I threatened to do one more of these before the GOG sales were over so here it is: The last A Brief Jaunt Through (until I find a better way to make them. Video? That seems daunting). After Lands of Lore, I'm taking it back to the real-time dungeon crawler roots with FTL's trailblazer Dungeon Master. The game came out in 1987 (which means it's 25 goddamn years old, holy shit is that a number) and began the whole "real-time 3D dungeon delving" shebang that was followed with countless imitators. In a sense it's a bit like that other big trendsetter Wolfenstein 3D, except you're running around dark corridors in first person, killing bad guys and finding secret caches of treasure instead.
I absolutely love this genre. I used to play a lot of them back in the Atari ST/Amiga era, where it was pretty much the only type of RPG available besides the older and quite cerebral for a littl'un turn-based RPGs like the Gold Box series. Of course, these days I generally find myself preferring the turn-based stuff. Still, I'm seriously hoping Legend of Grimrock turns up in the sales so I finally have an excuse to buy it and run around stepping on pressure plates and figuring out how to open all those portcullises. Portcullisi?
As with LoL (which is probably not the LoL you're all thinking of), Dungeon Master is an excellent starting point for those wanting to experience the genre's history if Grimrock happened to be your gateway and you weren't around during its heyday. I mean, it did pretty much all begin here.
(Disclaimer: This game isn't actually available on GOG.com. But, uh, it's probably so old that it's abandonware now? It works perfectly in DOSBox too!)
Part 1 - I Neglect To Show Off Anything Interesting, Again
Next time on A Brief Jaunt Through Dungeon Master: Screaming mushrooms, third floors and I finally get out of the tutorial area. I really need to just skip past those in the future. Who imposed this 25 image limit anyway? Some joker that makes sensible decisions about blog-making coding, that's who. Fie upon them!
I threatened to do one more of these before the GOG sales were over so here it is: The last A Brief Jaunt Through (until I find a better way to make them. Video? That seems daunting). After Lands of Lore, I'm taking it back to the real-time dungeon crawler roots with FTL's trailblazer Dungeon Master. The game came out in 1987 (which means it's 25 goddamn years old, holy shit is that a number) and began the whole "real-time 3D dungeon delving" shebang that was followed with countless imitators. In a sense it's a bit like that other big trendsetter Wolfenstein 3D, except you're running around dark corridors in first person, killing bad guys and finding secret caches of treasure instead.
I absolutely love this genre. I used to play a lot of them back in the Atari ST/Amiga era, where it was pretty much the only type of RPG available besides the older and quite cerebral for a littl'un turn-based RPGs like the Gold Box series. Of course, these days I generally find myself preferring the turn-based stuff. Still, I'm seriously hoping Legend of Grimrock turns up in the sales so I finally have an excuse to buy it and run around stepping on pressure plates and figuring out how to open all those portcullises. Portcullisi?
As with LoL (which is probably not the LoL you're all thinking of), Dungeon Master is an excellent starting point for those wanting to experience the genre's history if Grimrock happened to be your gateway and you weren't around during its heyday. I mean, it did pretty much all begin here.
(Disclaimer: This game isn't actually available on GOG.com. But, uh, it's probably so old that it's abandonware now? It works perfectly in DOSBox too!)
Part 1 - I Neglect To Show Off Anything Interesting, Again
Next time on A Brief Jaunt Through Dungeon Master: Screaming mushrooms, third floors and I finally get out of the tutorial area. I really need to just skip past those in the future. Who imposed this 25 image limit anyway? Some joker that makes sensible decisions about blog-making coding, that's who. Fie upon them!
Good read. It's crazy to look at this game and see how much Legend of Grimrock pulls from this game. The whole key-in-door and push-the-block puzzles are in there exactly.
Wait, no clips? But don't you need paper clips to pick that lock? I know what you're thinking: there's no way they had paper clips in medieval times. One word: fantasy. Anything can happen in fantasy.
@Video_Game_King: Very true, and it just so happens that Gothmog knows a way of summoning a paper clip. All he has to do is struggle with his spell-writing software until it decides he needs help.
What? Your previous blog suggested that you were going to do Might and Magic VII. Son, I am disappoint? Oh well. I've messed around with one of the freeware renditions of this game and it seems pretty neat. Obviously, the lack of map is kinda a dealbreaker from the get-go, but for something I messed around with for 30 minutes it was fun enough.
@ArbitraryWater: Funny thing, that game was made in 199-frickin'-9 and thus outdates DOS and by extension DOSBox, from which I do all this screencappin'. If capping something requires more rigmarole than occasionally hitting Ctrl-F5 then I am hesitant to pursue it. I love the game but it looks like it was made in the mid-90s, so I was kind of taken aback when I found out it wouldn't run in DOS.
I'll probably do something with Might & Magic VII eventually though. I'm going to look pretty stupid if it turns up on the last day of the GOG sales and I neglected to promote it, which was ostensibly the point of this whole blog series.
I'm not sure how easy it is to screencap the fuck out of M&M7. You have to go through a lot to get it in windowed mode, and I don't know how full screen screen caps handle.
I found I liked it a lot more than I expected to, and in a few ways I liked the controls better than my very dear friend Grimrock. Though I love Grimrock... very much. Hm.
Yeah this game is uber old school Grimrock. Or Grimrock is the prettier, newer, smarter, and sexier cousin of this. Either way....
@Mento said:
What gives bro? How can you diss the dungeon door when it is an easter egg. If not for this door I would have never known that this was all just an elaborate set up by the decepticons to harvest energon cubes.
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