I started playing Dungeon Master when I was eight years old and finished it many times.
Last week, I tried to finish it with the minimum number of steps (and therefore the minimum distance traveled).
I did it with Syra — because to minimize the distance, you can only take Syra, Elija, or Halk. But Halk lacks mana, and Elija… well, better a girl.
Return to Chaos shows, at the end: 2626 steps, 8.3 km.
The adventure feels completely different because you have to optimize every single step. You can’t go out of your way to grab better armor, weapons, or anything else.
So Syra only managed to get the Helmet and Leg Mail. She had to keep the same Elven Doublet from start to finish and was only able to pick up leather boots.
In level 3, with the gold key, I activated a teleporter to save around 80 steps (same in level 5).
Level 4 is the quickest of all, you can finish it in two or three minutes (grab the mirror and blue gem, then drop through the pit to level 5).
You only need two skeleton keys — one in level 7 and one in level 12 — then you can reach level 13 by falling through a pit.
Of course, I had to spend a lot of time training my character. Without armor and with no way to run from monsters, I needed a ton of health and to be at least expert or master in all skills.
For example, at the end of levels 2 and 3, you have plenty of food, so it’s better to wait and train instead of pushing forward and dying later against giant scorpions on level 9 or animated armors on level 11.
And this was actually the first time I used invisibility spells (against the red dragon, for example).
So, here’s the final screenshot:
I’d be very surprised if anyone can improve on that. It might be possible, though, on level 12, I still had to move one step forward to make Chaos come to me.
