Dwarves appear capable of making all manner of creations. Now, it’s up to you to guide them to make something even greater. Thanks to Hack the Publisher, this task comes to you in the form of Dwarven Skykeep. As a put-upon wizard, you must direct a number of dwarves to construct blocks to expand your tower. You can build in one of the four main directions and turn them into whatever room you have available. The biggest danger comes in the form of dangerous enemies who apparently have a real problem with towers. This means you’ll need to pull out every magic trick and send your dwarves into battle, all so you can build another day.
Why Build the Dwarven Skykeep?
Fantasy realms must be one of the hardest places to live — there’s always some form of calamity on the horizon. In Dwarven Skykeep, the Goblin hordes are sweeping across the lands and destroying all in their path. Even though the four governing bodies have powerful armies, they don’t get along and so are unable to unify for a common cause. So, while the land awaits the chosen hero to save the day, you take on the role of Sevendar the wizard. Your goal is to guide dwarves to build the legendary Skykeep and obtain any materials that will aid the war effort. There are a lot of buildups to look forward to here.
Strategic Card-Based Construction
You need a strong foundation to support a solid structure, and Dwarven Skykeep has a lot of that. The best support comes with how it combines cards and building. Each level deals out a random number of cards (with some guaranteed at the start) to begin and help plan your strategy. You’re encouraged to build new blocks and rooms to get new cards so you can build even more. It’s clean, simple, and surprisingly engaging. It becomes satisfying to complete even the smallest task and collect things (as Sevendar) to use as the occasion calls for it.
Then there’s the way that it makes you feel that you’re taking an active role in the tower’s construction. Even though Sevendar can’t build himself, he needs to take a personal interest in different facilities. You can take him out of the command center at any time to roam around the tower and explore the surrounding area. Each thing you collect feels useful in some way and the fact that you literally get to make your own magic to fight back gives it all new value.
Cracks in the Keep
Despite how solid you may make it, Dwarven Skykeep is not immune to wear and tear. The main crack comes in overall speed. You start off with only one dwarf and if you aren’t lucky enough to draw a brewery early, expansion is definitely going to take a while. There will also be a lot of times when you’ll have a huge tower, but Sevendar will still be limited to getting around on foot. This gets even more tedious when you have several rooms all doing something different while your rooms are on fire, flooding, and under assault from parachuting goblins. Let’s hope the card RNG is on your side, or you’ll be looking at a fair number of restarts.
Reach the Dwarven Skykeep
Dwarven Skykeep is a 2D pixel card-building management game about building and protecting a large tower. It has a very active take on the building and management with the challenging or randomized loadouts to encourage quick thinking. It can be a bit tedious on some levels if the RNG isn’t in your favor or Sevendar doesn’t have an efficient way to navigate. Still, if you fancy yourself a fantasy foreman, the dwarven skykeep could use your help.
