This is your first and most important tip: leave My Pet Dungeon well alone, at least to begin with. Sure, it's the quietest and easiest way to use all the tools at your disposal, but playing through the campaign is a much better way to learn the basics. Then you can start messing around with the advanced rooms.
And why is this such an important point? Allow us to explain. In My Pet Dungeon, you have an almost infinite amount of gold, which is a luxury you'll rarely enjoy in the game. It's far more important to learn how to strike a balance between facilities and cash flow. Every mission is different. Those with short time limits encourage the fast building of large dungeons, while the others tend to require careful planning, not least because an hour's level time means many pay days and you'd better have the spare dosh to cover them.
Dungeon building is the most important skill, and provided you aren't limited by awkward solid rock, you should try to perfect the process with each new attempt.
At the start of the level, take your time to consult the map. Consider which facilities are most important for the level, and concentrate on building them. Avoid putting up more than one room in an open space, since most will need walls as well as floors.
Ideally, your rooms should be close to and surrounding the dungeon heart, so that your creatures can intercept invaders before they reach your inner sanctum. Most of the time, you can link the rooms with a corridor so that your creatures can move about quickly and easily. But if the level looks set for a major enemy invasion, keep each room separate: with fewer doors, you're better able to protect your heart.
It's essential that you plan your dungeon, but building rooms is an expensive process, so consider clearing them out and starting with a basic facility. This way you can expand into the open space as and when you need to (you also get mana for the ground you clear).
Bear in mind that your imps will start to strengthen the existing walls. If you expand after the walls have been fortified, the imps will have to chip away at stronger rock, which takes longer.
Of the following rooms, the first three are the most important. Build them (or any of the others) before you access the portal and you'll immediately attract the best creatures to your fledgling domain.
Start with a Lair. Because these can be any size, you can drop them into whatever space you have available (particularly handy as some creatures don't like walking too far, or kipping down with others). Remember that some creatures require more than one square for their bed.
The Hatchery can also be any size, although a really efficient one needs to be at least 3 × 3 in size. Again, it's preferable to have more than one of these babies dotted around your dungeon.
The Treasury holds any gold that isn't held around your heart. It can be stuck anywhere in an emergency, but should be protected. Build one near any large gold seams, but not too far away from the other rooms, since creatures need to collect gold on pay day. You can always pick up the gold manually and drop it by your dungeon heart.
The Training Room is essential if you're to build up the skill of your creatures, but it costs money to maintain. Make sure that it's at least 3 × 3 in size. If you want to expand, do so two squares at a time (so that you can get the swinging posts in). Remember that creatures can't be trained above experience level 4.
The Library is used to research new spells and to upgrade existing ones. Go for a 3 × 3 minimum again, expanding the room two tiles at a time (researched spells are represented by floating books).
The Workshop should be bigger. 5 × 5 is recommended, although it will function in a smaller space. Provide just one entrance so that you can lock creatures in.
The Guard Room, which attracts Dark Elves, can be just one square in size. Put a small hatchery and lair nearby so that they don't ever have to leave.
The Prison can be any size (minimum 3 × 3), but a square room is the most efficient use of space. 5 × 5 is a good starting point, but be prepared to expand.
The Torture Chamber will attract the Mistress and the Dark Knight, but it needn't be any bigger than 3 × 3 at first. Torturing enemy creatures rarely reveals more than one piece of information, but bear in mind that they can be converted to your cause (you need to keep them alive, obviously, by using the Heal spell or by dropping a chicken on them).
The Casino is used to keep creatures sweet or to get their gold off them (the latter's at the expense of their happiness, of course). It needs to be 3 × 3 as a minimum, but should only be created if you have spare cash and space.
The Combat Pit is the only way to get creatures to experience levels 5 to 8 (without a genuine war, that is). It's also a free source of training. Friendly creatures will fight until one is knocked unconscious, whereupon he's dragged back to his lair to recuperate. Drop an enemy in there and it's a fight to the death.
The Temple, as well as attracting the Dark Angel, generates mana if creatures pray there. There's also a sacrificial pool into which you can drop offerings. Choose yours well and you'll be rewarded with a gift; choose poorly and you'll be punished. The Temple needs to be a minimum of 5 × 5.
Additionally you can have captured heroes join, by torturing them or just keeping them alive long enough in your prison. Since they hate your other creatures, you should give them a seperate lair, hatchery and training room to keep them happy.
Although you can play and complete the entire game without possessing any of your creatures, the benefits of this spell are so great that you'd be a great lumbering fool to ignore it.
Possession means health and attack bonuses, but you can also use your enhanced intelligence to do things the computer just wouldn't do. For instance, as a mistress you can dish out your spells from the background, rather than charging in with your claws and risking damage.
The other benefit of possession is that you can command other creatures to follow you, which they'll do to the death instead of turning tail and running when things get too hairy. Press 7 for group mode, then click on the first highlighted creature you see. Don't forget that the number keys are used to operate each of your weapons or spells, and that each has a fixed time before you can use it again (the icon fills in). If a spell is particularly powerful, you can cast it and then switch to a lesser attack while it goes about recharging.
Possessing an imp can speed up some processes. By left-clicking while standing on unclaimed squares, you can capture entire corridors quickly and easily. If there's a lot of gold you want to clear, possess the imp and use his pickaxe to dig out the gold in one go rather than returning to the treasury regularly. Finally, as an imp you can knock down walls much more quickly than the PC can manage. The only thing you can't do is reinforce walls.
Don't forget that possession has the effect of emboldening the creatures around you. This means, of course, that they're less likely to run away.
When a creature seems unhappy, use the warning message to zoom in on him. Pick him up and drop him in the appropriate room. For instance, if he's hungry, drop him in the hatchery. Don't ignore his misery: it's often an indication that he's having to walk too far to get to food or bed. Consider building another lair or hatchery nearby.
If a creature becomes unhappy and nothing seems to cheer him up, ‘sack' him by picking him up and dropping him into the portal. As long as there are spare creatures in the world, another will soon replace him. (Obviously, if a creature is skilled, you should do what you can before discarding him.)
Trolls aren't your only workers. If you haven't attracted trolls, you can place bile demons in the workshop. Most of the other creatures can be made to work, too, but they won't thank you if you force them.
There's no way of undoing room mistakes. However, you can sell the offending square at a great loss by clicking on the $ in the bottom-left of the screen.
Although skeletons have their uses, consider keeping your prisoners alive (with the healing spell, or by feeding them chickens) in order to convert them. While you may be able to do this more quickly in the torture chamber, there's a chance that the prisoner will perish.
When studying the map, look for the bits that aren't solid rock. These may hide secret areas.
A gem block provides infinite wealth, so build a treasure room right next to it. Whenever you need money, create some imps and, if possible, dig out a space all around the gem. This way, you can have 12 imps chipping away (three on each side).
If you don't have a treasure room, your imps will drop the gold where it is. To gain the wealth instantly, build a treasury on top of the gold tiles.
You can pick up a chicken and drop it on creatures before they get hungry, thus saving them a walk. Carry said poultry in reserve and drop it as soon as you hear that a creature is upset because of hunger.
Don't try to build everything at once, unless you like being broke. Instead, build one or two magnificent rooms to attract the best creatures. A workshop is essential, since defence is definitely the best form of attack.
A subtle attack on enemy imps who've wandered far from home can cripple their dungeon-keeper without him even noticing. Until he's crippled, that is.
Try to avoid an all-out war; all you'll be doing is weakening yourselves and leaving other keepers to take the spoils. Instead, try a tentative attack on your enemy so that he comes after you. Then destroy the hapless idiot with ingenious traps.
Avoid building rooms that open out onto water or lava: by the time you notice that a bridge has carried the enemy right to your door, it'll be too late. If need be, protect your border with traps.
Rather than constantly fighting with your enemy, try to take over his rooms. Gain control of his portal and he won't be able to get reinforcements, will he?
Train creatures before sending them to the workshop. Their tasks will be done more quickly, and you'll have yourself a combat-ready soldier.
Too easy to overlook, traps are essential for protecting your base on the levels where you're likely to get attacked. Most maps just have a few soldiers stumbling upon you, so a door protecting your important inner rooms should be enough to hold them at bay while you drop a few of your fighters nearby. Remember that you can lock the doors so that even your creatures can't pass through, which is useful if you want to force the trolls to keep toiling in the Workshop.
Traps are built in the workshop, and the larger your workforce the faster they're created. Four or five trolls can build many of the traps and doors in just a few seconds. If a troll is tired, he'll walk off after creating a single item, so either lock him in or pick him up and drop him into the corner opposite the door. Look at the workshop icon, which slowly fills in, to see how an item is coming along.
Traps are formed by placing a blueprint within your dungeon. These can only go on claimed, unused land, up to a maximum of one per square. With the blueprint in place, your trolls know that they have work to do, but they might be in the middle of fight, or sleeping, eating or training. To get them started, grab them and drop them into the workshop.
Your latest trap is finished, but it hasn't been placed. You need an imp to drag it out of the workshop and into position, so pick up a little fella and drop him on the relevant box.
Traps are delivered in the order in which the blueprints were dropped, so be sure to add the essential ones first.
The manual will help you to decide which traps to lay. Each costs a certain amount of gold to create, mana to keep and mana to fire. A collection of sentry traps can seriously damage an invading army, particularly if you impede their progress with a door. And, if they can't leg it in time, a boulder rolled down a long corridor can wipe them out. Alternatively, employ a trigger in the middle of a corridor and you can squish your foes between two rapidly advancing boulders. Don't forget that boulders can be slapped to send them rolling down a corridor.
