[[quoteright:287:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dungeon-maker-ii-the-hidden-war_8823.jpg]]

''Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War'' is a DungeonCrawling action RPG created by Global A Entertainment and published by UFO Interactive.

Seventy thousand years ago the world was ruled by the gods, who claimed that humans should have dominion over their own lives, yet still enslaved them and enforced their own will on them. The demons stood up against the gods' hypocrisy and for their heresy the gods declared war on them. Over the next forty days they called down tsunamis, lightning, and meteors and wiped out almost every human and demon in existence. Still, the demons had made their point. The gods and demons made peace and allowed what was left of humanity to live in freedom. This treaty would last for exactly 70,000 years.

Now the treaty is over. Most of the gods, demons, and humans are content to let the peace and freedom continue, but one demon is too obsessed with pride to let the gods' victory stand. He calls himself Revenger and he's determined to restart the war against the gods, even if it means TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

As the new Dungeon Maker for the town of Kalliope your job is to build a dungeon fit for Revenger himself, to lure him and his fellow monsters in, and to kill them in the name of world peace. To aid in this quest are the town guard's granddaughter who wants to become the apprentice of a Dungeon Maker (and who becomes playable later in the game) and a small, transforming monster called a genju, as well as the various townspeople of Kalliope.

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!! ''Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War'' contains examples of:

* AbsentMindedProfessor: Greg the apothecary. He's brilliant and capable of making potions even the royal alchemists haven't figured out, but he's also forgetful and silly. He even dresses the part: long, messy hair, button up shirt that's improperly buttoned, and dark gray lab coat thrown on as an afterthought.
* AnimalEaredHeadband: The female main character can wear nekomata ears as a hat item.
* BeastMan: Several types of enemies, including [[{{Catgirl}} nekomatas]] and [[CatFolk war tigers]] and the boar-like orcs.
* BigBad: Revenger.
* CampStraight: The museum Curator is straight, but also camp as Hell.
* ChurchMilitant: Crimson the Divine Warrior. [[spoiler: Subverted, though. He claims to work for the gods, but is revealed to actually be a demon.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: The Curator of the museum. He's [[CampStraight campy as all getout]], plus is lacking in basic knowledge and common sense and constantly coming up with ridiculous theories to explain things everyone else already knows. Case in point: at one point he theorizes that snakes shed their skin because they can't use moisturizer cream, so when their skin dries out they just take it off. When he discovers the real reason (snake skin isn't stretchy and snakes will outgrow it) he treats it as if it's a major scientific discovery.
* DangerousDeserter: The corrupt warrior and samurai enemies are stated to be this according to their description in the town museum. They used to be soldiers in the eastern demonic lands but they fled and came to pillage the human lands as bandits.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Niko the half witch. The Professor who runs the magic shop even tells you at one point that healing and holy spells are especially difficult for Niko since he specializes in dark magic. Despite this he's one of the nicest characters in the game.
** The Dungeon Maker also qualifies, being as he's half demon.
* DemBones: Skeletons, skeleton wolves, giant skeletons... there are plenty of skeletal monsters.
* DistantPrologue: The war between humans and demons happened 70,000 years ago.
* TheDragon: [[spoiler: Crimson is Revenger's right hand man, at least according to Revenger and several demon ghosts. Although he does admit to being evil later, he goes to his grave denying that he ever actually served Revenger.]]
* DungeonCrawling: You even get to make your own!
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: A few of the townsfolk, including the Professor who runs the magic shop, and the museum Curator. Lampshaded in a conversation with the Curator, in which he tells you that his name is Alexander Poposbos the 17th.
* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Demon culture is a mirror image of feudal era Japan.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: Early in the game you hear stories of a rampaging dragon on the loose that ends up dying in a battle with the royal navy, after being shot down and landing on a ship's mast. [[spoiler: On floor 8 you fight an undead dragon with a ship's mast impaled through it from shoulder to thigh.]]
* {{Foil}}: The Dungeon Maker and Revenger are both half demon, but while the Dungeon Maker identifies more with his human side Revenger identifies much more with his demon side. [[spoiler: Eventually Revenger chooses to forsake his humanity entirely in order to become a giant demonic monster, during the final battle between him and the Dungeon Maker.]]
* HalfHumanHybrid: Niko, the magic shop owner's apprentice, is half witch. The male main character and Revenger are both half demon.
* HiddenDepths: Basically every one of the town [=NPCs=] in the game has lots of hidden depths which are explored whenever they give you quests.
* HubLevel: The town.
* ItemFarming: So, so much. Food is one of the biggest, since the players raise their stats by eating and most food items have to be gathered from dungeon creatures. It's also required to grind for items to boost the stats of some items, such as shields and the stat-boosting root sprites. There's also a lot of farming required to gain normal items too, thanks to a system where the drop rate of an item is much lower until after the first time you collect that item.'
* JerkassGods: And how! 70,000 years ago they wiped out 90% of humanity to defeat the demons, and even in the present it's stated they would gladly kill 100,000 humans to defeat one rebellious demon. Although it turns out [[spoiler: the actual gods didn't do squat. The "gods" that wiped out most of humanity in the past were also demons, just demons that happened to be a little higher on the ladder than the ones they killed]].
** Special mention has to go to a god ghost that you meet in the wind ruin. The wind ruin was once a thriving city, until a demon started turning the citizens of the city into plant monsters. The demon was killed and the people of the city turned the demon's twisted garden into a memorial to their lost loved ones. The god that watched over the city believed they should have destroyed the garden and forgotten about their loss instead, and for the "crime" of not doing that he ''[[KillItWithFire burned the entire population alive]]''. Even as a ghost he remains completely unrepentant for this.
---> '''Dungeon Maker:''' So you killed them for the crime of mourning their loved ones and liking flowers?
* JustLikeRobinHood: The noble thief witch enemy, who pillages the humans lands for treasure to give to poor demon children.
* LightIsNotGood: White orcs, apostate priests, and other holy monsters are just as evil and quick to try and kill you as any other enemy.
* MistakenForRomance: Judging by his dialog upon meeting the Apprentice in the Fire Ruin, Crimson apparently is under the impression she's the Dungeon Maker's ''wife'', [[spoiler:which is why he wants to kill her; he knows he's too weak to kill the Dungeon Maker, but he figures killing his hated enemy's wife is just as good.]]
* TheMole: [[spoiler: Crimson, who pretends to befriend the Dungeon Maker, but really only wants to help him create a dungeon in the hopes that he can use it as his own base of operations.]]
* NonHumanSidekick: The genju.
* OneWingedAngel: Several bosses. [[spoiler: Enenra the smoke demon transforms into a dog head monster during the battle with her. Revenger does this as well, forsaking his human side to become a full demon monster.]]
* OurCentaursAreDifferent: They're skilled with the lance and unlike most examples of centaurs they wear regular clothes, at least on the human half of their bodies.
* OurDemonsAreDifferent: They're mostly humanoid and even live on Earth with humans.
* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: The only dwarf in the game is Fatnose, who works in the town armory and frequently begs the Dungeon Maker to let him dig holes in the dungeon.
* OurGargoylesRock: Gargoyles come in various elemental varieties and are quite skilled sword and shield fighters who use their statue forms to lure victims in close.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: Ghost-type creatures come in two varieties: the shadowy cloaked specters that are actually called ghosts, and spirits which look like big fiery balls with faces, and sometimes spawn from defeated ghouls.
* OurGhoulsAreCreepier: As mentioned above, they sometimes spawn spirits upon death. They also come in various elemental varieties.
* OurGoblinsAreDifferent: Far from the typical shrimpy guys, they look more like traditional orcs than goblins - big, burly green men with clubs.
* OurGodsAreDifferent: Some of the ancient ruins have the ghosts of gods in them, implying that the gods of ''Dungeon Maker'' can die. [[spoiler: It turns out, however, that these aren't really gods, just more powerful demons.]]
* OurGryphonsAreDifferent: They're of the classic style, and also have incredible wind magic.
* OurOgresAreHungrier: ''Dungeon Maker'''s ogres are actually more closely related to oni, rather than European ogres.
* OurOrcsAreDifferent: They're of neither Tolkienian nor Blizzard variety. They're actually [[BeastMan humanoid boars]] with a love for spears. They also like to hang out in kitchens, since in orc culture using metal cookware is considered a sign of sophistication.
* PowerUpFood: There is no levelling up in the game (except for the genju's transformations), instead the player raises their stats by eating their daily meal, which gives permanent stat increases based on which meal the player eats.
* RedHerring: The Dungeon Maker lures the Blackguard into floor 2 of the dungeon thinking he's Revenger. Needless to say he's not, if only because there's no way the game would have you defeat the BigBad that early.
* RedOniBlueOni: The red ogres and blue ogres.
* RevengeBeforeReason: Pretty much Revenger's entire motivation. He knows challenging the gods will bring about the destruction of the world, but he doesn't care - he just can't stand the idea that the demons lost a fight.
* SecretTestOfCharacter: In one sidequest, you receive word of a demon samurai named Shingen who deserted and fled to the human lands. Since the Dungeon Maker doesn't want to kill him if he plans to live in peace, the Town Guard comes up with a plan to give the samurai a test involving a tea ceremony room; in demon culture starting a fight in a tea house is the height of dishonor, and so if Shingen attacks the Dungeon Maker on sight they'll know he's evil. Needless to say, he fails the test.
* StraightGay: Niko. He seems to be a fairly normal little boy, except for the huge crush he has on the Dungeon Maker.
* ThisIsUnforgivable: [[spoiler: When Crimson shows up in the earth ruin and tries to convince the Dungeon Maker to murder Niko. This is the point where the Dungeon Maker officially goes from merely distrusting Crimson to outright hating him.]]
* UnreliableNarrator: Although the game itself doesn't have a narrator, this does apply to the enemy descriptions when viewing them in the museum. Assuming they're all written by the Curator, a ridiculous {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, it's impossible to know if what it says about the enemies is true or just made up nonsense.
* VirtualPaperDoll: Changing your armor actually changes your appearance, unlike in the game's predecessor.
* WeBuyAnything: You can sell just about anything to any of the shops in town.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: The female main character and Greg the apothecary. She doesn't think she's worthy to approach the genius apothecary. He's too bumbling and shy to say how he really feels for her.