Taking it back to the start: Dungeon Master

Stitch on 22/5/2012 at 20:26

We've all got those games that loom large in our past, those heavy hitters from our childhoods that somehow put on weight and grow muscle in our memories. Games that take root and spread out and become more than just games.

As I've said elsewhere, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(video_game)) Dungeon Master was that game for me. I remember watching(http://www.dmcodex.com/v/?p=dmdemo.gif) the teaser "demo" when I was 11, a non-interactive video that was almost nothing but scrolling text followed by the merest glimpse of little more than a working navigation prototype. Yeah, that's what we were dealing with back in 1986, people, and that was all it took for me to plunk down $30 of my allowance money when the game finally came out a year later--my first video game purchase ever.

I'd love to say that I played the shit out of that game, but I really didn't. (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136741&p=2120447&viewfull=1#post2120447) As I alluded to in the Grimrock thread, I somehow managed to not ever get very far in Dungeon Master despite it being THE game of my childhood. I played it a fair amount, but I think I was just sort of messing around, restarting the whole shebang every time I progressed far enough for things to get difficult. I watched a buddy progress down to the start of the sixth level (counting the Hall of Champions as level one), but I somehow never even managed to get past the halfway point of the "Choose Your Door Choose Your Fate" branching bit (level three).

In other words, the BIG GAME of my childhood is also one giant fucking manifestation of unfinished business. I thought playing the excellent Dungeon Master-update Grimrock would set my gaming soul free, but it only reinforced the fact that there's really no excuse to not put on my man pants and wrap up what I started a good 25 years ago. That's right, there was nothing for me to do but stop being a failure and play some goddamn Dungeon Master. Would my ability to actually play a video game properly now render the dungeon a sweat-free breeze, or would I someone wind up starving to death in a forlorn corner of Chaos's realm as a beholder incinerated my corpse?

My first decision regarded what port to play. The most modern and user-friendly was (http://www.ragingmole.com/RTC/) Return to Chaos, which is a rough port in that it is a close approximation of Dungeon Master using its graphics. I decided that I wanted the true experience from my childhood, though, so I decided on (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/851) Chaos Strokes Back for Windows, which is an exact translation of the Atari ST version of the game.

Of course, this initially proved to be a pretty miserable experience. The game felt laggy and unresponsive, but I quickly determined this was mostly an issue with the mouse. Once I properly remapped all the keys to minimize mouse need--a sisyphean task in and of itself--I was off and running with a Dungeon Master that played remarkably well.

I then decided to throw caution to the wind and select the exact same party I used as a kid. This decision would come back to haunt me later, but it made a certain amount of sense at the time. As such, I resurrected (as my first mistake) the following four (as my second mistake):

* Zed Duke of Banville as my jack-of-all-trades, but mostly fighter
* Wu Tse Son Of Heaven as my ninja
* Elija Lion Of Yaitopya as my priest
* Boris Wizard of Baldor as my wizard

With the four familiar faces gathered around me, I collected the few available items on the very first small, harmless level and then descended down into the darkness of level two.

Note 1: while this post is clearly an exercise in navel-gazing nostalgia and further posts from me are likely to engage in similar, I am actually playing this game as we speak and would love to engage in DM talk. Grab one of the the ports linked above and dive on in.

Note 2: how to properly count the Dungeon Master levels is a matter of some debate as the first level is small and contains no threats, and is therefore sometimes considered Level 0. Fuck that, it's a level and the maps I downloaded as a kid called it Level 1, so Level 1 it is.

SubJeff on 22/5/2012 at 21:05

You're in for a trip. Still one of the best spell casting mechanics ever.

I'm going to have to copy you I'm afraid.

ERH+ on 22/5/2012 at 21:09

Quote Posted by Stitch

I somehow managed to not ever get very far in Dungeon Master despite it being THE game of my childhood. I played it a fair amount, but I think I was just sort of messing around, restarting the whole shebang every time I progressed far enough for things to get difficult.

Almost same here, it was great fun to me just to start game over and over again, just to get more supplies of food and cross more levels without resting. You know the game is good when You just enjoy playing same tricks again and again, on other side worms level was too stressful for me (same as double head ogre level in Black Crypt).
I admit I had a pirate copy, but there was one good thing in it: spell casting requires rune names from manual, so I had to write all possible rune combinations and try it in game to discover spells -AND IT WAS JUST AWESOME.

Quote Posted by Stitch

Note 1: while this post is clearly an exercise in navel-gazing nostalgia and further posts from me are likely to engage in similar, I am actually playing this game as we speak and would love to engage in DM talk. Grab one of the the ports linked above and dive on in.

Note 2: how to properly count the Dungeon Master levels is a matter of some debate as the first level is small and contains no threats, and is therefore sometimes considered Level 0. Fuck that, it's a level and the maps I downloaded as a kid called it Level 1, so Level 1 it is.

I prefer (http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/index.html) D-Fend Reloaded or HWA emulation format for old games.
(http://www.oldgames.sk/en/) http://www.oldgames.sk/en/
(http://hobring.esero.net/games.htm) http://hobring.esero.net/games.htm

In subject of maps: (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=taxonomy/term/17,42) http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=taxonomy/term/17,42

SubJeff on 22/5/2012 at 23:13

So glad you posted this Stitch! Loving it!

Iaido and Zed as my up-front men. Elija and Nabi bringing up the rear.

I used your link and the mouse seems fine. How do I remap though? Not a fan of using the numpad to move (keep hitting walls!).

And I need a manual for the spells. I worked out fireball (or magic missile?) before I got the scroll. You can do it that with lots of spells.

SubJeff on 23/5/2012 at 00:50

Oh God I stumbled upon Grimrock which somehow passed me by so...

Stitch on 23/5/2012 at 01:44

Grimrock is an incredible game, even if the magic system tries to distinguish itself from Dungeon Master's a bit too much.

As for remapping keys, if you're playing Chaos Strikes Back for Windows, remapping can be done by editing the config.txt file. It's a nightmare, though, as you have to "translate" the keys you want to map to into hexadecimal. There's a conversion chart at the bottom, and you can also determine the hexadecimal code for each key by viewing the readout that accompanies the game if you start it in Size x 1 mode.

Just to take it a step further: let's say you want to map movement to wasd keys. You'd start by mapping forward to "w". You do this by looking up the lowercase w in the list at the bottom ("key 2 000077 000077 ; 'w' -> 'w'") and taking the number (00077) and formatting it so it fits in the line above that denotes the move forward keymap, giving you the following:

key 1 000077 480000 ; 'w' = move forward

See the 000077 I plugged in there?

Yeah, then you do this for every last key you want mapped.

On the upside, I spend an hour of my fleeting life sorting this shit out, and I'm not afraid to share my config.txt. The map all movement to non-caps locked wasd (with q and e rotating left and right respectively) you replace the text with the following:

key 1 000077 480000 ; 'w' = move forward
key 1 00004b 480000 ; 'w' = move forward
scan 1 000048 480000 ; Keypad '8' = move forward
key 1 000108 480000 ; SDL Keypad '8' = move forward
;
key 1 000065 470000 ; 'e' = turn right
key 1 00004c 470000 ; 'e' = turn right
scan 1 000049 470000 ; Keypad '9' = turn right
key 1 000109 470000 ; SDL Keypad '9'
;
key 1 000071 520000 ; 'q' = turn left
key 1 00004a 520000 ; 'q' = turn left
scan 1 000047 520000 ; Keypad '7' = turn left
key 1 000107 520000 ; SDL Keypad '7'
;
key 1 000064 4d0000 ; 'd' = move right
scan 1 00004d 4d0000 ; Keypad '6' = move right
key 1 000106 4d0000 ; SDL Keypad '6'
;
key 1 000061 4b0000 ; 'a' = move left
key 1 00004d 4b0000 ; 'a' = move left
scan 1 00004b 4b0000 ; Keypad '4' = move left
key 1 000104 4b0000 ; SDL Keypad '4'
;
key 1 000073 500000 ; 's' = move backward
scan 1 00004c 500000 ; Keypad '5' = move backward
key 1 000105 500000 ; SDL Keypad '5'

I've also gone and remapped the remaining functions as follows (first I'll explain my mappings and then I'll follow with the code to paste in):

1,2,3, and 4 toggles between the spellcasting abilities of your four characters. This places the ability to switch the active spellcaster right above the movement keys.

"c" opens the inventory of the leader. This key binding doesn't make sense but I wanted it easily accessible by my left hand.

u, i, o, and p represent the first weapon attack of each character (u is character one's first attack, i is character two's first attack, etc. The next row down (j, k, l, and ; ) launches the second attack from each character, and then the next row down from that (m, ,, . and /) launches the third attacks (just look at it on the keyboard, this allows you to easily keep your right hand over one set of four keys and then move them up or down accordingly).

Finally, runes for spellcasting are selected by moving that attack hand up. 7, 8, 9, 0, -, and = denote runes one through six, with backspace working as, uh, backspace. The space bar itself launches a spell.

Kind of complicated to explain, but it's actually pretty easy to use. The code to make it happen is:

mscan 1 0055 f0 5c L ; 'Q' = character 1 weapon / first attack
mscan 1 0049 104 5c L ; 'W' = character 2 weapon / first attack
mscan 1 004f 11c 5c L ; 'E' = character 3 weapon / first attack
mscan 1 0050 138 5c L ; 'R' = character 4 weapon / first attack
mscan 1 004a f0 68 L ; 'A' = character 1 weapon / second attack
mscan 1 004b 104 68 L ; 'S' = character 2 weapon / second attack
mscan 1 004c 11c 68 L ; 'D' = character 3 weapon / second attack
mscan 1 00ba 138 68 L ; 'F' = character 4 weapon / second attack
mscan 1 004d f0 74 L ; 'Z' = character 1 weapon / third attack
mscan 1 00bc 104 74 L ; 'X' = character 2 weapon / third attack
mscan 1 00be 11c 74 L ; 'C' = character 3 weapon / third attack
mscan 1 00bf 138 74 L ; 'V' = character 4 weapon / third attack
mscan 1 0037 f0 37 L ; '1' = first rune
mscan 1 0038 fe 37 L ; '2' = second rune
mscan 1 0039 10a 37 L ; '3' = third rune
mscan 1 0030 11d 37 L ; '4' = fourth rune
mscan 1 00bd 128 37 L ; '5' = fifth rune
mscan 1 00bb 136 37 L ; '6' = sixth rune
mscan 1 0008 136 43 L ; '~' = backspace rune
mscan 1 0020 10d 41 L ; space = cast spell
mscan 1 0043 064 64 R ; space = leader's inventory
mscan 1 0031 200 2e L ; F1 = first magic caster
mscan 1 0032 201 2e L ; F2 = second magic caster
mscan 1 0033 202 2e L ; F3 = third magic caster
mscan 1 0034 203 2e L ; F4 = forth magic caster
mscan 1 0010 114 2f L ; Shift = No operation
mscan 1 0009 131 50 L ; TAB = Pass (Cancel Attack)

With this setup I can generally avoid the mouse at all, except for basic inventory management and the like.

So where are you at? I'm currently balls deep in level six, but I've got a few tales to tell regarding how I got that far.

Koki on 23/5/2012 at 05:49

Quote Posted by Stitch

My first decision regarded what port to play. The most modern and user-friendly was (http://www.ragingmole.com/RTC/) Return to Chaos, which is a rough port in that it is a close approximation of Dungeon Master using its graphics. I decided that I wanted the true experience from my childhood, though, so I decided on (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/851) Chaos Strokes Back for Windows, which is an exact translation of the Atari ST version of the game.

RTC comes with two "versions" of DM: the approximate version and the 1:1 copy version which was added after the guy got his hands on the source code.

So really, don't torture yourself with CSB

And as usual: Real men save the world alone

icemann on 23/5/2012 at 07:10

Stitch: I had a similar experience with the original Eye Of The Beholder game. Playing through it properly from beginning to end recently was an awesome experience. Best of luck with your playthrough. Perseverance is key. That and having online maps for reference.

Stitch on 23/5/2012 at 14:44

Quote Posted by Koki

The online research I did indicated that CSBWin is the definitive port, but it's entirely possible my information isn't exactly current. I'm too deep into the dungeon to switch now, but maybe I'll give RTC a spin later.

I never even really considered soloing DM as this is my first true playthrough and as such I didn't really want to steer away from the "true" DM experience, at least in regard to how the game was commonly played back when it came out.

But I know you're all about soloing this sort of game. Other than what I'm assuming is an increased difficulty due to certain limitations, what is the appeal?

This is a semi-serious question, as a solo run isn't out of the question at some point.

Koki on 23/5/2012 at 15:02

Quote Posted by Stitch

Other than what I'm assuming is an increased difficulty due to certain limitations, what is the appeal?

Sociopathy, all the XP only for you, all best items only for you.