control them and invade. To do this, click on the team on the left panel of the minions tab, then select a team member and click “control”. Press ‘g’ to manage every move of each team member and to toggle that feature off again.
Options on the minion management screen
You can banish, whip, directly control, rename, assign activities, assign equipment, lock equipment and view spells.
Population limit
There is always a maximum population limit that your dungeon can hold and this is displayed on the bottom right of the screen. Any dungeon can support a population of 10 creatures plus imps. You can attract and command more creatures by building various rooms. Impressive statues of yourself always increase the lure of your dungeon by 1 population. However, a decent statue costs gold or mana (depending on which version you are playing). Your monsters will not take your gold for themselves but you can offer them food in a pigsty to lure in another 4 creatures. When you are ready, you can build a throne for yourself and gain command of up to 10 more minions. Note that your dungeon size makes the forces of goodness feel threatened. Setting up a throne for yourself is totally offensive to many tribes, good and bad.
Population management
You may need to enforce discipline using a whipping post and keep them happy by letting them get a piece of the combat action. Also, some creatures may outlive their usefulness. You have the option to banish them or send them on a suicide mission. Some keepers like to possess weak creatures and then drown the in a lake or river. Other players throw things at them, use them as target practice and kill them that way (It is possible to get some experience from them, but you should expect them to turn hostile and try to fight back).
Tribes
You will have to travel to other map sectors to find the bases belonging to most of the bigger tribes and to do that, you will need to control a team or minion (see “Direct Control of a Minion”).
Look on the tribes strip to see information about other known tribes. Destroying a tribe will yield mana and allow you to pillage. Full conquest of all the tribes will allow you to retire victorious (only to be invaded by other players).
The world we live in is inhabited by many creatures. For example, you may meet bandits, dragons, dwarves, elves, lizardmen, humans, spiders, scorpions, gnomes, undead, dark elves, minotaur, hydras, giant ants, elementalists, witchmen, kobolds, driads and cyclops… (there are a few more). Some creatures will hold you to ransom and attack you if you don’t pay. You can usually see the reason an attacker is assaulting you on the tribes strip. There are allies you can recruit and shops where you can trade.
The “righteous” tribes will be happy to murder your kind, actually. Your role and allies are defined at the beginning of the game. However, most tribes can be provoked further by attacking or stealing things from them, setting yourself up as a king or queen, hoarding piles of gold etc.). If you are feeling really submissive, you can even pay them tribute to avoid any confrontation, however a showdown is inevitable eventually.
Prisoners
Once you build a prison from iron, you can take prisoners. When fighting with humanoids, you can right click them to order their capture (take them alive). Once knocked out, they appear on your immigration panel and you have a while to capture them, before they die.
Next, build a torture table and torture your prisoners to try and convert them. Converted prisoners keep their stats and join your dungeon! Otherwise, execute them on a gallows for their heads to be hung up. Alternatively, absorb your prisoners with a doppleganger or else just keep them to work in your mines. Some prisoners have spells and useful skills, such as gnomes who are good at making jewellery.
If you have a small army and a large number of prisoners they may try to escape.
Equipping an army
When you have a decent population of creatures with different skills and you have enough resources, it is worth thinking about equipment. You have two options here:
- Production queues
1) Some rooms will provide you with a production queue on the research tab. Here you can command production of weapons, armour, ammunition, jewelry, potions and some other things. It will cost resources, but your creatures are generally happy to produce these if they have the skills.
- Looting
2) Some equipment can be got from invaders. You can also control a creature and go on a rogue-like assault of a hostile force nearby to get loot.
Training an army
Some creatures learn spells in the library. Others gain levels by training against dummies in the training room and/or through real combat. Some creatures can train and learn spells, some can do neither. Better training facilities will get better results.
Invaders
Rumours about your dungeon will spread as it grows. These will attract recruits but can also attract invaders. Invaders may be out to plunder your gold, gain combat experience or just to assassinate your Keeper. Invaders may carry useful items to loot and can also help you gain combat experience. If you are overpowered by an invading force, such as a dragon you may need to evacuate your Keeper out of a back door. Sometimes invaders may call off an assault. Most invaders are capable of tracking your keeper across the map.
Exploring the Map
Directly control a minion by taking over its will. Explore the map using the arrow keys. Kill local monsters and tribes by commanding a party. New teams are set up by clicking “New team” on the Minions tab. Then select individual creatures to add them to the team. Select the minion you want to lead your party and click command to control them. Think carefully before trying to loot a dragon’s hoard or waking up a cyclops. Wolves naturally form their own teams. Some nocturnal animals will want to go out at night to hunt and also have good night vision.
Be careful while exploring, as you may bump into an unexpected situation. If you are lucky you will find friendly tribes you can recruit. You will also come across major enemies that you must defeat to win the game. Minor enemies that you can tolerate but may attack you occasionally and also small random settlements such as villages and inhabited caves, which will not be able to counter-attack against you. There are forest animals such as deer, foxes and boars. Don’t get killed by a dog while wandering about at level 5 with no weapons and armour!
Winning the game
Some monsters that you meet will be pleased to join your forces. Others will be hostile to you and perhaps hostile to the other settlements. Note that you may tolerate the existence of minor pests such as an old crazy cyclops. You must wipe out all the major forces on the tribes strip. There are some monsters such as dragons that may die when they invade you. You will normally need to go on the offensive at some point by forming a team and controlling a minion directly to kill all your rivals. Then you will get given a score, and that’s how to become a notorious villain in the world of KeeperRL.
Don’t forget to retire your dungeon (over an internet connection) to provide other people with the pleasure of bringing you to justice.
Enjoy!
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