Dungeon Master Forum

Hi,

Like many people here, Dungeon Master is one of my favorite games.I spend countless hours playing it when I was a kid, but I never actually finished it. I reached Lord Chaos, but never understood how to defeat it.
I grew up, got a newer computer and I let go of DM.
But since then, I learned to program. Every now and then, I would remember that game, and told myself I could write a remake, but I never started work. Once, I tried to write a 2D engine for DM in Flash, but I quickly lost interest.
I found a job in a company making mobile games (among other things) so I lost interest in doing games on my free time. But lastly, I have been fed up with my work, and when Legend of Grimrock was released last year, it was like a spark.
I saw articles about LoG a few days after its release and watched the trailer. The next day, I bought LoG and play a little (only the first level). The day after, I started coding a remake of Dungeon Master.
At first, it was just for fun, wishing that I could do something quick just for me so I could finally beat the game, but as I progressed, I saw the work I had to do. I have been working on it every week-end since May, and I reach I nice prototype.

Before speaking further, here is a concept screen


And a YouTube video

The first level (not counting the Hall of Champions level) is almost fully playable. There are a lot of things missing : magic, chests, experience and level ups... and things to rewrite (yet again) like the UI.

Tell me what you think about it !

Wow! That's fun to see such a familiar place
in such a different way.

Ooooh, very nice! That looks like a very impressive piece of work; well done
Will you be creating particle effects for the torch flames, like LoG? That could look awesome.
What platform is that running on?

For the time you could spent in, it's just excellent.
- I may be weird, but I like especially your workarounds so that it is playable at that point with the most urgently needed stuff available.
- It rarely happens that programmers are also good modellers/animators - but those screamers are just great.
See Gambit, I bet this torch flame is a workaround as well, just to test if those kind of animations work as well.
- And then - I like it that there was no big announcement, but you come up out of nowhere with your first post - and an impressive show. I just wish you to Stay!

I saw the video very nice work
I am of the same opinion that Bit
I hope you will continue to develop this game thank you again

Oh, I didn't see the YouTube video up there originally? I just had a quick look -- very impressive. The Screamer is excellent!

Thanks for your feedback !

To answer some of your questions :
- Programmer are rarely good graphics and well ... I am no exception. I hired someone for the graphics part. My contribution is the UI and a few other things
- There are a lot of temporary thing, the torches on the screenshot lack particle effects but you can see some in the video. But they would require more work. As Bit noticed, I went for the necessary features. My goal was to have the 1st level playable, so I was like "ok, what's in the way now ? pressures plates ? ok lets make them work". Spells are something I would have liked to do, but it needs some UI and I am absolutely NOT satisfied we the current UI.
- I work only on a PC version. But as I use Unity3D, a MacOS version is just a matter of a few clicks. I could also do an Android or iOS build, but controls need to be changed drastically for mobile devices. I will try to setup a downloadable version in the next few weeks, but there is still some work for that ...
- ... which brings me to the future of the project. As I said, I started this project for fun, but I spend so must time and some money to have something "sellable", either to start an official remake (which seems to have failed) or to find work somewhere else. I cannot afford all the remaining monsters, for all the objets ... (we're talking tens of thousand of $).
As for time, yes I can spare some, and I probably will. I'm proud of the work I did, but I can't let it without magic. But for the moment I need to concentrate on finding a new job !

And by the way, I need to thank you all for the precious info there is on dmweb.free.fr . I wouldn't have made it so far without it

As soon as the word 'money' is written, the community reacts pretty sensible and can turn 180 degrees in less than a second. Checkout the latest copyright-discussion threads. If you went for something sellable, you probably learned a lot, got a lot of working classes (I assume it's made in C++), so can do something like Legend of Grimrock - but - all that's allowed that remains of Dungeon Master - is... the inspiration. (maybe even not this).
Well, I'm not a lawyer, but those ones need just such things to earn their money with.

Don't worry, I know what I can and cannot do with the name and data of Dungeon Master. I made this post because my attempt at getting the rights has failed. I will remain an amateur project.
I could use the engine to make a different game, but that too costs money and I don't want to risk it.
But the game can also help me find a new job and in that way, it is 'sellable' (well in fact, it makes me more sellable ^^ )

That's it! And that's because it's worth to do it!

Maybe I'm alone with that opinion, but if you finish that one for free and then would i.e. open a kickstarter project announcing to make a game in that style, using this one as reference - I think you'd even get support from here. No one is doomed to stay hungry, but it depends how to get the supper.

Looks very nice !!! good luck !