Video Game / Suzukuri Dungeon: Karin in the Mountain

When Kazuto, an ordinary adventurer with a shtick for Dungeon Crawling, considered taking odd jobs after the rest of his party quit after a disastrous adventure, a mysterious girl by the name of Fuu reaches out to him to propose him a job of exploring a seemingly empty dungeon. However, it is revealed to be a Secret Test of her doing, discovering his talent for evading traps and his knowledge of dungeons: Fuu turns out to be a demon from Gyunguska Inc, who leads Kazuto to a dungeon hidden beneath Mt. Giou, where he finds himself face to face with Karin, the Demon Queen of legend, and is promptly asked to free her from her prison by destroying its six magic seals within the mountain.

After losing a bet to her, Kazuto is now obligated to work towards Karin's freedom by earning money to finance the excavations, but instead of adventuring, he's entrusted to build a dungeon through Fuu's powers to shake down adventures and steal their money: Fuu noticed his love for dungeons, and recruited him with this criteria on mind, despite his lack of experience in battles. As Kazuto becomes accustomed to his new job and gets to know more about the Demon Queen, he will also meet many colorful demons and adventurers along the way, forming strong bonds with them, and maybe more...All the while digging deeper through the layers of the mountain to break the seals.

Suzukuri Dungeon: Karin in the Mountain (巣作りカリンちゃん, Suzukuri Karin-chan) is a dungeon management game with Visual Novel elements developed by KarinProject (a branch of BaseSon, known for the Koihime†Musou series of Visual Novels) and SofthouseChara, putting the player in the shoes of Kazuto, who's tasked to build dungeons in order to get as much money from adventurers as possible to free Karin, the Demon Queen who was sealed for more than a millenia. It is a Spiritual Successor of two games: Suzukuri Dragon, which takes a similar approach in gameplay, focused on building and managing a dungeon to protect a treasure from adventurers, and Bunny Black, involving an adventurer who's recruited by the Demon Queen in exchange for protecting her from adventurers. First released in Japan in late 2019, the game got an official English release in June 2021 by Shiravune.

Most of the game is spent within the walls of Mt. Giou, the place in which Karin's spirit resides. As the master of the dungeon, Kazuto must use every resource as his disposition to build a dungeon able to fend off adventurers, manage his own troops, while also paying attention to its difficulty: Unfair dungeons would dissuade adventures from coming in, while easy dungeons would just end up with all of the hoard being emptied.

See also Koihime†Musou, a series of Visual Novels (and adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms) in which most of the game's characters originate from.

Suzukuri Dungeon: Karin in the Mountain features the following tropes:

• Adaptational Skimpiness: With the exception of Fuu and Keifa, all of the characters from Koihime†Musou have lighter clothing.
• Adventure-Friendly World: The setting happens to be a relatively tame place for adventuring and exploring dungons. Karin also makes a point of building a fun dungeon to explore in order to lure more adventurers in the mountain.
• Call to Adventure: The story starts with Kazuto desperately searching for a job, and his meeting with Fuu which kickstarts the plot when he decides to help her collect money to free the Demon Queen.
• Cast of Expies: The vast majority of the characters are directly taken from the Koihime†Musou series.
• Dungeon-Based Economy: Downplayed. Dungeon Crawling is part of the local economy, but not a major one as other jobs exists for retired adventurers, and dungeons near towns are usually emptied, with no treasures left in it. As for Karin and her servants, they get money by luring adventurers with her treasures, then taking their money after beating them up, thus contributing to the reputation of her dungeon, attracting even more adventurers with more riches and so on.
• A Dungeon Is You: The main objective of the game, which requires to build and manage a dungeon in order to get money and advance the story.
• In Name Only: With the exception of the characters who share the same name and design from their original series, Suzukuri Dungeon take place in a completely new and unrelated setting.
• Our Demons Are Different: Demons have a very similar appearance to humans, with some distinctive features like pointy ears and horns.
  • Pointy Ears: All of the demons of the game has them.
  • Horned Humanoid: May vary depending on the individual.
• Spiritual Successor: Suzukuri Dungeon is a modern adaptation of Suzukuri Dragon, an old dungeon builder with Eroge elements from 2004.
• Standard Fantasy Setting: The story takes place in a fairly classic medieval world with adventurers, monsters and magic, including demonkind living in relative coexistence with humans, who also happen to have its own culture and civilization.
• Transplanted Character Fic: Most of the main characters are directly taken from Koihime†Musou, keeping their private name and overall personality.