In Codemasters' Overlord, players take on the role of an up-and-coming evildoer who must amass an army of imps, rebuild a tower that was ransacked by heroes (killing the evil predecessor) and making a name as Master of the Malign. But before that happens, they must head out into the fields and start slaughtering sheep to collect life energy.

An Overlord's power rests in their minions, and life energy adds to the well from which they can be summoned. Although budding Overlords occasionally swing their weapons or cast spells, most of the game relies on sending out groups of imps to wreak havoc. As things progress, Overlords eventually control a diverse collection of four different imps, designated by color. These color-coded imps have specific strengths, weaknesses and immunities. Reds are impervious to fire and clear fiery obstacles from the Overlord's path. Similarly, Greens can clear out poison clouds spewed by toxic plants, and all but the Blue types will drown in a foot of water.

'Gamers send their imps to remove obstacles, loot treasure and beat up hostile foes. Imps will automatically equip any useful (or useless) items they find, improving their overall effectiveness and provide some entertaining outfits (one imp looted a boss monster's crown). As Overlords add more color to their army, they learn to better coordinate them to make use of their strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, this gimmick gets old very quickly, especially when players find a puzzle but didn't pack enough a certain color imp to solve it, forcing them to run back to a spawning pit to adjust their armies.

''Imps can be summoned by target locking onto a spawning pit and clicking the right mouse button, which also acts as a "recall" that brings all minions back to an Overlord's side. Holding down the mouse button for too long, however, leads to some big problems, because the command doesn't stop once the player hits the summoning cap. Instead, the game cues up the extra clicks and locks players into the action long after they' moved on to do other things. Once locked in, commands to send imps out to sweep across an area get negated, causing them to stand around stupidly or run in a U pattern until the glitch passes. Exerting direct control over an imp's walking path creates similar issues, on top of ones where minions walk in strange directions and sometimes forget to bring loot back to their master.