Community maps worth playing

[Hades]

Working on a fix for "survival portal" (Your vampire is replaced with a knight, the free creatures are reduced in level, and the Multiply Creatures Bonus is harder to get._

That said, 416 "Return to Skyrbird Trill" is not even remotely winnable, as they expect you to fight a L10 Priestess and an L10 Monk with a few L5 Orcs. Meanwhile, you only have up to 9 creatures and can't access training rooms until late in the game. What makes it worse is that any minions that die don't return to the pool, and when the rival keeper joins the game, a massive swarm of knights attacks you.

[dayokay]

I think it was just for looks.

242 Lord of the Flies

It starts out interesting, but I lost and have no plans to load my save or try again. It has too many issues to recommend.
As you start out you can't build or create any imps. You have a single fly and imp, but you quickly gain 12 flies and can build a barracks. Using that - even though in KeeperFX creature fear doesn't work well and you can't actually attack the weak heroes you're supposed too - you can gain the ability to build and research. After that, it's all downhill. As soon as you claim an enemy room the lord of the land approaches with a massive force while you just have what's left of your flies and perhaps your first warlock or something and all you can do is quickly sell your single slap of bridge they spawn next too, or reload your save.
I managed to build up my dungeon a bit, but soon the enemy keeper digs into the heroes dungeon and gets destroyed. You'll then receive a second 'The LotL has arrived' message, which comes with an avatar and many level 10 heroes that spawn right in your dungeon, more then powerful enough to kill you. Other hero parties spawned across the map in case my 20 level 5 creatures would have been able to destroy the avatar and his elite squad.

I wrote that a long time ago. From memory I wanted a level that required the use of the barracks to get started. It's a bit of a 'one-trick pony' in that regard, and I have no recollection of what came afterwards. From your description it sounds impossible now. Is it worth fixing? Yourmaster says there are conflicting scripts too?

I'm enjoying reading single map reviews.

dayokay

[YourMaster]

I wrote that a long time ago. From memory I wanted a level that required the use of the barracks to get started. It's a bit of a 'one-trick pony' in that regard, and I have no recollection of what came afterwards. From your description it sounds impossible now. Is it worth fixing? Yourmaster says there are conflicting scripts too?

It was Hades who mentioned issues with the script, not me. However, I think you'd be better of starting from scratch with that same idea then trying to fix this level. Cause like I said, it starts interesting but there are too many problems to list.

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321 Cididal of Theives(Citadel of Thieves?)

This level has everything a keeper can dream of: All rooms/spells/traps available, gold and gems as far as the eye can see, a large creature pool and to top it of a slow trickle of heroes to bolster an army as powerful as you want it. However, that said, this level hasn't everything a player can dream of. It is lacking in challenge, story, charm, and last but not least, the 'some interesting things' mentioned in the level description.
Nothing wrong with the level though: Build up, navigate a long hallway of traps, kill the heroes, kill a keeper.

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404 Templars' Nightmare

The best map user made map I've played so far. It has some challenge, but is not overly difficult, and unlike most user-maps the difficulty doesn't come from stumbling upon a hero pocket which forces you to reload a save. You'll start with enough room to setup an initial dungeon and some resources to grow. The best part is the first keeper you have to defeat. It has a more powerful army then you, and you have no way to claim his dungeon until he is dead. Not having a prison and bridge in this level, and getting some of the other powerful rooms only later on makes it quite fun as this opponent is not easily abused.
Afterwards you'll have to press on towards a powerful keeper and some very strong hero parties.

The level is not perfect however. At the beginning of the map a rival keeper suddenly started scavenging all my creatures before I even had my temple researched, and than, without any reason, stopped doing so. After defeating the yellow keeper I was notified the lord of the land arrived probably over 20 times, and defeated easily as many knights and some avatars as well. After some point you'll simply get too powerful to stop, nothing can destroy a player who has 10 fully trained mistresses and an army of dragons, bile demons an vampires to back them up. Also, I accidentally managed to beat the level before facing the final hero force. KeeperFX allows you to see through corners in walls, and I used that to teleport my force on the enemy dungeon hearth. When reloading I managed to have the hero-party appear by allowing the script-timer to run out before I killed all heroes. This however is an easy fix in the script.

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302/405 YAMI

Yami is a complex level, and it must have taken quite a bit of effort making it. Unfortunately it has too many flaws. The player gets a choice of going east and defeating heroes, or south and defeating the blue keeper. It makes more sense to go south first as to get access to gems, but the level assumes you go the other way. By facing the keeper you get access to the powerful spells and rooms that make the level a snooze.
The center of the map is riddled with traps, you have a temple and a huge graveyard from blue, so unless you put a lock door on the graveyard you'll end up with dozens of vampires. And that is before the multiply-creature special comes into play. So no matter how many knight the game throws at you, they will melt against your army of vampires. The map takes a long time because of all the magic doors, lightning traps and boulders, I'm not sure if anybody enjoys cleaning those up.

And to make matters worse, if you don't take the route the level expects, you cannot win,... the final hero party shows up, but due to a scripting error you will never win the level even after killing every hero on the map. If you do want to give this level a shot, go east, not south and it should play out a lot better.

EDIT: The map has been updated based on the above feedback, and it now is a fun map to play. With the errors and annoyances fixed, and some tweaking of the difficulty this has become one of the best maps out there. See here.

[dayokay]

I'm glad you've resurrected this thread. It's good to know which maps are worth trying out. It occurs to me that maybe KeeperFX should bundle some of these levels? If they have been reviewed and 'approved' (whatever that might mean). This would mean that users can try out a single level with some confidence it'll be worthwhile. It would also allow the flaws to be fixed too? For example, the script error you highlight. If it was in the KeeperFX repository, anyone could submit a fix?

For my part I have recently tried MGR's DragonSlayer, a first person map, and it's great fun to play. Hard but not impossible. Highly recommended (it's in the download section here on this forum)

dayokay

PS a thought - there used to be a problem whereby when you play a single level the config files from the last campaign you played remained in effect. Has that been fixed?

[YourMaster]

I'm glad you've resurrected this thread. It's good to know which maps are worth trying out. It occurs to me that maybe KeeperFX should bundle some of these levels? If they have been reviewed and 'approved' (whatever that might mean). This would mean that users can try out a single level with some confidence it'll be worthwhile. It would also allow the flaws to be fixed too? For example, the script error you highlight. If it was in the KeeperFX repository, anyone could submit a fix?

For my part I have recently tried MGR's DragonSlayer, a first person map, and it's great fun to play. Hard but not impossible. Highly recommended (it's in the download section here on this forum)

dayokay

PS a thought - there used to be a problem whereby when you play a single level the config files from the last campaign you played remained in effect. Has that been fixed?

Sure, good levels could be bundled, or even combined into a campaign. So far there are very few people participating in trying out the maps, and I have tried a couple now, but can't say I have come across some real gems yet.
But I'm pretty sure that if we find 10 or 20 good single player maps, that people would play them.

And I don't know anything about that campaign-config bug.

I couldn't find Dragon Slayer map in the download section, but on Keeper.Lubiki I could:

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420 Dragon Slayer

I just played Dragon Slayer, and it must have played out differently for me than it did for you. You can choose which path to take to the top: I took the left one. I faced mostly archers, but I had the rebound spell so took 0 damage. As a level 10 knight no other creatures were a match for me, and I never even got below 50% health. In the center was a large party of Orcs, but I just walked past them through the lava.
In the end you face a level 10 dragon, but they are far weaker then knights. All in all, walk in the park for me.

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201 Songbrook

Works as advertised, simple but fun enough to play. Goes quite quickly, as the 3 other keepers start digging for your gold right away. Everybody has weak creatures(insects, trolls, demon spawn), which changes once you kill your first rival keeper and can start to use his temple. A small hero party also shows up at some point, but that would fair better against insects then they did against my bile demons.

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302 Vassago

I had high hopes for this map, as for what I've seen Duke Ragereaver puts a lot of effort into his maps. And indeed the map starts out challenging, you have to push out quickly to claim a portal or lose all your creatures to scavenging. Unfortunately this maps seems to be a bit too complex, as I was still relatively early into it when my game locked up due to the pathfinding bug]. I played it in 0.4.6.1895 so perhaps this is a new problem now the enemy keepers are more active than they have been in older versions.
Duke, if you're still out there, will play again if you can fix it. EDIT: I fixed it with the Trotim-fix. Map now plays like a dream.

And it's a great map, challenging, well designed, interesting. Absolutely one of the few gems out there. You play with little gold against distant enemy keepers that will bother you more and more. Try to get strong enough to defeat them before you get slowly picked apart by them.

Also see the original topic.

[Hades]

7117 Wetlands.

A very solid concept courtesy of YourMaster, where you feel like you are completing the pieces of a puzzle, and you really are challenged, but not overwhelmed. It's also interesting to have your "recruitment drive" strategy among heroes subverted, which makes it all the more worth playing

289 Middleground

Another brilliantly crafted level, where you have to fight your way to every advantage, and the threat scales to how powerful you become (for instance, after you acquire the prison, the heroes become a lot more difficult). However, there is one major problem: the Blue Keeper's abuse of boulder traps, making it virtually impossible to take the fight to them.

[YourMaster]

7117 Wetlands.

A very solid concept courtesy of YourMaster, where you feel like you are completing the pieces of a puzzle, and you really are challenged, but not overwhelmed. It's also interesting to have your "recruitment drive" strategy among heroes subverted, which makes it all the more worth playing

289 Middleground

Another brilliantly crafted level, where you have to fight your way to every advantage, and the threat scales to how powerful you become (for instance, after you acquire the prison, the heroes become a lot more difficult). However, there is one major problem: the Blue Keeper's abuse of boulder traps, making it virtually impossible to take the fight to them.

I made your maps clickable. I'll also give Middleground a try.
Based on your recommendation here I already played Titan.

254 Titan
I think it is a very enjoyable map, on which I think the core strategy is to get the heroes and keepers to fight each other. You have limited gold and no portal, but gold isn't really an issue as you have very little to spend it on. The map becomes a lot easier when you find the 'reveal map' special, as there are a lot of hidden specials around.
You can't build a lot of rooms, you have a small training room and a tiny prison, so this stops you from becoming too powerful.

I've played it in KeeperFX 0.4.6, but it should work in older versions and the original game no problem.

There is a scripting error in the map (version 1.3.0) though, as long as you own barracks hero parties keep spawning and you can't beat the map. I took the liberty to make a fix where the party is now on a timer, and I also added a level objective. Download the fixed version 1.4.0 here.

EDIT: The map database now also has the updated version(1.4.0).

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Edit: I've also given Middleground a try, I liked it but because you called it brilliant I had expected more. It begins very micro intensive, you don't get a portal until you don't need it anymore and you face small hero pockets which are stronger then the creatures you have to fight them with. However, you get a prison quite quickly, and the other powerful rooms shortly after which is when it snowballs out of control. Textbook really. You get so very powerful from your torture room that nothing matters anymore, large pockets of lvl10 heroes just add to your strenght. When I had about 80 level 10ish creatures I just cast CTA into blue dungeon and led the creatures to the dungeon hearth. I lost several skeletons to boulder traps, but who cares when you have many more and a prison full of potential new ones.
This is a very good map for people who like to build dungeons,... you get every room there is and a lot of creatures to fill them with.

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Ok. I have managed to complete Spearpike Ridge and while the level design is impressive the Heroes are a pushover.

I give this map a rating of 3 out of 5. It's only good because of the level design.

Ok, will leave this one alone then.

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369 Testemfil

This is a big map, it will take you several hours to complete, and it is quite difficult. The map has a very slow start, you have gems and need to research Destroy walls before you can do anything else than mine and train. During this time rival keepers will scavenge your creatures against which you have no defense. When you finally manage to break out you'll face 3 powerful keepers or an overwhelming force of heroes (avatars, knights, the works), but you don't have a prison, temple or graveyard to help you out.

The map is well constructed however, you have sight of evil and you can use it to explore. Hero gates are shown where parties spawn so you don't have to die. I don't know how the map is intended to play out, but I used Armageddon to kill all keepers at once and slowly pick at the remaining heroes. I think by doing this I missed out on much of the level, so it is best to find some other way to pick away at the keepers. Defeating them allows you to claim their powerful rooms and construct them for yourself, which makes the defeat of the heroes inevitable.

A key design element of the map are guardposts besides water/lava, which you'll run into time and time again and you can use for your own advantage as well. What's a bit strange on this map is that vampires and horned reapers come out of the portals. What's more than a bit strange is that knights have gotten a big health boost but are now afraid of everything causing them to flee all the time.

All said, even though the map could use some polish, the mapmaker knew what he was doing and it is certainly worth playing.

[darkkingkongman]

You should have a go at playing level 288 Jaggedkeep. I've just completed it. Both Keepers creatures regenerate. You have to convert heroes to swell your ranks until you train a massive army, then take on your rivals. You also have to enter battle to find even more help to the north of the map.

This is a map that's worth playing.

[Woudo]

One look at Amputation and you can tell the guy has fiddled with Deeper Dungeons map, Svatona.

[YourMaster]

You should have a go at playing level 288 Jaggedkeep. I've just completed it. Both Keepers creatures regenerate. You have to convert heroes to swell your ranks until you train a massive army, then take on your rivals. You also have to enter battle to find even more help to the north of the map.

This is a map that's worth playing.

Thanks for the recommendation, I've downloaded it. We can all take your word for it though that it is a good map. I see it's from the same author as Middleground which also came recommended.

One look at Amputation and you can tell the guy has fiddled with Deeper Dungeons map, Svatona.

I can't deny I had a very strong sense of deja vu on this map yes. The original was better but this one is a lot easier.

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202 Amputation

A map like all the others. To win destroy the hero heart and what is left of 3 rival keepers(they kill each other). You have loads of gems and can research temple, prison and torture room from the start. There are a lot of high level heroes on the map, including several avatars, but if you just keep imprisonment on, no matter what you do you'll win. You do need to keep making imps though, there are so many traps.
Tiny issue with some of the traps on the east side destroying the heroes instead of your imps, but I can live with that.

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204 Arrows

This map suffers from the pathfinding bug. So my game froze before I completed the level, played it in 0.4.6. So skip this one.
Level itself was fine before it crashed, nothing special. There is some lava and you get gems and all rooms to train up before you face some keepers and heroes, would have been very easy.

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205 Aggression

It is maps like this that give custom maps a bad name. It looks like a first attempt at playing with the level editor, no fun and not visually appealing. Don't play this level. It works, but there is no reason to play this map over any other, easy and boring.

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206 Syndika

A truly excellent map. I made a topic on what makes DK maps good, and this one ticks all the boxes. A few traps but within reason, you're under pressure constantly but the difficulty isn't overwhelming. You don't get a prison so you don't grow too powerful and you get two gem faces later on but most of your gold comes from killing heroes(which you can't stop from reaching you). You also have an interesting space to build your dungeon. The map looks nice and natural and there are some objectives. There is a big final fight which you should be able to just win. It really does everything right.

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207 Kzelbatu

From the same maker as Syndika, another very good, well constructed map. It plays completely different though, this map is a lot slower, you start out with almost no money and the gold on the map is protected by heroes. There are multiple strategies but I used my workshop for gold and my scavenger room to get a lot of Samurai, which takes a while. Still starting out gold was so low that I trained my Tentacles and Warlocks by having them sleep next to water/unmined gold. There are many places with strong heroes and no sight of evil, and there is no obvious right way to go, so you have to proceed carefully. The map is certainly worth playing, but save it when you're looking for a long game.
The amount of creatures on the map is close to the creature limit, with the creatures from the portal I could build just 12 imps until I hit it. No problem as I just had to proceed a little bit to kill some heroes on the map and it played problem free from there on. Sometimes you are warned that hero parties attack you, it would have been nice for the objective-eye to point to where they are as it is a big map.

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217 Imhotep

Horrible map, worst one I've played so far. Play this only if you feel the first 5 levels of the campaign are too difficult. Your portal limit is 75, start with about 15 blocks of gems at your dungeon heart, can research everything, reapers in the pool, enough space to build, you are not attacked at all. One thing was attempted though, a very powerful skeleton at the end of the level as a final boss,... hits harder than any creature in the game and as much health as a bile demon. Naturally that means all your skeletons are just as powerful so if the reapers that come from the portal are not helpful enough just convert everything to skeletons.
The fun bit is a big patch of lightning traps and boulders behind magic doors.

218 Hell-Mines, 219 Archer Attack and 220 Word of power are from the same author and look similar. No way I'm playing these.

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226 ScavengeThis

Short map, fun, worth playing. Centered around a core gimmick: Scavenging. No dungeon keeping involved. You are mirrored with the blue keeper, have vampires, bile demons and a scavenger room. Right away though blue will provoke you and you'll notice vampires can't kill each other (to much heal, not enough damage) so you have to balance fighting, scavenging and using imps to claim each others rooms. You get all the spells and abilities you need to make scavenging more effective.
Would also be fun as a multiplayer map.

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230 Midsnog-Feels

This level also suffers from the pathfinding bug in KeeperFX 0.4.6. Two keepers who make a lot of rooms, combined with a lot of lava in the center causes this. I managed to play it almost until the end, and enjoyed it even though it is really easy. Skip it though until the bug is fixed.
The center of this map has lots of gold and gems, but before you can get to it or the enemy keepers you have to claim the Destroy-walls spell. You have easily enough gold on your side off the map to train your creatures to easily defeat the heroes guarding it. Once you use the spell to get to the center gold you should have enough vampires/mistresses/reapers/dragons to easily destroy the two keepers and their armies with lots of insects, trolls and demon spawn.

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231 Keepsafe

From the same author as map 230, it plays basically the same. Your walled in with a few heroes and some gold so take your time to build up, claim the destroy walls spell to get access to a massive hero fortress with lots of traps (centered in water instead of lava this time) where you'll find a the four powerful rooms and more gems. This causes you to have an impossible powerful army, which you can use to quickly and easily destroy two walled in keepers. Easy, but nice for players who like to build and not worry about anything.
I've managed to play this map without suffering from the pathfinding bug. However as soon as you load Keepsafe 1.2.0 you'll have won the game due to a scripting error. To be able to play the level change line 239 from map00231.txt from 'IF(ALL_PLAYERS,DUNGEON_DESTROYED == 1)' to 'IF(PLAYER0,ALL_DUNGEONS_DESTROYED == 1)'.

EDIT: The version that's online now(1.3.0) has this fixed.

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232 Walldowns

From the same author as map 230/231, this is the first map he made but also the most fun one. Unfortunately it(version 1.0.0) also has problems that would have been easily fixed if it was playtested. The script misses an Endif on the last line, add this to map00232.txt before you play it. More problematic is that to win the map you need to kill the LotL, which doesn't show up. Looking at the script you have to trigger action point 3, which is really small and against rock. I had to open the map in an editor to find it, could not trigger it by dropping creatures until I locked creatures in the room and used wind to blow them against it. If Action Point 3 was larger it would all work fine.
Beyond this the map is similar to the other two, an area for you to start out, an area with heroes and a keeper. You just get the prison much later and more is happening so you don't get overpowered as quickly as on the other maps. I used traps to defeat the heroes. Worth playing after a fix.

EDIT: The version online now has the fix (2.0.0).

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233 Thunder Trilliance

This map is made by Lquiz and he describes it as 'very hard', which I don't think it is. Nowhere near as hard as the undead keeper campaign levels for example. What it is however is a well made map where you have two options: Slowly pick away at three powerful keepers or with very limited gold slowly train up to be stronger than they are. The 3 keepers are well fortified on the other side of the lava lake and have 50 creatures between them. Some vampires and mistresses but also many weaker creatures. Their hearths are linked so you can't take one out without fighting the others. Your portal limit is 16 but you have a 'multiply creature special'. However you only have a single side of gems which is hardly enough for payday, let alone train them so your gold comes from the workshop. There is nothing else to do on the map but fight them. I managed to convert two high level vampires to my cause in addition to my own, had a knight and several reapers before I duplicated my creatures and went for the frontal assault to simply take them all out with hardly any casualties. All in all, if you know how to make money from a workshop and save your dungeon special for the right time you should have no problem to win the map.

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234 Invaders!

The description of this map says it is a beginners level, but it is not. Beginners will have much more fun playing the original campaign, this is a power fantasy. You'll have infinite gold, countless increase level specials, can claim high level neutral heroes including an avatar straight away and have all rooms and spells. There are no enemies on the map except for a rival keeper that is set to do nothing. No reason to play this.

I am assuming 235 The Lava Hole is the same so skipping that.

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236 Long walk

This map is advertised as a first-person map, but I did not use possession at all. You'll have imps that claim the dungeon so you can just drop your creatures where they need to be. Besides this, the map is broken. You have to kill all heroes to win, but most of the heroes only spawn when you trigger action points. I was at the very beginning of the map when I suddenly won. This is because all the locked doors disappear when you destroy the white hearth(first thing you do) so the heroes that are on the map come to you. Map can be fixed by replacing the white doors with neutral doors.