Dungeon Master Forum

True ; well that was not really an "idea", rather a lack of time/investment ; the dungeon is sadly not as polished as I wished it would be :/ . Although it's still good to have details about what was particulary annoying, thanks ! (hope you were not too much disappointed, the wizard pass was not really worth spending hours looking for it )

Alright, I've finished the "good" ending on the "wrong" way.

Walking with the complete superweapon was like finishing DOOM 2 with IDDQD - which is both good because you're almost immortal and slightly bad because it lacks the challange. But I guess nothing should be changed here - it's just what the life is like when you're a God. Also, the "linear" row of puzzles behind the Key of B doors was slightly... too linear, too simple. Just separated rooms, each with a separated and quite simple "puzzle". On the one hand, it would make better sense to connect all these puzzles into one larger puzzle / area and make it more challenging. On the other hand, it's quite clear by that time that the end is close so perhaps all people are just keen to finish off the super boss and enjoy the ending sequence so it might be a better idea to incorporate all these puzzles into the previous parts of the game and leave the ending for pure boss-fight.

Some of the puzzles here were quite nice, I especially liked the

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"spell freezer"

- a very nice idea. It would work fantastically well if the

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gem holes

weren't next to it but if it was "scattered" somewhere in the upper / larger parts of the dungeon (with some smart clues / hints) (*).

I think there might be some sort of a bug in the very-final boss fight because the

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Lord Chaos

or whoever he was, after some time of real fighting and "dancing" around, mysteriously got stuck in one square (not cornered - it happened in the centre of the room with enough space for him to manoeuvre) so the only thing I had to do was to strike-stepleft-stepright-strike with him "freezed" on the one square. Perhaps you could look at his behaviour there? Dunno, I've never fought him in DSB so maybe it's normal but it was like "er, he's pretty dumb" situation. Generally, he was quite easy to kill, maybe you could make it a little bit harder (less space to move, he being faster, more HP or so).

The "protracted" ending also has some pros and cons - the player might keep wondering, is it the real end or not? Have I finished? How far is the end? On the other hand, all the "self-talking" about

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Mophus

and changing under-pants and so on is funny too and generally this might be more realistic.

Generally, I enjoyed the ending sequence because it was - again - quite funny, not entirely serious,

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Monkey-Island

self-ironising style and this, IMHO, is much better than the usual serious "save-the World" imperative of many modern games with everyone looking serious and determined. The

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Mophus

and many other parts really gave me a good laugh.

Now, I'll have to finish it the "entirely right" way from my previous save. Shouldn't be too difficult I think.

(*) I think Ameena here would excel in helping you in writing / "polishing" some sort of clever "riddle poems" for your next dungeons.

Oh, my, only now have I realised how to figure out the right

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Panacea

spell from the scroll. Oh, dear, I am a giddy goat.

Also, accidentally I threw the

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Nebula

and immediately gained a thief level and lost about 180 stamina. Wow!

And is it just me or is there always a light in the dungeon so there's no need for any torches / spells? Was this intended?

Alright, I finished it the "entirely right way".

I think that this time, the "Lord Chaos" didn't move at all!

Oh, and what's behind the black door in the

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Room of SH

(operated by the two keys - probably Master) - I didn't have the keys to go in!

Jan wrote: And is it just me or is there always a light in the dungeon so there's no need for any torches / spells? Was this intended?

I noticed this as well Jan. Think Sasha forgot to turn off the electricity for the lights.

I think that after the first few levels you should need magic light, though I may have forgotten turning the lights off on some levels , that always happens to me in real life .
For the "final boss", it's not intended to be hard (anyway, everything is a piece of cake from the moment you get nebula and debian ) although,depending on the dungeon version you are using he may have more movement freedom (because of the room layout). I'll have a look in its AI settings, though.

Oh, and what's behind the black door in the Room of SH (operated by the two keys - probably Master) - I didn't have the keys to go in!

There's a recruitable character and some useful items. You get the keys at the beginning of chapter 2 if you solved both the lonely wall and the "mummy" quests.

Jan wrote:Oh, my, only now have I realised how to figure out the right

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Panacea

spell from the scroll. Oh, dear, I am a giddy goat.

You could have avoided a threesome with golems ; I think you deliberately ignored the scroll's meaning

Brilliant, simply amazing! I'm in the area where those two Ra Keys are needed and so far I've enjoyed every minute spent playing this mod. Lots of entertaining and challenging but not frustratingly complicated riddles and fights, funny and original gimmicks, and a story that has the touch and charm of some of the older rpg adventures. Great work!

I'm not sure how much of the details regarding the games/mods need to be blacked out, but I'll edit my replies should any of them reveal too much information.

There's one thing I don't quite understand: I've solved the mummy puzzle by

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throwing both items from the alcove onto the pressure plate beyond the pit without hitting or killing the mummy (though unintentionally ).

On one of the lower levels there were footprints on the ground leading to a wall writing. But nothing happened even after klicking it.

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Taking a look at the level's map using ESB, I noticed that there's a room hidden behind it and that the wall piece actually is removable. But since I have already freed the mummy: What is it that triggers the wall piece to disappear?

Do I have to come back later?

I also found the

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magic horn

and gave it to

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the stone face on the wall

. This

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triggered a text to appear on the same level, something about all walls now being friendly towards me (I had to smile at this, really cute idea ) and made another wall disappear. In the room beyond I'd find many useful things, among them a master key (probably to be used in the room of subtle happiness?). So this obviously worked, but what about the aforementioned wall piece ...?

P.S.: The

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advanced and expert training rooms

were a great idea! I found the game to be pleasantly easy until

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I reached the area containing lots of beholders, vexirks and that darn arch mage

. After that it became more of an unpleasant struggle that made me sweat the deeper I got and I had to return and

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train for a while

. So, again, really good idea!

I just downloaded this and started playing, and after one week of Grimrock, I needed about 3 minutes to realize that DM is still the king of dungeon crawlers.

I just finished the first level and really like what I see so far. I really enjoy the humor, the music choices (I wonder if my Doom Blade dungeon was the inspiration for Theology/Civilization, and I just love the Monkey Island reference) and the layout I have seen so far. Is it just me, or does Sasha consume food and water rather quickly? Anyway, I'm now in the place with the turquoise doors, so back to playing for now...

The game continues to amaze me. I now found a little room behind an imaginary wall in level 4 I think with some Ven bombs in it, and when I examine the bombs, the game crashes. Nothing serious though, they work when thrown.
It's a really funny and creative dungeon so far, I love it! The serum of chastity was a laugh-out-loud funny moment.
The dungeon also shows the power of DSB. Very creative and amazing! And the monster AI is so much stronger than in traditional DM!

Have you reached the arena ?
Beyong the arena I met pretty violent creatures I cannot survive.

I passed the arena, took the right Ra door and fought my way through lots od ghosts and other incorporeal monsters down there. Materializers and Zytazes are annoying, but manageable with fire shields. I haven't had that many problems so far.

Thanks to the hints in this thread, I completed this wonderful dungeon! I especially loved all the Mophus jokes of course.
Hopefully I will find some more time to write an adequate review. Just wanted to say thanks for a very innovative and funny dungeon! I greatly enjoyed this.

Hello !
I'm glad to see some people are still playing the dungeon ;
When I made it, I spent, well, 16/24h everydays for a few weeks, and nearly never modified it again, apart for some critical debugging/rebalancing issues. I'd have loved to be more patient, and provide a better experience. Moreover, I have to admit that I never used any editor (barely the one for RTC) , and had to learn DSB mechanics entirely. After a few weeks, my brain was melting, and stopped everything when I thought it was playable without too much trouble.
For specific issues in the dungeon, I may investigate further, although I haven't looked into it for nearly two years, and haven't got much free time these days.
Anyway, thanks for your kind comments, it's still heartwarming.
I also have to say that my dungeon absolutely does not pay homage the huge potential of DSB, du to my lack of knowledge/time/involvement.

Congratulations, I appreciate the mass of work you' ve done.
I finished the game last night. To be honest, I cheated a lot reading the spoilers and peeking with ESB.
Thanks for the game.

I wonder whether, one can complete the game with no hint, no spoiler, no editor acces.

Thanks again for the feedback. It seems that some endgame parts are very much confusing for most players . I promise, someday, i'll make it more intuitive, add hints , rebalance the whole thing. The first half of the dungeon globally had good feedbacks, which isn't the case of the second half. I'll post in this thread, for any update. I'd be tempted to create a new dungeon, but I would also love to make Unintended Heroism less frustrating, and , overall , a better experience.
PS : For the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack, I wasn't inspired by any dungeon, I simply love this fantastic OST !

No worries Sasha, I actually really liked the second half of Unintended Heroism as well. Only the part with the Panacea and Demonic Stone was really obscure to me, another hint to that one would certainly have helped.

And great that we both had the same idea to use the Conan soundtrack for our dungeons!

"les grands esprits se rencontrent", as we say in my homeland ; i'll now have to give a try to your Doom Blade ! Is it a RTC dungeon ?

Off-topic : I was quite "disappointed", when I released UH, to see that only a few players even gave it a try. Jan and The master were brave enough to get through the earlier versions of the game, and helped me A LOT, to achieve something playable, with their help in bug-tracking and encouragement. A few month after the release, I assumed my dungeon was dead and burried. That did not encourage me in working further. I'll be clear : i ENJOYED dungeon crafting, but half the pleasure, for me, was the idea of sharing it, and contribute to the tremendous work already done by the community.

This, is why your comments really cheers me up. I have been reading the forums for long years before registering, and I feel that the "golden age" of dm.com is now gone, which makes me, somehow, a little sad. I also understand that people move on, lose interest, don't have anymore the time the once had, or move to most recent clones (LoG mainly, i guess...) . Could we see a new Conflux appearing, in these times ? I feel I know the answer.

Anyway, i'm happy to see that the community is not dead, and that there are still DM-enthusiastic people in here.

My last words will be to Sophia, whom I already thanked many times ; for the tremendous works she did in making DSB ; for the daily support when I was going crazy, fighting with LUA . I reckon that DSB is by far the greatest tool to achieve DM-like dungeons. The GUI makes it easy, for novices (like me) , to start building simple dungeons. Then, curiosity intensifies, and you'll want to experiment LUA editing (again, I had NO LUA notions) . Something slowed me in my learning : the lack of existing DSB dungeons. For basic mechanics, anyone who would want to experiment DSB, could probably benefit examining uh with dsb editor.
And, for those with extensive coding knowledge, you'll soon realise that your imagination will be the only limit.

Hi Sasha

I am now having another attempt at Playing UH. To see if I can find anything I missed the first time I played it. Are you working on anything new because even though many people do not come onto the Forum to leave comments I am sure there are a few people out there playing the dungeons. Sometimes when you do play something again and come across something you recognise to the very difficult to get through you tend treat it with trepidation whereas the first time you just plod on without realising what you are about to encounter if you see what I mean.

The parts I could not figure all by myself:
The scroll about the Panacea was too chryptic for me.

Spoiler

So I did not use the panacea with a spell, I put it in a VI altar and that opened something to me

I understood the Panacea much later reading the hints in this thread.
The Demonic stone was worse, I had no clue what could mean the "reverse" bit.
I found how to use the Demonic stone and figured what was the reverse about from readind the hints
I was far from understanding the forge. I was too fast reading the clues given in the game

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I did not figure the two gems and the morning stars were the 3 parts to make the Nebula and the Vi altar was the forge

Here again I cheated reading the hints from this thread.

Is there a use to the Nebula, apart

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The Key of B inside the dragon

?

Sasha, I understand what you are saying and can relate, I remember when I nearly became crazy working on my dungeon Doom Blade. But judging from this thread, Unintended Heroism seems to have been completely playable from the start, and thanks to the awesomeness of DSB, even troublesome savegames could be fixed. So it's all good!

My dungeon, however, was released way too early, with my arrogance telling me I had tested it enough. Turns out it was a complete mess and at times almost unplayable. As a result, people got rightfully angry with me, and I still feel bad about the whole issue. A few people still managed to complete it, but I do feel bad about it.
Doom Blade is indeed an RTC dungeon, and if you are interested in playing it, be warned - there are a few issues with it. I never got round to fixing all of them, but I currently have a little time, so I’ll try to finally fix that damn thing in the next few days.

I can see that this place isn't as frequented as much as it used to be (hey, I've been gone for about 2 years thanks to real life intervening and me being ashamed for what I did with Doom Blade), and I'm afraid it never will be again. Grimrock seemingly didn't attract too many new people, and maybe some users instead switched over to it.


Anyway, I promised to write a review, so here it is:



Gameplay: 7
It starts out pretty basic and gets more complex in the end, especially the puzzles. Possibly a few too many generic fights for my liking; screamers take forever to kill, for example. I also had the impression that monsters in general did little damage. In contrast, I would have liked a few more puzzles, so the balance is a bit too much shifted towards the fights for me. But that’s just my taste, others may see it differently.
Also, I didn’t really get what I needed to do once I had the Debian and Nebula. I ran up quite a few levels before I decided there must be something to do down there. I simply got teleported to my “boss” when I stepped on a seemingly random tile.

Originality: 9
From the start, the dungeon is very humorous. The constant self-mumbling of the hero, the numerous references to fresh pants, the appearance of public toilets inside the dungeon, and of course the Mophus jokes are wonderful. But it's not only this original approach that feels fresh, there are also cool gameplay elements like the magic items gone wrong, the Screamer Blade, the parts with the mummy and the melody horn, the idea of turning spells into items etc.

Difficulty: 7
The dungeon starts off pretty relaxed, but it does get significantly harder down there. The sub-bosses like the guardian dragon or the master Vexirks are tough, and the puzzles do get a bit obscure. I did find/assemble the Nebula quickly and thought that was ok as a puzzle, but the part with the Panacea or the Demonic Stone and the spells associated with them were hard; I had to look into this thread to actually find the answer. Another hint or two for this would be nice.
I didn’t have much trouble with the non-boss fights. My characters were Sasha and Mystra, and both reached several master ranks by the end of the game and were quite strong (except Mystra kept having terrible stamina). But as I read from this thread, the difficulty has been toned down already; for example, I only got one golem.

Puzzles: 6
There are some truly great puzzles here, like the golden ratio thing, the spell freezer, or assembling the Nebula. I just feel there are not enough, and some of the usual DM aspects like teleporters, levers and pits are very sparse. I think adding something in these departments would have added more variety.

Size: 7
When starting out, I always had the impression this would be a small dungeon that will be completed in maybe 2-3 hours. This was probably due to the first level being so small. I was certainly wrong and was surprised how much there was still in there. It is about the same as the original DM in size.

Replayability: 7
With a few different heroes, hidden stuff and alternate solutions to some puzzles, Unintended Heroism is more replayable than the average dungeon.

Craft: 7
Everything works as intended, and there are some wonderful new effects thanks to the power of DSB. I would have liked a little more structure in the dungeon layout itself and a few shortcuts back, because as it is, backtracking is tiresome and causes headaches.

Game Ending: 8
I like that you can see both the “good” and the “bad” ending in the same session. Both are funny, especially the bad one that really does remind me of Monkey Island 1, as Jan already pointed out. Assembling a super-powerful weapon and killing everything with it was great fun, and I even got a nice picture in the end.

Atmosphere: 9
As I said, the dungeon’s biggest plus is humour. I really enjoy this tongue-in-cheek approach, and it makes the real-world connections (like the Fibonacci hint; I suppose the gigglers took the role of the rabbits?) not stand out. Together with the numerous, often funny texts, this dungeon feels like no other.

Overall: 9
From a pure gameplay aspect, this might be a 7 or 8, but the originality and the humour push it to a 9. Definitely the funniest dungeon I ever played, and overall a great experience.


Best part:
The Chastity Serum was the funniest in a long line of funny moments.

Worst part:
Being totally clueless about the Panacea and Demonic Stone.

I had done the end using the

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venus portal

. This end looked like an unfinished job, too easy.
So I went again in the game to find the other end. The game goes on, pretty good on this way.
This game with two ends is great. I'm glad I did both.

Where is the "Chastety serum" bit ? I missed that part.

The chastity serum is one of the malfunctioning magical items. It can be found behind an illusionary wall in the room with the gravity experiments, which is quite early in the beginning, maybe level 3 or 4 or so.

Shameless plug: Sasha, if you are still interested, I worked on my old dungeon Doom Blade a bit. The updated version and info about the dungeon can be found here.

Thanks a lot for the review, Trantor. Such involvement is, again, heartwarming.
I also see that you made the effort to work on your dungeon, I'll try it, whenever I can get some free time ! I know how hard it is to re-work on old things (i'd have to learn again a lot of things, to do that for my dungeon), so you well deserved that people give a try to it !

Fortunately, this thread has a lot of spoilers in it, and players have access to the editor ; so most players don't get stuck forever, but I should definitely finish my work here.

@ Sasha,

I am happy you created a new game and wish you good luck . This Spring I was enjoyed playing SOFT from Stewy, what a great game... unforgettable!. For my part, I'm bury under ton of projects: I am writing a French DM Novel based around the first DM. You can find my post in Creative Endeavours. If it was not enough, I joined a great team with Serious Unserious & Chaos Shaman creating custom graphic for a new surprising game, Lychgate. After the release of the game, I promise you I will pay a visit to your dungeon. Tell your monsters to stay on their toes.

Is it essential to run the dungeon with DSB 0.53, or can I use the one that I normally use...DSB 0.69?