Dungeon Master Forum

Hello to thee, online community of dungeon master!
I am very pleased to see that the fanbase of such a classic is vast and quite active. I've been recently going back to this little gem that is Dungeon Master for that mix of nostalgia and exciting fun that just those old games can give me. It's incredible to see how even with low graphic a game can be so interesting! I can't think it's only the nostalgia factor, in its semplicity Dungeon Master gives you a lot of space to try the right things in so many different ways. I have been lurking this forum a bit in the past month and decided to register to ask some stuff about an error that prevents me from saving the game ( quite interesting seen that this error showed up when I finally found an interesting party that is going so well!! ). With this being said, I wish you people good days, and see you around

Welcome to the forums!

Indeed it is strange that a game from 30 years ago can still keep people entertained (nostalgia wears off quite quickly, so it can't be that...). The graphics are of their time, but they never look 'crap', just simple.

Hi RIPclass, and welcome to the forums.

DM and CSB indeed must have touched something in a great many people, that a thirty year old game still has such a following. For me personally, it's the simplicity of the interface, etc... Coupled with the clever layout of the dungeons. CSB in particular is quite staggeringly well thought out.

Also... thanks to the great work of some of the members here, programs like CSBwin, DSB, and RTC offer even more through the editors. A great many custom dungeons exist for you to lose yourself in.

Hey, welcome to the forum . Wow, yeah, I've just thought - DM will be thirty this year! :O

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Thanks everybody for the warm welcome! It fills me with enthusiasm to find people that share the same passion for something as simple as a videogame! ( I don't wanna sound disrespectful to those who created the game :p ).
Indeed it couldn't be just the nostalgic value, but mostly the mechanics of the game that prevents it from aging; simple but effective, fun! Nowadays it seems videogames have taken this ultra realistic approach that sometimes lack the "fun" factor, we go for detailed backgrounds and incredibly complex history when a videogame revolves around the " mechanics " and how they make you feel rewarded and satisfied, when you feel you're achieving something ( couldn't find another word to express it ... ). Do you guys agree? What do you think?

There was some recent discussion on this subject here: https://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/vi ... 51&t=30156

From a personal standpoint, I broadly agree. Not to say I haven't enjoyed some more modern games, but the majority leave me a little cold. I find many to be a little creepy in their attempted realism (graphically), but I don't mind a good back story.
But hey... That's just me!

Yeah, I find that a lot of games these days put everything into the graphics and tend to neglect the gameplay - so many games only look pretty but are actually terrible to play. I don't really care what a game looks like, as long as it's fun. So most of the games I seem to play these days that aren't more than 10-15 years old tend to be fairly cheap indy titles with okay graphics and loads of fun gameplay .

What I love about games like DM is that they focus exclusively on the gameplay. Of course the graphics and the game-world are simple - but if you accept that as a necessary abstraction (in the same way as in books of film or music) you get completely sucked into the game and there's nothing standing between you and the game. A pure example of this is my beloved Rogue - basically a text or ASCII game, where the only thing that the computer does is that it computes, but endlessly enjoyable. Or Zork. Another example is the Monkey Island I and II - simple but working graphics without any flaws, loads of jokes and fun. I'm not playing games to see realistic graphics - I can see that in the real world - I play them for fun, sort of relaxation, enjoyment. Modern games might be graphically perfect, but - meh - they usually lack the fun element, the authors view themselves too seriously, and for me, the graphics sort of stands in the way between me and the game.

But, OK, I might be getting old, eh?