Latest Version and Differences From Originals

[tim]

Hi there. This is my first post in these forums. It warms my heart to see the nostalgia of Dungeon Master live on.

First, a big thank you to Paul Stevens. I've gotten CSBWin to run on my Linux machine. I'm looking forward to playing CSB (the whole reason I'm back after all these decades, want to give that one a shot). I went to your website and the DM Encyclopedia, and see many different versions to download. Is there one specifically I should be using?

Had a question about DM running in CSBWin. How faithful is it to the original? I've "noticed" some differences on the level where you first meet the purple worms. I say "noticed" because I'm going off memories from a long time ago. The purple worms seems to respawn much quicker than I remember. Seems that certain squares cause them to respawn. Also, the screamers seem to generate much slower in the room near the end that I used to use for levelling. Again, this could just be me, but I'm curious.

Thank you for your help, and again, wow, such good memories. Happy I found this forum.

[Ameena]

CSBWin is a direct port of the Atari version, so if that's the version you played "back in the day", CSBWin is accurate.
Also, welcome to the forum . We also have a Discord at https://discord.gg/4jqNeW5n if you want to pop along and chat with a bunch of us there. It's very quiet most of the time but if a conversation starts up then several of us will join in so don't worry about that. Feel free to reminisce here or there about the games - it's what we're here for, after all .

[ChristopheF]

I suppose you want to play CSB in English language. This gives you these options:
- CSBwin (thruthful port of the Atari ST version) http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/851 The easiest solution as this is a native windows program. However there is no magic map in the game
- Original Atari ST version via emulation see http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/331 No magic map in Atari ST version
- Original Amiga version via emulation, see http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/330 You may play a cracked version 3.1 or 3.3. Magic map present
- Original FM-Towns version via emulation, see http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/345 This is a Japanese computer, but there are both English and Japanese versions on the CD-ROM. It comes with CD-Audio music while you play. Magic map present.

[tim]

CSBWin is a direct port of the Atari version, so if that's the version you played "back in the day", CSBWin is accurate.

Was more so the version of Dungeon Master that runs in CSBWin I was wondering about (have never played CSB). Back in the day I played the DOS version of DM. I looked at the differences between the PC and Atari versions on the DM Encyclopedia but it doesn't mention anything about the screamer room. I remember having my characters sleep in that room and waking up to many screamers in there. Anyway, not a big deal, was just curious.

[tim]

I suppose you want to play CSB in English language. This gives you these options:

I'm definitely going to run CSBWin (on Linux). It's just when I go to Paul Steven's site, I see many different builds (all dated differently). I was wondering which version is the latest, or "preferred" build.

[ChristopheF]

CSBwin may run faster or slower than the original game. There is an option in the menu to select the speed.
Otherwise, there should be no major difference in behavior.

[Paul Stevens]

different builds (all dated differently)

Hopefully the most recent is the best! There have been
exceptions but generally when this happens I delete
the one that broke something.

The linux version is not up-to-date with the latest
source code but I don't think you will find any problems.

If you find occasional differences in timing and such it is almost
certainly due to the differences in the data files; mini.dat,
dungeon.dat, and graphics.dat. As Christophe points out,
CSBwin has options to vary the overall speed of play.

[Antman]

Note when playing the DM version, there's an option called 'DM rules' in one of the menus which you want to make sure is enabled, otherwise you characters could be much weaker after reincarnating them.

It the version of CSBWin I'm currently using is 17.6, which also looks like the most recent on dianneandpaul.net. No problems with DM or CSB.