Evil Genius demo available

[Trippy]

Official download:
http://www.howevilareyou.com/us/downloads.jsp

Other download sites:
http://www.ggmania.com/?smsid=16745

The game is basically Dungeon Keeper meets Austin Powers with you playing the role of Dr. Evil. Demo is unfortunately only one mission so it's pretty short. Interface is a bit wonky and their texture artists need to take "How to create seamless tiling textures 101" but it looks like it could be fun.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the game has gone gold with a release date of September 28.

[Alluvian]

I found it very annoying.  No ability to make a room larger once it is completed.  That is just retarded.  The only opion is to destroy it and everything in it and then rebuild it from scratch.  Very lame.

Also, people can't move through blocked diagonal squares, even when visually the game depicts many of these as HUGE openings where they can walk through.  Drives me nuts.  I had one side of my beds blocked by a fridge in the barricks (had to add extra beds later and could not increase the room size) and all my men would get up on the wrong side of the bed after resting.  So within a few minutes of making that mistake my entire minion army was trapped in their own barricks panicking.  Fucking stupid AI.  Then the game crashed when I tried to destroy the room to remake it (repeatable crash).

What is the deal with corpses as well?  My guys try to drag them to the freezer, but the rather large freezer fills with corpses in minutes and the forces attacking are nonstop leaving dozens of bodies everywhere.  It is annoying.

I am less than impressed with my play so far.  It is very dungeon masterlike wiht worse AI and more AI to deal with.  Also no way to directly affect the AI like you could in dungeon master.

Not being able to resize rooms and AI dumb enough to get trapped in a paper bag is pretty game ending for me though.

[Zetleft]

The AI was pretty dumb but I had no problem making the rooms larger so I have no idea what you talking about there.  Just right click on the piece of rock you want blown up and select the same room type to make it bigger.  Didn't have to get rid of the existing room when I did it, expanded my barracks several times and the armory as well.  

Don't see why an enemy agent can walk right past all my security who do nothing to stop them unless I tell them too, or go red alert.  You would think the workers would do something instead of letting a guy plant explosives inside my base, producing fires that only one type of unit can put out.  

Had alot of problems just trying to interrogate my prisoner too.  I was not impressed and I was really excited about this game too.

[Alluvian]

I will try abit more to expand the rooms.  Must have been missing something.

Just not a very impressive game.  The quality of the ingame models are just awful.  Just not impressive to me on any level.  I found Ghostmaster more fun than this, and frankly I think that sucked.

[Arnold]

I enjoyed the game.  The FAQ addresses a lot of the concerns voiced in this thread, such as poor AI and too many intruding agents.  After playing the demo and reading up on some of the features, it looks to have some very deep and compelling gameplay.

[MrHat]

Dungeon Keeper 2005

You can't go wrong.  I just finished the demo and had great fun.  Only thing that bothered me is that the spies can just run amok in my base and my minions do nothing!

[Zetleft]

I was really annoyed by that as well but I noticed on their web page that in the full game you can place security cameras (and guards monitoring them) with speakersystems that alert your nearby minions of the intrusion.  Seem like they left out alot of stuff like that and traps that could really expand on the game.

The demo kinda soured me but looking at their feature list a TON of stuff was left out, plus in the full game I don't think you get attacked as much... at least not at the start of the game as its gotta let you build up somewhat first.

[Murgos]

Apparently its a balanacing act between doing your evil best to take over the world and not getting too much heat so that all the secret agents don't come snooping for you.  Hence hiding body bags in freezers, if you click on a body bag you see that it has 2 heat.  I guess when its in a freezer it doesn't count against you.

From what I read in the final game you will have to have your front which is an amusement park to conduct your operation out of with your secret base hidden underneath it.  So you wil have layers of defenses before they get near your base.  First they probably have no interest in you but then after you have built up some heat you might have to distract the agents while they are still wandering around the amusement park so thatl they get bored and wander off or do other things.  If thats not working then you will probably need to take more active measures.

I imagine running battles in the amusement park are a no no.

[Arnold]

Dungeon Keeper 2005

You can't go wrong.  I just finished the demo and had great fun.  Only thing that bothered me is that the spies can just run amok in my base and my minions do nothing!

That's because they are infiltrators.  Your peons just don't see them because they are stealthing.  However, being the Evil Genius, you can spot them and choose to do what you wish.  In the FAQ, they even mentioned a situation where you might want to just let them roam and they'd eventually leave after finding nothing.  They find nothing to blow up and you lose no peons.

[Arnold]

The demo kinda soured me but looking at their feature list a TON of stuff was left out, plus in the full game I don't think you get attacked as much... at least not at the start of the game as its gotta let you build up somewhat first.

Yes.  Only the factions that you've generated enough heat with will send agents to infiltrate your base.  However, once you build your doomsday device and blackmail the world, they ALL attack you, and probably in a coordinated manner.

[eldaec]

I rather enjoyed it - seemed to suggest the real game is about building impenetrable yet functional bases, and withstanding attacks.

This is a step up from DK2, where really it was really the same as any RTS, about building a base for support as quickly as possible, then zerging the opposing dungeon.

EDIT: Also, is it just me, or is Number 2, in fact, Cate Archer?

[Arcadian Del Sol]

You have to keep this in mind: the traditional foil of every evil genius, and usually the only thing that stops him from success, is a cast of supporting minions that are dumber than a bag of hammers.

Having a cast of halpless security guards sounds pretty authentic to me.