So how does a young adventurer get started making a name for himself? Travel on epic quests to save the princess who was kidnapped by the evil wizard? Hunt down caves full of troll, orcs, goblins and assorted other nasties? Sounds like a lot of work and many days/weeks/months sleeping outside on the cold hard ground.

Why bother with all that, when you can simply bring the monsters to you? How do I do that Professor Venatus, you may ask? Build your own dungeon and the monsters will come. That is the idea behind the latest release for the PSP Dungeon Maker: Hunting Grounds from XSEED Games. A small village constantly threatened by monsters needs your help. You want to be a famous adventurer. Sounds like the perfect match. So you set out and build a dungeon to lure the monsters away and then you kill them for fun and profit.

It is a interesting twist on the action RPG and a real challenge. Straight hallways with a couple of rooms does not a dungeon make. How many dungeon crawls involved twisting passages, double backs and hallways to nowhere? Answer: All of them! And that is how the monsters like it. Think of it as a monsters worst nightmare. They find this nice labyrinth to settle down in, stash some treasure and get away from it all. Then you hunt them down, steal their treasure so you can fund expanding your dungeon.

The building supply store in town has all kinds if hallway shapes and room sizes. They also have room and hallway kits. These are used to change a small room to a guest room, complete with bed, wardrobe and assorted comforts. Hey, monsters need to sleep somewhere, right? Make a treasure room for the monsters to hide their stash (and for you to steal once you clean them out). Create a fountain room to supply fresh water to your guests.

Make a great dungeon and you just might attract the Wandering Demon (say final big boss kids). As you can guess there are so many different ways to build a dungeon, there is no one best way. I personally have a total play time of maybe 3 hours and I have maybe half of my first floor finished. One of the nice things is that if you have an area of the dungeon that is not attracting monsters, just pull it up and start over (which I have done several times). What are the odds you can make the perfect dungeon the first time?

Dungeon Maker: Hunting Grounds is a fun and intelligent addition to the PSP catalog of games.

Once I finish my first floor, I will post a picture and give you an idea of how well it works. Now get out there and start building your own monster hotel masterpiece. If you get a design that works well for you, let me know.

Prof. Venatus, Dungeon Maker at Large