[Custom dungeon] The Fallen Temple [DM Java] [Michael Largey]

[Michael Largey]

Platform: DM Java
Author: Michael Largey
Email address: largeys@datacruz.com
Date published: 2003, August 11
Date last updated: 2003, August 11

Story:
To my most promising pupil,

As you know, the day is coming when we shall put an end to the terror Lord Chaos has visited across the land. Even now, a party is being assembled to invade his lair and seal him and his power in a fluxcage cast by the Firestaff. We must have the Firestaff already secreted close to him when they arrive.

Knowing the danger the Firestaff represents to him (and hoping to turn its power to his own foul ends), Chaos has stolen the Firestaff and secreted it in the dungeon of his hiding place, the Fallen Temple.

This temple, consisting of four towers and a great chamber below, stood in the desert long before man first saw it. It is said that a great earthquake - although I suspect that it was a more unnatural force - plunged the temple beneath the ground. It can only be entered from above.

Seek the temple and, once inside, you may raise up four of the heroes of that lost time of magic and mystery. Any four you choose will be eager to avenge the profanation of their temple by Lord Chaos.

The great chamber beneath the towers is said to be divided into several areas, mostly unknown to us. It appears that at one end is Lord Chaos' bedchamber and at the other is the repository of the Firestaff. The Firestaff is guarded by Chaos' pet "dog", named with grim humor "Fido". Yet I am sure that a schemer so devoid of any trace of loyalty such as Chaos could not trust even his own pet and has guarded against him, too.

Once you acquire the Firestaff, our spies will place it close the Lord Chaos, to wait there until the battle begins.

Believe nothing that you see, trust little of what you read, and don't take any wooden Gor coins.

Your teacher and friend,
Arivle

Notes:
The dungeon is relatively small (five busy levels) with a fair amount of variety.
It's a prequel to the original Dungeon Master, a raid on one of Lord Chaos' hidden retreats.

This dungeon was my attempt to teach myself the DMJava editor. I decided to do a "vanilla" one, using only the graphics and sounds which came with DMJava.

There are five levels. Each of the first four is divided into four regions, each of which is a floor of a tower. There is generally no way to get from one region to another in the same level. Movement is vertical between floors. The bottom level is the traditional dungeon. So the game plays as if there were 16 small levels and one big one.

I did one small level each evening, My goal was diferent each night, but I usually tried to include surprises for the mind, pleasure for the eye, and - as you will see - very bad jokes. Some floors did not work as I'd hoped and were replaced. I had to remove "Lord Chaos' Fun House", even though it meant giving up the Giggler Shooting Gallery.

The first version of this project was completed two years ago, on September 9. At that time it was not a temple, but just a complex of towers which had fallen. As of September 11, this theme lost its appeal. I had assumed that there would be many other original dungeons released, but that hasn't been so. In the meantime, a new version of DMJava required testing again.

This is essentially a beta release. Feedback is welcome.

Download:
Download this dungeon from this Shared OneDrive (in the 'Custom Dungeons' folder)