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While it (sadly) doesn't yet have proper Native Linux support, it's still great to see more open source remakes like this and Dungeon Keeper is a true classic. KeeperFX has hit the big 1.0!

Originally released in 1997 from Bullfrog Productions and released by Electronic Arts. The developers on KeeperFX say the main goal is to preserve and expand upon the original Dungeon Keeper experience, offering many new features, improvements, and much more while staying true to the original feeling of the game.

You should hopefully be able to run it with Wine, but perhaps with more eyes on it people can work towards getting it running properly on Linux?

Current features:

  • Windows 7/10/11 support.
  • Higher screen resolutions.
  • Modernized controls.
  • Many bugfixes.
  • Additional campaigns and maps.
  • New level script commands.
  • New creatures, textures and sprites.
  • Multiplayer.
  • And much more!

See more on the official site and GitHub. Much like other remakes it needs the original data files which you can grab on GOG.com.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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7 comments

dpanter Nov 14, 2023
The gods are pleased with your sacrifice.
Brokatt Nov 14, 2023
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Quoting: dpanterThe gods are pleased with your sacrifice.

It is payday!

*Looks at the treasury*

Uh-Oh...
emphy Nov 14, 2023
For now, my preferred method for adding KeeperFX to the heroic games launcher is:

1. Use the innoextract utility to unpack the gog dungeon keeper install file into a temporary folder.
2. extract the keeperfx file into a directory into my games directory, sideload (with the add game option) keeperfx.exe into heroic with the -nocd launch option.
3. in heroic, in keeperfx's settings, run the launcher.exe file from keeperfx's directory. Point it to the unpacked files from step 1. You may also change keeperfx's settings such as game resolution and language here.
4. Copy the ogg files from the folder from step 1 to keeperfx's music directory (don't forget this if you want music!).
5. delete the temporary folder from step 1, keep the keeperfx folder untouched.
6. add thumbnail of choice. I did some creative cropping from the banner on keeperfx's homepage.
7. sacrifice a chicken each time the game is launched.

From what I gather, the devs are also working on the launcher directly obtaining game data from the gog install file. So this should soon become less involved.

Alternatively, the relatively quick&easy method would be to install dungeon keeper directly in the launcher, extract keeperfx's files into the installation directory, run the keeperfx's launcher file (via dungeon keeper's settings in heroic) to copy over the data, manually copy the ogg files to keeperFX's music folder, and set keeperfx.exe to run by default, with the -nocd option, in dungeon keeper's settings (in heroic).

Either way, keeperFX is running like a dream for me with the latest heroic-provided version of proton-ge.


Last edited by emphy on 14 November 2023 at 2:01 pm UTC
DamonLinuxPL Nov 14, 2023
Well it should works on Linux as native or should be at almost working state.
There is few related pull requests, like this: https://github.com/dkfans/keeperfx/pull/2373
But that all require manually compiling.
wvstolzing Nov 14, 2023
I used to use KeePassXC; though I eventually migrated to password-store. It's quite a bit simpler.

Unless.... oh.... sorry I thought... nevermind.
Cyril Nov 14, 2023
I'll wait for the Linux native/AUR package.
But it's great!
vox Nov 16, 2023
This is THE BEST news. I encourage anyone to play Dungeon Keeper and this project makes it so much approachable. Old Bullfrog games were exceptional and ground-braking, Dungeon Keeper is just in another league anyway. Ignore the second one or any other stuff (except War for the Overworld, which is a very good faith stab at the formula, but it lost some of the essence in the process I think).

Sadly, DK suffers heavily from UFO Defence/XCOM syndrome - none of the sequels, remakes or attempts to modernize were in vain. Yes, the new XCOM from Firaxis is very popular and a good game, but it's completely different to the original.

Something was lost in the game design from that time. I get the critique of DK and XCOM: there's many dated design decisions, cheesy tactics, imbalance that redesigners are trying to fix for some reason, but I think there's some genius element in all of the messy designs of old that was discarded in current game making. Or maybe I'm just an old chunk of coal in nostalgia coated glasses. That's for you to decide, but I would strongly recommend playing the original Dungeon Keeper if you haven't seen it. There's something uniquely meditative and zen-like in it for you, there's the great mess and stress of minion control if you want. There's a soul of Bob Ross painting approach in it - "There are no mistakes, just happy accidents". Not so happy for the king's clergy, but that besides the point.
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