Dwarven Skykeep

The construction of castles and towers is a serious job. There are calculations to be made, resources to be gathered, and workers to recruit. If even one of these aspects lacks in some way, you could be facing a structure that comes tumbling down on your head. Unless you’re playing Dwarven Skykeep. Then you’ll probably be faced with all kinds of supernatural silliness and card-based shenanigans.

Dwarven Skykeep is a funny resource management game that was developed by Hack the Publisher and published by Ravenage Games. In it, players will be whisked away to a magical pixel art world where drunken dwarves build towers using nothing but their wits and a magical deck of cards. Sounds pretty cool, right? If that description has you hankering for more info about Dwarven Skykeep, here is everything you need to know.

Card-Based Construction

The story of Dwarven Skykeep centers on a mysterious magician named Dr. Sevendar Kness. His sudden arrival in Dwarven City turns more than a couple heads, but the wily sorcerer refuses to give up the details of his mission. In order to find out his true purpose, you resolve to help him construct towers using a deck of magical cards.

You’ll choose the cards you use before each level, and those will be the only cards you get for that round. Therefore, it is important to carefully select your cards to avoid dire situations in the middle of a round.

Not Just Building

You won’t just be building towers and castles for your Dwarven brethren. No, your job extends into the defense, repairing and upgrading od each tower as well! With the help of both Dwarves and Gnomes, you’ll engage in combat to defend your castle walls, craft tools to upgrade facilities, and even put out fires (both literal and figurative). It’s kind of like FTL: Advanced Edition, but with a fantasy twist.

All of the Dwarves and Gnomes are happy to be under your command, at first. In order to keep them happy and working hard, you’ll need to keep them running with a steady supply of the beings’ favorite fuel: beer! As long as they have beer in their bellies, they’ll conquer any objective you give them.

Multiple Wondrous Worlds

As Dr. Kness’s faithful assistant, you’ll follow him wherever he goes to aid in his tower construction. In the case of Dwarven Skykeep, that means you’ll travel to 5 unique worlds, each of which will have a unique twist that your constructions will need to take into consideration.

Pros

• Adorable pixel-art styling
• Intuitive mechanics with plenty of options
• Great story and characters
• Each world puts a unique spin on gameplay and forces players to adapt
• Card system is unique

Cons

• Once you figure out the mechanics, the game can be quite short