Stitch on 29/5/2012 at 15:38
I'd suggest sticking with it, as in the end I did love Grimrock dearly, even if the spider level was a bit of a slog. Still, I also need to agree with Koki in that if you are on the fence between that and DM, you should definitely go with the latter, as it is clearly the superior game.
Dungeon Diary: Now that I'm almost done with the game, I can recognize that my playthrough of DM has had three distinct phases.
The first is more or less what I've documented so far: the somewhat inept early-game revisiting of the first few levels that carried the most nostalgic baggage from my youth. I was bascially a tourist in an aspect of my childhood, an aspect that also happened to contain horrible monsters that punished me severely. This was the section of the game that is Dungeon Master to me, that is what I talk about when I talk bout Dungeon Master.
Once I entered level five--another branching level, this one with FLYING SNAKES--I entered phase two, which consisted of me somewhat easily knocking out several levels that I still had some familiarity with, due to the map studying I did as a kid or the playthrough through level six that I witnessed back in 1987.
Phase two also featured a lot of backtracking to the screamer room on level four for traininga nd food restocking. Oddly enough, though, once I had access to easy food I no longer found myself needed it, as my party somehow stopped burning through the stuff like a fat kid at a buffet.
I blame this on me getting better at playing Dungeon Master.
Level five was pretty straightforward. I remember the pit room from my youth, and I also remember fighting flying snakes in the middle of the fucking thing, a memory I was able to revisit multiple times when accidentally triggering a monster spawn point over and over again.
I reached level six, which contained beholders and skeletons, both of which are pretty fun monsters to fight (especially as neither poisons the party, a welcome relief after the party-poisoning poison party that was level five). Level six also held some personal nostalgic weight, as it was the last level I personally saw any of as a kid, as my buddy's playthrough was abandoned when we suffered a total party wipeout on level six and decided to go swimming outside instead of reloading.
He went on to eventually beat the game on his own, whereas I went on to keep playing the first couple levels over and over.
Until now.
It's odd revisiting a game nestled a good 25 years deep in my past. A child's developing brain tends to blow things cartoonishly out of proportion, and then the passing of time distorts things even further. A few years ago I visited San Francisco for the first time since my youth and it was a constant stream of uncovering memories long dormant and then finding reality smaller and more normal in comparison (although not exactly in a bad way). Oddly enough, returning to Dungeon Master as an adult is providing a similar experience--the game is incredible and playable, but at the end of the day it is a game. In much the same way that Chinatown is an (awesome) thin sliver of streets as opposed to the vast empire I perceived it to be as a kid, the open, odd-shaped pillared room on level six that killed my buddy's party proved to be just an (awesome) open, odd-shaped pillared room, as opposed to the mystery-shrouded chamber of genocide that I pored over on those BBS maps.
Anyway, I beat level six and quickly tracked back to the level four screamer room for a training session, at which point I discovered that training at the level four screamer room was no longer a worthwhile endeavor. I lack the patience to grind for longer than five minutes, so I said one final farewell to my party's safe camping spot.
There were too many screamer slices on the floor to find a good place to sleep, anyway.
Level seven was most closed off, due to being the motherfukkin TOMB OF THE FIRESTAFF. I winked it a saucy "see you later" and descended to level eight, i.e. "The Arena."
Or, at least, it was called "The Arena" on those maps I studied as a kid, although the nickname doesn't seem to have survived the passage of time. Level eight held a lot of fascination for me as a kid due to its vast, open nature--despite (or due to) the fact that I never actually saw any of it firsthand. When flipping through the level maps way back when it immediately jumped out at me, a massive, cavernous odd-level-out in a dungeon that otherwise seemed to be winding hallways and chambers. "How can anyone even play this?" I wondered as a kid. "You're open on all sides!"
Well, as it turned out I can play this, and being open on all sides isn't that big a deal. The Arena was another Chinatown, with the staggeringly huge stadium of stone from my youth replaced with just one damn big room. The ghosts that wandered the level were dispatched easily enough with my party's two vorpal blades, and the one giggler I encountered didn't steal a damn thing before death (which meant that I didn't yet really understand what an annoying plague they would soon come to be).
It would also appear that monsters scale up a bit, as I encountered some mummies (remember those?) that could take a fully juiced fireball and still shamble on toward me. "Oh look at you!" I said. "All grown up and tough!"
Well, not too tough :cool:
I cleared out the level surprisingly quickly, and found the stairs down. More importantly, though, I found a certain skeleton key that changed the game forever and launched me into the third and final phase of my Dungeon Master playthrough.
Koki on 29/5/2012 at 18:51
Is the third phase walking sideways looking at every wall for hidden buttons?
I did that in Grimrock.
Stitch on 30/5/2012 at 16:25
There is some of that, except with more wall tapping.
Anyway, I'm not sure if these long-ass posts are just self-indulgent dribble that nobody is actually reading, but I started so I might as well finish.
The skeleton key I found--minor spoiler here--unlocked a staircase that plunged from level eight all the way down to level fourteen, with a little landing for each level on the way down. Initially these landings were entirely surrounded by stone, but each could be connected to the rest of their respective levels when unlocked with skeleton keys hidden throughout.
I kinda sorta knew there was some sort of connecting staircase that minimized backtracking in the lower levels of the dungeon, but for some reason the reality of this skeleton stairway blew my mind. I expected a useful series of stairs, but what I didn't expect was the feeling of finding a hidden maintenance door and stumbling into a behind-the-scenes stretch of dungeon. It was, for lack of a better word, cool.
It also changed the way the game was played, as the dungeon suddenly went from a fairly linear progression of levels--descend to a new level, find the stairs down to the next one--to a series of individual levels that could be opened and revisited, with a new camp spot at a nexus that spanned them all. True, I had already done some of that by backtracking to the screamer room on level four, but the game felt like it reached a new level of openness with the discovery of the skeleton staircase, a discovery tellingly made on Dungeon Master's most literally open level.
Also: the staircase (as I mentioned before) managed to surprise me, which ushered in the third phase of my Dungeon Master playthrough: I was officially off the map of what I had ever known and instead fully immersed in the unfamiliar. I had heard of pain rats and the knight dudes, yeah, and I was aware of the general structure of the last two levels, but I hadn't witnessed any of it firsthand. What has started as a nostalgic romp through the game of my youth had transitioned into a late-game experience that was utterly new.
And, honestly, for the most part there isn't that much to report. Levels nine through twelve were a bit of a blur. I tried to do a small amount of food farming and training with the pain rat room on level nine, during which I discovered that pain rats are far too aptly named to ever be used for something as mundane as training. Still, I wound up with at multiple KFC buckets of drumsticks, so it wasn't all bad.
Multiple KFC buckets of drumsticks that are still rotting on a landing inside the skeleton staircase, along with three chests full of food. Scarred by the early starvation, I grossly overestimated my party's appetite.
They could shoot an episode of Hoarders on that landing.
Level ten wasn't too bad, despite my accidental wandering over a monster generating trigger that resulted in a veritable army of giant scorpions. The return of the beholders was like a reunion with old friends, albeit one in which you kill them and raid their bodies.
Level eleven's clockwise/turn back chambers stumped me for awhile, and eventually required a level of just-fucking-around that I'm not entirely comfortable with when puzzle solving. It was also good to see Trolins return, especially as it gave me an opportunity to toss my back row up to the front to gain some fighting experience.
I actually had a decent strategy with my party at this point, a solid mix of ranged spellcasting by all four members and toe-to-toe combat with my (sometimes rotated) front row. Each party member would brew their own healing and buffing potions, which meant that for the most part everyone was gaining experience in everything (except for the now-languishing Ninja skill, which seemed like more trouble than it was worth).
One side effect of this even distribution of action was a certain strong willed independent-mindedness of the skills that leveled up, the results of which were often surprising. Wu Tse, my ninja character, wound up surpassing my designated magic user, and good old Elija Lion of Yaitopya, the game's tribute to Rastafarianism, managed to somehow overcome his pacifism and intended priest role to first achieve the level of << Master Fighter (as well as the distinction of being the party's strongest with the largest carrying capacity).
I could just see Elija, white dreaded beard partially covering his full suit of Darc armor, shaking his head as he carved a bloody path of destruction with Hardcleave and wondered where, exactly, he went wrong.
Level twelve was a bit more of a challenge, with the magic-impervious knights and the Oitu-generating room that warned that cowards would be "hunted down and killed." Believe me, I had to reload that one a few times to prove those words wrong. I eventually found the final necessary RA key to unlock the firestaff from level seven, but decided to clear out the remainder of where I was before heading back.
At the very end of level twelve, I did have one experience worth mentioning, and that experience is this:
I fell through a pit in the floor; a normal enough event in the game of Dungeon Master, and in true normal event fashion I decided to explore the area in which my party had landed.
I killed one of those black fire things and found some stairs up, presumably back to the tail end of level twelve. I turned a corner, walked down a hallway, and entered a room large enough to extend into darkness. The entrance was lined with more black fire guys, and I was just deciding what to do about them when I spotted a giant demon thing with arm tentacles lurking in the distance.
Opting for the relative safety of the hallway, I backed out of the room and waited for the demon to approach so that I could attempt fighting it on my terms. I saw a black shape frame against the darkness of the room, and then blood drained from my fingers when out of the darkness and flanked by black fire stepped the unmistakable form of Lord Chaos, endgame boss and master of the entire dungeon.
With a startled shout of terror that frankly doesn't happen very often when playing video games, I frantically backed out and ran up the stairs, leaving behind a trail of "oh shit!"s.
I returned to my camp spot and caught my breath, knowing more than ever that the end was near for my trip through this massive, sprawling dungeon. It was time for me to head back up to the Tomb of the Firestaff and free the only weapon that could take this fucker on.
Al_B on 30/5/2012 at 16:49
Quote Posted by Stitch
I'm not sure if these long-ass posts are just self-indulgent dribble that nobody is actually reading.
Indulgent or not, I can assure you that they're highly entertaining and making me realise how much I probably missed when I played the game the first time.
Mr.Duck on 30/5/2012 at 19:07
What Al said. They may be self indulgent, but man are they fun. Makes me wish I had played DM on its first run. Maybe I will one of these days. Wish GOG would get it...
Go forth, homes and conquer that dungeon!
Stitch on 30/5/2012 at 19:40
Yeah, I intended this thread to be an actual Dungeon Master discussion thread, but it somehow morphed into a massive personal blog post. My apologies.
I still might make it a blog post.
Anyway, final Dungeon Diary:
Before launching into the obvious endgame, I decided to take a break and read the backstory that came with the original manual. It captivated my imagination as a kid to such a degree that I spent an afternoon drawing a comic book adaptation, complete with "EXCITING FIRST ISSUE" cover art. Creating comic book adaptations of video games is what I did as a kid instead of actually making progress in video games, I guess.
So I now found the backstory online and read it.
It was very, very shitty.
I lamented the poor choices I made as a kid and reloaded Dungeon Master.
Grim with firsthand knowledge of the foe we faced, my party trekked back up to level seven and unlocked the last sealed RA door blocking access to the inner chambers. I used my one blue key to unlock a pair of boots of speed--thus giving my party a complete set, as the tale of acquiring the other three pairs met the dungeon diary cutting room floor--and I opened some doors to meet the guardians of the firestaff: stone golems.
In a lot of ways Dungeon Master is the perfect stat-based RPG. Use skills and they improve. Increasingly powerful weapon attacks and higher level casting abilities are earned. Stats go up. Your party is able to take and deal more damage. All from using skills.
When I first stumbled across level seven, had I managed to get past the locked barriers the stone golemns would no doubt have whack-a-moled my party clear through the stone floor, but returning now meant that my party could stand face-to-face with these hulkings beasts and emerge victorious.
Well, as long as there was a door handy to slam against them and no shortage of healing potions, but the point still stands.
Once all the stone golems were dispatched I liberated the firestaff from its resting place, pausing first to catch up on the required reading left sitting around that revealed--warning, imminent spoiler on a 25 year old game--that the initially stated mission of retrieving the firestaff for your boss is in reality exactly what you don't want to do, and (twist ending!) the destruction of Lord Chaos at your own hands is actually the goal.
Not one to miss out on an opportunity to witness some crazy shit, I slogged all the way back to the front doors of level one to present the firestaff to the dude from the shitty backstory. Sure enough, after a few terse words the asshole incinerated my party and pissed on the ashes (the pissing part was implied via the words "The End").
Back in the Tomb of the Firestaff via the magic of save game reloading, I snagged the most powerful sword available for my fighter Zed, a gleaming beauty named Inquisitor that ended up never seeing so much as a second of battle.
Hopefully Zed has since given it a solid second life slicing grapefruit.
Anyway, my party was now armed with the firestaff and, crucially, a key that unlocked level fourteen, the deepest level of the dungeon that contained the power gem needed to convert the firestaff into a utensil of Chaos defeat.
Level fourteen also contained a dragon.
In a somewhat tense battle which saw me finally using some of the time-freezing magic boxes that I spent the rest of the game hoarding, I managed to take out the dragon without too much trouble. I tossed a few poison cloud spells and ven bombs, and finally just said "fuck it" and launched a shitload of cranked fireballs up its wingless reptilian ass. You wouldn't think a monster that launches fire from within would be vulnerable to fire from without, but before long there was nothing more than a smoking crater where once was a giant lizard nursing impossible dreams of flight.
"Dragon steak time!" my dudes said, because then my dudes ate dragon steak.
After a brief break to crack the window open in my computer room and turn on a fan because Christ it was getting hot in here, I fused the power gem to the firestaff and headed up the stairs for my one final rematch against Lord Chaos.
Well, I wouldn't exactly say "one final rematch," as Lord Chaos is one slippery fucker. The climactic battle of Dungeon Master doesn't involve the slow whittling away of hitpoints from some enormous boss like most games, but instead a reflex-heavy attempt to trap the guy via the firestaff and then "fuse" him once cornered. It's a somewhat inspired design choice, but it played out a bit like Elmer Fudd vs. Bugs Bunny, with me most definitely not the wiseacre with long ears.
Remember me calling the dragon battle somewhat tense? Squaring off against Lord Chaos was incredibly tense, and as I loaded and reloaded the battle I found myself wishing my computer room had more windows to open. This was due partially to the fact that this evil-herding end fight was the culmination of fourteen tough levels of dungeon, but the weight of 25 years' worth of baggage also hung hot and heavy as my heart rolled like a machine gun and I pounded on the keyboard. My fiancée yelled upstairs at me to call my mother about our impending wedding, which had FUCK ALL to do with SAVING THE GODDAMN WORLD.
And then, suddenly, I apparently did things just right and Chaos unexpectedly exploded in a prism of pride parade fireworks. He wobbled back and forth between various forms before suddenly turning into a beaming white-bearded old man, whom Elija no doubt recognized as a fellow reluctant super-warrior.
Then some text scrolled by slowly--all of which was more succint than the miserable backstory--and the game displayed my party's final stats, at which point the game seemed to hang. Maybe there was a way to exit out of it, or maybe the developers just figured winners of the game would want their monitors permanently rendered a Dungeon Master victory trophy, but whatever the case I force closed the program and sat there staring at my desktop, drinking in the adrenaline rush of victory.
Dungeon Master was the big, bad, unbeatable game of my youth, and it now lay sprawled out at my feet in defeat.
I picked up the phone and called my mom to talk about the wedding.
Stitch on 30/5/2012 at 19:53
Epilogue:
Final party stats:
Zed Duke of Banville
* << Master Fighter
* Craftsman Ninja
* Expert Prierst
* Expert Wizard
Wu Tse Son of Heaven
* Artisan Fighter
* Artisan Ninja
* Expert Priest
* << Master Wizard
Elija Lion of Yaitopya
* << Master Fighter
* Craftsman Ninja
* Expert Priest
* Expert Wizard
Boris Wizard of Baldor
* Artisan Fighter
* Artisan Ninja
* Adept Priest
* Expert Wizard
Ulukai on 30/5/2012 at 20:00
I loved (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bloodwych_in-game_screenshot_%28MS-DOS%29.png) bloodwych when I was a teenager and played it to death.
DM (which I never played) sounds very similar, and your posts make me want to try it, but I don't know whether I can bring myself to play something (one of the ports) which looks so dated without the nostalgia to reference.
Pyrian on 30/5/2012 at 21:25
That was an interesting read.
..."Craftsman Ninja"? :joke:
ERH+ on 30/5/2012 at 21:40
There are many precious old games like Ishar or Ultima Undeworld, but if You like a fresher attempt to reanimate grid based dungeon crawler, You may like to try Demise -Rise of the ku'tan. With almost endless labyrinth, respawning creatures and tons of randomized equipment, it gives that feeling when You just want to reveal next part of uncharted underworld and You are aware that there are 30 huge levels down below. It is somehow alike Thief's Maw of Chaos, where You have no idea what's come next.
Game have some serious flaws, like automatic fight with monsters, or Diablo styled grinding, or unclear mechanics hard to learn and to use effectively. But in the other end there are dozens of monsters models, and each model have plenty of skins, and each skin can be different sub-race with unique abilities... and You can bound and use virtually all of them as slaves (but sadly they are one shot puppets). Maze is realy non linear, You can and You have to fall/ dive/ teleport in many places where You could only sense death. If You finished Diablo many times, and You like DM spawns -You should try it.
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAKfUEwMCC4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAKfUEwMCC4
