So, tell us about yourself...

[Grindalf]

Thanks I will probably post some screen shots and information on it once I get a little further along.
For now I am sidetracked making tools to help me make it and I will have to spend some time playing the other dungeon master games..... For research(I've only played the first one)
What other games of the same style would you recommend for a playthrough?

[Ameena]

Well, CSB of course if you haven't played that. Maybe DM2. There were plenty of similar games around that time, and much later on (maybe about ten years ago now), some guys made a game called Legend of Grimrock which was made as a homage to DM so maybe check that out. It has a sequel too but I never tried it.

[Grindalf]

I never liked the look of Grimrock as its real 3D and I feel that these games lose some of the magic then

[Gambit37]

Grimrock was an excellent update to the format. I treads the right line between modern visuals and retro gameplay. You might be surprised by it, it's very good. I reviewed it here (8 years ago, wow time flies!) https://matthill.co/reviews/legend-of-grimrock

[Grindalf]

Oh yeah don't get me wrong it is the natural evolution of the format, without that change the format would die and be slowly forgotten. That being said the full 3D visuals just did not feel right to me and I prefer the oldschool layered image approach(Just a personal thing) I will probably get a hold of Grimrock at some point or other(I imagine the 3D will only bother me for the first 20 minutes or so) the problem is there are so many games to play and so little time

[Ameena]

There was also Stoenkeep, back in the day, which I think was also FTL but not sure. It was still grid-based movement but it was animated so you "slid" across the squares. And the mechanics (party member acquisition, spellcasting, inventory, etc) worked very differently. Good fun though .

[Gambit37]

FTL didn't make Stonekeep, are you thinking of Skullkeep (DM2)?

[Ameena]

Oh, I knew they had one of the same logos come up at the beginning, must be the Interplay one I'm thinking of. Yeah, I know Stonekeep and Skullkeep are different games . No shargas in DM2 .

[Grindalf]

wow I had never seen stone keep before that looks terrible but also really intriguing at the same time. I may have to try and get a hold of that

[Ameena]

You can find it online - I just checked GOG and it's £2.99 there right now (think there is a sale on). I still have my original disk and it runs fine in DOSBox so either should work . It's a cool game, maybe the fact that the NPCs and such are more kind of FMV-looking than properly animated is what makes it look weird?

[Kenshiro]

Hehe, and I was about to make one of these threads =D

Anyway, a bit about me, hmm..

Well.. I'm 15, rather young, I s'pose. I enjoy.. fun stuff. And.. I'm not good at describing me *nod* That's a good number 3.

I first played the original Dungeon Master when I was... around 6? LAst time I can remember clearly, I was 8 or 9. I own Dungeon Master II, and enjoy playing it frequently, though I haven't beaten it yet, heh. And I'm pretty glad I found RTC here.

Anyone, feel free to add me on msn. That's probably the best way to get to know me.

I hope it's okay to bump this nostalgic throwback post, for me anyway. This is my old account I forgot the login for and I'm 30 now... Pretty damn glad to see this forum still around hahaha

[Ameena]

Lol yeah a bunch of us are still here keeping the place alive .

[Ankha]

I'm from France and I remember playing Dungeon Master on my older brother's Atari ST. We had the original, as well as a cracked one that could crash from time to time. He also had Chaos Strikes Back, but it was too complicated for me at that time.
I finished (once again) Dungeon Master a few weeks ago (strange thing is that I remembered almost all the maps by heart) and ended CSB with the help of the walkthrough.
That walkthrough was useful to finally understand what I was supposed to do!

[Ameena]

Hey, welcome to the forum . Weirdly, when my dad and I first played DM (on the Atari, back when I was about six) we had a hint book for DM but not for CSB, and yet we finished both eventually. It wasn't until about a decade later, after the Internet had become a thing, that I had the idea to go online and look for DM stuff and ended up discovering RTC and its forum, as well as the Encyclopaedia where I found a CSB guide .

[oh_brother]

Welcome Ankha. Congrats on finishing DM and especially CSB! Like you, I did not finish it when I first started (age 10 or so). It wasn't until I joined this forum that suddenly it started to make sense.

[Kuolgs]

Hi all,

it seems that this is the place to introduce myself.

So I am a long time DM/CSB fan. I still vividly remember intense moments when playing those games three decades ago, from terror (those purple worms!) to blissful eureka moments (mostly in CSB) as well as those unanswered questions (what is this dragon spit for?). I had finished both games in my younger years and always considered CSB as the best of the two as it was more difficult (of course) but also much better and cleverly designed, more compact without long and useless corridors/rooms like in DM.

I played both games on Atari ST, then DM only on PC and always felt frustrated for not being able to play CSB again. Many years later I learnt about RTC and CSBwin among others and could play again those cherished games.

More recently, I went back to an unfinished project I had about DM (or CSB): to get a full team of archmasters. I had begun that task on my old Atari ST and the time I had spent on it should have been sufficient to make it if only I had understood how to best optimize my time (level dependence, etc.). Then I lost everything when I sold my Atari and never wanted to spend the same amount of time on it on my PC version. But, well, decades later, I still wanted to do it. When searching whether or not people had wanted to spend dozens of hours on such "useless" project, I came into this site, which I am glad to join.

[Ameena]

Woo, welcome to the forum . And yes, there are people here who absolutely spend hours training to get full Archmasters or whatever .

[doctorfunfrock]

Hi everyone,

unlike everyone else here, I hate Dungeon Master. Just kidding.
Dungeon Master or similar games like Eye of the Beholder 2, Lands of Lore and Menzoberranzan are some of the best gaming memories of my childhood.
I also played (and loved!) the fabolous "remake(s)" Legend of Grimrock 1+2.
More generally put, I think games with grid-based movement are heavily underrated because they "smell like sth from the past" to many.
Analogous movement was made possible letter and it seemed like progress, yes, but from a game design perspective it's just more degrees of freedom, more decisions without consequence and most genres don't really take advantage from it (well first person shooters certainly do, but many don't).
I love all games that deliver a memorizable experience without requiring you to learn how to play the game for an hour first.
There are many games that tend to really waste your time because for the majority of users games serve that very purpose.
Not for us oldies (I'm 43 and I have kids). I want to play a game that hooks me after 30 seconds and that i can then enjoy for half an hour. Then let it rest and pick it up. Games like Limbo and Inside, Games like Legend of Grimrock, Portal, Thimbleweed Park, Banner Saga, Braid and (on mobile) Kingdom.

Thanks for having me
Christoph

[Ameena]

Heya, hmm, how did you get all the way over here from Twinsun? :O Plz no conquering.
I've played some of the games you listed - Portal (and the sequel), for example. And the first Legend of Grimrock, though I never played it. Did you ever play Stonekeep? A grid-based dungeon-crawler a bit like DM but the movement was smooth between squares rather than an instant transition. Very fun game. Think it came out around '94, '95, something like that. These days I general go-to "Hmm, I only have an hour or so, what shall I play..." thing tends to be Caveblazers, although I've been back into Path of Exile again recently and I can get a fair bit of stuff done there in an hour.
Oh, also, welcome to the forum .

[rpgamer]

My name is John. I am a disabled Vet who Loves to game. But without a doubt, my favorite game has to be Dungeon Master. ANd any updates to the existing graphics is something I would really be into! I cant' really do much because of my Neuropathy, however gaming is still something I can do. And I guess it's a good thing that the original Dungeon Master can run on a potato, because I have 1 of Idaho's best . Anyway that's me

[Ameena]

Hey, welcome . Did you ever play CSB as well?

[jayrshaw]

Welcome to the forum John / rpgamer! Always nice to see another person who enjoys great vintage games like this one.

When did you first play Dungeon Master and on which platform? I played the first game on the SNES as a teenager at some point during the 1990s, myself, and never actually had the wherewithal to make it all the way through the game until I found some extra time to replay it during 2020...


--Jay

[FfuzzyLogik]

Hello there,

Some FfuzzyLogik is poping arnoud here to say hello.
I liked the DM in my childhood for its "deep" sensations, dangers and some intresting "thoughts" (small details make great things).
So after many years I found this forum and I'd like to mod a bit this game.
I'm not sure what can be "the best way" to store data to release the dungeon (and graphics.dat) made for they're "safely" stored for quite a time ? Many links are not working after "years" so if someone have a tip to get a good way of storage for that, don't hesitate to share !

On this, have a good night,
FfuzzyLogik

[Ameena]

Hi, welcome to the forum . I'm not sure about the modding part but various people around here have designed cloned versions of DM over the years, so maybe one of them can help.

[FfuzzyLogik]

Many tools and informations have been made and written so that helps alot to try to mod the game.
I was able to do many things (with them) I'd like : graphics changes, many parts of dungeon and details about spells... So definitively many things helps the modder here. Thankts to all contributors !
I still ask if you think something's better than "mediafire" to share files on there ? As its very light it can be shared also with a discord... but on sites I think we can't join files or images directly ?

[ChristopheF]

On top of the home page of this forum, there is a read-only shared OneDrive: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsBu7boYHQokbYK3rjKY0b5_ra8
I store many custom dungeons there.
If you post a link to your work (even a temporary link), I will download a copy and put it there for long term storage.

[FfuzzyLogik]

Thanks ChristopheF

[cimbaklm]

Hello everyone,

I used to play DM and CSB on Amiga 500, Amiga 1200, AtariST when I was young (I'm not old ). I really love this kind of games, I played Captive, Eyes of the Beholder, and much other DM-Like games.

I would like to play again on some other d evices like emulated ones or even on MorphOS.
If someone has already try and succeed to compile and run CSBWin on MorphOS, I'm interested (I have some issues with graphics, I think about endianness)

[Ameena]

Hi, welcome to the forum . I've never heard of "MorphOS" or "endianness", but CSBWin runs just fine in Windows (hence the name). Maybe someone here can help you, though.

[tiamat1968]

Helloes everyone! Lovely to meet you all.

My name's freetiamat (well, mostly. this board didn't like the word "free" in a handle). I'm a longtime RPG and CRPG gamer living in New Zealand. I'm into retrogaming, currently working on a huge Unlimited Adventures/Gold Box engine indie game. I've been recently playing through Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos.

Otherwise I'm generally into various versions of D&D and Pathfinder.