Excitement at finding old DM handbook

[MasterWuuf]

I've been going through some old boxes,
purging some of the 'stuff' I just could not toss before.
One great find was my original DM handbook.
Sadly, I didn't find my GOR coin.
Why didn't I tape it to my handbook?

I did enjoy many old memories, as I glanced through the handbook.
What a great game; DM.

[Bit]

I just checked. Took me a minute to find both packets, DM and CSB. Both handbooks, one extra page (all in german), no GOR coin. There must be a curse! ;P

[jayrshaw]

Which version of the game were you guys playing? I seem to have misplaced all of my old NES and SNES game manuals, but I definitely recall the manual from the SNES version of Dungeon Master (particularly the story part at the beginning)....


--Jay

[Bit]

Atari ST (of course )

[jayrshaw]

I just looked up the Atari ST - I did not realize until now that Atari ever manufactured a line of ordinary personal computers. My main exposure to Atari was through the Atari 2600 video game system I had when growing up, so I kind of assumed that the Atari ST was mainly some sort of gaming system...


--Jay

[Bit]

"Listen to the old one speak of all he has lived through
I have crossed between the poles, for me there's no mystery"
(Genesis, Cinema Show - they will be back on stage in 9 days! Best wishes - especially to Phil)

[Ameena]

Well, it was a gaming system - we played games on it, like DM . I mean, it could be used for stuff that wasn't gaming, I suppose...but isn't that true of most such hardware?

[Bit]

In some way you are right Ameena. The ST was not accepted as an office computer. Even for a professional softwareengineer it was not allowed to bring it as investment into your taxes!!! Simply because it had multimedia features like the possibility to connect speakers and listen to music. Really!!!
Perhaps that was one of the most important reasons for the 'breakthrough' of those slow and unhandy devices called PC with that ridiculous amount of memory and no GUI...

[Phoenix]

My college used Atari ST's to teach 68000 assembly language.

[Simon]

I still have my original DM manual for the Amiga version, I am very fond of it!

[aster]

Does anyone else remember what a genius move it was by FTL (or the publisher...) to add a free demo of the game on the 3.5" floppy disk attached to one of those popular gaming mags (cannot remember whether it was Atari ST or Amiga but it was definitely a UK magazine) at the time?

It included the first 1-2 levels only and was my very first experience of DM. Talk about getting hooked and waiting with (im)patience to get your hands on the full game!

I'm going to start digging around the house to see if I can find the old boxed set but I really want to find the demo disk too as that is how it all started for me...

[ChristopheF]

I am not aware of any demo being released with a gaming magazine in UK. That would be a nice find if you can get your hands on it !

In addition to the non playable teaser demo on Atari ST:
http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... aser-demo/
the 2 playable demos I know are:
http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... iigs/demo/
http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... miga/demo/
but none of them includes the first two levels of the final game. They feature a tiny and different dungeon.

[Gambit37]

I too don't recall any demo of DM given away on a magazine, would be cool if you could find that @aster.

There were demos of DM2 given away in the mid 90s on various magazines, but I think those were all CD demos, and not floppy disc.

[aster]

I will definitely start looking for it when I get home as it was a floppy demo and definitely DM, not DM2. Just cannot remember whether it was for the Amiga or Atari ST. I'm leaning towards ST but then I recall another demo, surely for the Amiga, that had a level of the racing game Nitro on it. But that might be irrelevant as I had an ST and then moved to an Amiga at some point in time.

Is there a site that has scans of magazine covers from those days? I recall there were quite a few game mags in the UK at the time (C+VG,etc.) and to buy all of them was quite pricey. But if I could find the covers I might be able to locate any mention of a DM demo attached.

[ChristopheF]

https://www.retromags.com/magazines/
https://www.atarimania.com/list-atari-magazines.html
https://archive.org/details/videogamemagazines
https://retropdfs.wordpress.com/current ... llections/

[Gambit37]

After you mentioned this, I went to archive.org and searched for "Dungeon Master" + "cover disk" (and some variants). All I came up with was Edward Penman's "Dungeon Master Editor" that was on one cover disk. I couldn't find any actual demo of DM. But this was only a quick check, it would likely need more detailed research...

[aster]

I have never seen/used the editor but if that was released with a magazine in November of 1988 then I can only assume a demo would have appeared much earlier in the UK.

Does anyone remember when exactly DM hit the shelves in computer stores across the UK?

I just found my old passport (1986-91) from back in the day and I have a number of stamps from around that time, so maybe that will help me locate the magazine issues. My entry stamps in 1987 are 23 JUL, 7 OCT, 25 NOV. I assume 1988 is irrelevant (there are only two: 21 JUL & 25 AUG) as the game would have been selling long before then?

[ChristopheF]

DM for Atari ST was released on December 15, 1987 in the USA, and was released in 1988 in Europe.

Most reviews of DM for Atari ST in UK magazines are in April/May 1988 issues.
Most reviews of DM for Amiga in UK magazines are in February to May 1989 issues.

You can see all the reviews that I know about here: http://dmweb.free.fr/media/magazines/ (use the filters to select 'UK', 'DM for ST / DM for Amiga', 'reviews')

[aster]

Many thanks, I don't know what else I can think of apart from those dates that would make it easier to locate the demo disk. I remember playing it several times and it was quite extensive and really got you hooked. It really made getting your hands on the full game a priority.

Logically-speaking it makes sense that it might be an ST demo since that version came out earlier, as by the time the Amiga version was released the game probably didn't need that much marketing to push sales.

[Gambit37]

Reconsidering this, I think perhaps you're mis-remembering. FTL said they didn't take out any adverts for DM because the anticipation for the game was already off the charts and it sold itself through pre-interest and word of mouth. I find it unlikely that they made a cover-disc demo for magazines, it doesn't really fit with what we know about how FTL operated back then. (Wayne Holder was a savvy business-man and didn't spend money if he didn't need to). Happy to be proven wrong though, and it would be super interesting to actually find a cover-disc demo that we never previously knew about!

[aster]

Could be, I'm not excluding the possibility that I might have been remembering something else (or differently) since nobody here has ever seen or played the demo version. But at the same time I honestly remember playing the demo for the one (or two) levels as a teaser and replaying it many times over the course of a number of weeks/months because it was that enticing. And then waiting to get my hands on the full game...

But as mentioned if nobody here has ever played or seen it then that does make me wonder... so as you mentioned I have to accept the possibility that I might be mis-remembering something. Logically-speaking I cannot exclude that.

I mentioned a demo from a UK magazine simply because I cannot see how else I could have gotten my hands on a demo disk elsewhere as those magazines were my only source of attached discs. I'll continue working to clear this up as I want to get to the bottom of this.

[ChristopheF]

Have you tried playing this Amiga demo to check if that's the one you remember?
http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... miga/demo/
I don't know how this demo was distributed.

Would it be possible that you played the kid dungeon? Can you try it and see if you remember it?
http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... us-dungeon

[Gambit37]

Good point Christophe. I'm aware of that Amiga demo, but also at a loss to how it was distributed. I used to buy any magazine back in the day that had even the merest mention of DM/CSB and I really can't recall any of them ever had a cover disc.

[aster]

Very good suggestions - I'll need to set up an Amiga Emulator on my Mac and try out both the demo and the kid dungeon to see if anything rings a bell, though if the kid dungeon is only part of the full release then I don't think it would have been that. But I'll check out both as soon as I figure out which emulator is the best one and how to get it up and running...

On the Amiga demo page I followed the link to a discussion forum where they discussed finding an Atari ST preview, but the link to it only goes to a general page about DM. Does anyone have a link to the file?

Gambit37, could such a demo have appeared many months ahead of the game's release, even before extensive reviews appeared in magazines?

[ChristopheF]

The non-playable Atari ST teaser demo is here: http://dmweb.free.fr/games/dungeon-mast ... aser-demo/

[Gambit37]

Gambit37, could such a demo have appeared many months ahead of the game's release, even before extensive reviews appeared in magazines?

It's possible I suppose but that would have been an unusual practice at the time. Magazine demo discs usually came out around the time of a game's release or later.

I interviewed Doug Bell more than 20 years ago and he said:

We released a demo in April 1986 that showed the front doors opening and took a short walk through a non-interactive dungeon. This demo created tremendous buzz and turned out to be most of the marketing we ever had to do.

Of course that doesn't preclude the release of a coverdisc, but I think he would have mentioned it.

[aster]

Gambit37, many thanks for your input.

If you've lived in the UK throughout those ("Golden") years and had access to all games releases as well as all the monthly video games magazines (and there were LOADS published at the time!), then I'm sure you would have noticed a magazine-attached DM demo and the hype associated with it, even if it was published a couple of months ahead of DM's release.

I've only been in and out of the UK sporadically during those years so you have a much better picture of what was going on at the time.

[Gambit37]

Perhaps, but I certainly wasn't buying *all* the magazines. Mostly it was Amiga Action, Amiga Format, CU Amiga and CVG. I also bought ST magazines when they featured DM/CSB information, even though I didn't have an Atari ST... It's kinda nuts how obsessed I was with these games back then!

There were plenty of other magazines that I never bought, but they would have been less popular, and less likely to have a DM coverdisc I would imagine.

Having said all that, it's still possible that there was a DM cover disc as you suggest. It would be very cool if you're able to finally confirm it one day

[ChristopheF]

I interviewed Doug Bell more than 20 years ago

Still eager to read that interview !

[Gambit37]

Something is in the works...