[Custom dungeon] Dark Reign [RTC] [Saumun]

[vexirk356]

Yeh right Saumun - just hang around waiting for a door to open as a couple of demons creep up behind and blast you to hell. How the hell has anyone managed this so far? Is there anyway to clear out all the demons or do they just keep regenerating.

[beowuuf]

You can clear the demons out once, and then just keep a handle on the single demon that regenerates every so often

[Saumun]

As Beo says...

Only one demon wil respawn. Once the others are dead, they're dead. Don't worry about Chaos here as he won't appear until you breach the black doors. Once beyond the black doors there is one other demon that respawns, but by the time he does you will have either won or died.

The best tactic is to kill the demons in the first half, wait for a door to open and kill a black flame with a couple of dispells. Then allow the demons on the other side of the black doors through and kill them. You can then confront Chaos with only one demon to worry about.

[vexirk356]

Yeh Finished. Thanks Saumun for a great game. I will do a critique for others who have played the game to comment on in a little while which I always think helps people like Saumun who sit down for hours writing these games for our pleasure. I am eternally greatful to these people and just wish I was that clever.

[vexirk356]

Game Critique

Saumun a really nice game which I enjoyed playing, I play a lot of the games here and found this to be one of the best.

I liked the way you linked the levels past 5 with a stairway -- obviously taken from the original DM. I thought that there was a little too much food in the upper levels but soon realised that it had to be saved for use in the lower levels. The monster regeneration I thought was a little unfair as I think (and I am not a programmer) that you probably used invisible pressure plates to generate creatures rather than putting a set number at one location. This meant of course that everytime you went backwards and forwards that you regenerated all the creatures you had just killed. It did get a bit nausiating after a while but there you go. I think if you are going to regenerate then just do it the once or contain them in an area (like the screamer room) where you can go back and use them to regenerate food.
I thought most of the puzzles were good, some a little easier than others but generally good. As has been said before there were parts that were too severe. I know some people did manage to get through them but they were hardened DM players and I think that the average gamer would have struggled on a couple of occasions and maybe have given up at that point.
Again the switches were over done a bit and I think in the end if we were stuck it meant that we had missed a switch somewhere along the line. I don't really know what the alternative to switches is, maybe someone else can come up with a suggestion.

I think the Lord Chaos ending has been done to death and every DM gamer knows exactly what has to be done and how to do it. Again its really up to the programmer to think of an appropriate ending.

Overall though Saumun a first class dungeon which I enjoyed playing from start to finish. The interest on the forum was amazing and 7 pages to date says it all really. I am sure that there were probably a lot more people who actually haven't joined the forums playing this game as well.

I look forward with excitement to your next dungeon and if you need a playtester - well you have my email address. Again many many thanks.

[Saumun]

Vex...

Thank you for playing and for your input and comments. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I did start another dungeon a few weeks ago but it stalled and i have since started work on Dark Reign 2, so i'm not sure which will come first. The input has been extremely useful as i can now, with the experience, perhaps produce a more balanced effort. Less switches and rapidly respawning monsters (ive only done one a half levels of the new one and not a respawn in sight).

Again... Thanks for playing.

[Shawax]

Hello everybody,

I've played (and enjoyed) "Dark Reign" for the past weeks. Thanks to Saumun for the nice game !

It is certainly late but here is some personnal comments concerning the whole game :
- the game quite is easy (riddles and monsters) at the beginning (especially if you already played DM, CSB or similar dungeons) and becomes harder as you go deeper through the dungeon, which I find a good thing and make me think to DM
- generally speaking, the riddles are a good mix of old ones and new ones
- as already said on the posts, there are many many buttons and actuators (too many ?) you have to find. The good thing is that, most of the time, they are only for one use so you don't have to think whether you pressed them once or twice. However, one thing I found a little boring is that sometimes, when you press a button, it makes another button appear somewhere else (on another wall). This is a little suprising when you try to inspect an area (especially for large ones) because, as a consequence of that behaviour, you sometimes need to look accurately at every wall several times (in case of a button would have appeared).
- I was stuck at some points, but especially in the Ra area with the teleporters (this was indeed really really hard)
- I found some specific things a little unfair : the materializers make a lot of damage when throwing poison (where as the Zytaz are quite ridiculous), in some areas, the creatures seem to regenerate a little too quickly and in some areas (with fireballs launchers), you can die quite instantaneously if you don't care
- the torture chamber is an optional but horrible area and I am still surprised to have succeeded in escaping it (even if I did not find the Ra plate). But it was fun to make such an area
- the end is not easy but feasible if you think a little and use a "good" tactic (I must admit I died several times before succeeding in fusing Chaos )

Anyway, thanks again for the game and I hope you'll make others, Saumun !

Time for me to try another clone (until now, I only played Tower of Chaos and Dark Reign)...

[Lunever]

I'm currently gathering release version information to check comaptibility with the latest RTC version (V0.49) and dungeon files for backup purposes.

Am I right in assuming that Dark reign has completely been created, compiled and playtested in RTC V0.49?

Would you maybe provide the source files for backup purposes, please? Of course still only you decide whether they shall be made public or not.