Video Game / Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War

Dungeon Maker II: The Hidden War is a Dungeon Crawling 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 The End of the World as We Know It.

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:

• Absent-Minded Professor: 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.
• Animal-Eared Headband: The female main character can wear nekomata ears as a hat item.
• Beast Man: Several types of enemies, including nekomatas and war tigers and the boar-like orcs.
• Big Bad: Revenger.
• Camp Straight: The museum Curator is straight, but also camp as Hell.
• Church Militant: Crimson the Divine Warrior. 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 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.
• Dangerous Deserter: 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.
• Dark Is Not Evil: 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.
• Dem Bones: Skeletons, skeleton wolves, giant skeletons... there are plenty of skeletal monsters.
• Distant Prologue: The war between humans and demons happened 70,000 years ago.
• The Dragon: 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.
• Dungeon Crawling: You even get to make your own!
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": 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.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: 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. 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. 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.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Niko, the magic shop owner's apprentice, is half witch. The male main character and Revenger are both half demon.
• Hidden Depths: Basically every one of the town NPCs in the game has lots of hidden depths which are explored whenever they give you quests.
• Hub Level: The town.
• Item Farming: 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.'
• Jerkass Gods: 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 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 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?
• Just Like Robin Hood: The noble thief witch enemy, who pillages the humans lands for treasure to give to poor demon children.
• Light Is Not Good: White orcs, apostate priests, and other holy monsters are just as evil and quick to try and kill you as any other enemy.
• Mistaken for Romance: 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, 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.
• The Mole: 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.
• Non-Human Sidekick: The genju.
• One-Winged Angel: Several bosses. 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.
• Our Centaurs Are Different: 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.
• Our Demons Are Different: They're mostly humanoid and even live on Earth with humans.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: 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.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: Gargoyles come in various elemental varieties and are quite skilled sword and shield fighters who use their statue forms to lure victims in close.
• Our Ghosts Are Different: 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.
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: As mentioned above, they sometimes spawn spirits upon death. They also come in various elemental varieties.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Far from the typical shrimpy guys, they look more like traditional orcs than goblins - big, burly green men with clubs.
• Our Gods Are Different: Some of the ancient ruins have the ghosts of gods in them, implying that the gods of Dungeon Maker can die. It turns out, however, that these aren't really gods, just more powerful demons.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: They're of the classic style, and also have incredible wind magic.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Dungeon Maker's ogres are actually more closely related to oni, rather than European ogres.
• Our Orcs Are Different: They're of neither Tolkienian nor Blizzard variety. They're actually 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.
• Power-Up Food: 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.
• Red Herring: 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 Big Bad that early.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red ogres and blue ogres.
• Revenge Before Reason: 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.
• Secret Test of Character: 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.
• Straight Gay: Niko. He seems to be a fairly normal little boy, except for the huge crush he has on the Dungeon Maker.
• This Is Unforgivable!: 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.
• Unreliable Narrator: 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.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Changing your armor actually changes your appearance, unlike in the game's predecessor.
• We Buy Anything: You can sell just about anything to any of the shops in town.
• Will They or Won't They?: 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.