Alternate dungeons!

[Zyx]

I was wondering, do you play the alternate dungeons?
(http://dmweb.free.fr/Forum/list.php?f=7)
How many of you play them?
Which ones did you like?
Which ones are the hardest?
Which traps did you like?
Which ones did you complete?
Anyone is wanting to make reviews for them?

[PaulH]

There does not seem to be many people at all commenting on these alternate dungeons, which is a shame as a lot of hard work seems to have gone into designing them. If more people post reviews then hopefully more people will design new dungeons and not be put off by what seems to be a lack of interest.

Having been a long time DM fan, (I started to play in '86 when I was eight!) I stumbled upon this site a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed: I was looking for CSB for the PC (thanks Paul Stevens) but found much, much more. I have played both the 'Prison' dungeons that Benjamin Rauchle has designed and found both to be very good: I will post full reviews once I have played them again.

I am currently working on my own dungeon but it will be a while before it is ready as I am quite busy.

Well keep up the hard work everybody, I hope to see a few more comments in this particular forum.

PaulH

[beowuuf]

I've played all but the DM2 recreation (i still have my saved game, just never got back to playing it) but the problem is the amount of time it's been since I've played some of them! I can't even remember one of the recent ones to mail the creator to tell him how good it was!
The thing is that this is a fairly recent housing for these dungeons - lots of the old ones have been around for quite a while

I need to check them out again to remind me, but I don't think there is a single dungeon out there that does not have a defining moment or some brilliant ideas that doesn't make you glad you played through it.

Lol, a quick run down of 'the players' for those wanting to jump in:

Toni - he produced three of the finest dungeons while DMuting was still fairly new - the two originals both capture the DM feel brillianty
Zyx himself- has done more to bend and twist the dungeon format than anyone else (ok, I love to do that too, but I don't tend to produce any fun dungeons out of it!), and has produced two of the must play dungeons, conflux and mildrew (lol, i'm not forgetting enfers, it's merely very good cause it's shorter!)
Amber (bejamin) - definitey amogst the most prolific, his dungeons are very straightforward and playable - a good mix of very fierce combat and puzzles without that annoying getting lost in twisty turny passages for hours : )
Sphenx - not only has he brought us CSB for DM, and DM for CSB, but the first original CSB on DM dungeon 'deeper into the dungeon'
LMB - personally I found both Poison and Scrolls too short, but possibly because I just played them constantly through until I got to the end! And until then they were certainly a wild ride, especially the constant combat of the lost scrolls - hand cramps have never been so much fun since, well, since the end of toni's king filias duneon!

Of the rest, Dust & Blood is well worth the look, I seem to recall especially in puzzles some very original thinking.

Parlous is the one I am trying to recall playing, I've played it between my offshore trips for work so it's harder to recall...so a reveiw of that one later (I just recall really liking the end levels for structure and the start for the 'cemetry' level..damn need to find that saved games)
I can't comment on the ltest one, BEastmaster - I am biased from playtesting : ) Just go play it.

Oh, wait, I forgot Ian Clark! Not only did he manage to bring the apple kid's dungeon to live in PC DM and show off a few interesting tricks in his test dungeon, but he has one not on this site - a harder version of DM called DM Plus. The link should stil be in the DMute section of the DM Web.

Umm, right, I think that turned into a basic review right there - anything more is getting into spoilers. Like 'Oh, how about that ending in xxx, where you have to <blank> the <blank> with the <blank> found in the <blank>!

I think I will stop the post now : )

[Christopher]

After replying to the Beastmaster dungeon, I was thinking that reviewing the dungeons would be great. So how would one go about rating. We would need some kind of system and different catagories to rate like Originality, or puzzle difficulty. Or maybe someone else has a better idea.
I certainly play them.
I have played at least half of them and I liked most of the ones I played.
Hardest would have to be the Conflux because your characters start out with a whopping 3 Stamina points, or something like that.
The trap\ puzzle that took the longest was in Dust and Blood where you had to fall down the correct pit a couple of times.
I tend to like any dungeon that I die at least once while playing, not counting party suicides when I do something wrong.
I am also working on one or two dungeons at the moment and would certainly like to get some feedback on them and the one that I already submitted.

[Zyx]

Some ideas about the categories that could be rated:
balance/gameplay
originality
difficulty
puzzles/traps
Longevity/size
Replayability
Any other occurence?

[Christopher]

I think the ending should get some kind of rating. The dungeons should also have an overall rating. So would this rating system be a 5 out of 5 deal? Or should we have... "well this dungeon seemed to have only one puzzle, so puzzle/traps rating is Neophyte", for example. (ignor all the Master levels) Which leaves us with Ty, Ne, No, Ap, Jo, Cr, Ar, Ad, Ex, AM. Or something else?

[Zyx]

Good idea, i vote for the DMish rating system!

[beowuuf]

I think also a seond spoiler area to discuss why certian traps were brilliant and the craft behind them (that would ruin it for people who haven't played yet)

Another category: Craft (using natural mechanics or clever DMuting)

I think four brief word categories too:

best trap/area:
worst t/area:
best moment/level:
worst moment/level:

[sucinum]

i rated my dungeons by myself in the attached textfile, of course only the difficulty :)
to be honest, i didnt play the other dungeons too often, because, after fusing lord chaos about 100 times, i prefer to create my own worlds, and even though im lacking of phantasy, i think, my 2 dungeons (+2 variantions) are ok :)
i was mainly focusing on playability of them and didnt waste too much time in complex puzzles or story...
im looking forward to get reviews, and according to them, i will create at least one dungeon in near future.

[Christopher]

It has begun. Before I get carried away, I'll go replay most of the dungeons again in order of appearance on this web site. Then I will be able to get into best/worst case categories as well.
Just thought of another category when it applies... Dungeon story. Maybe? Maybe not?

[beowuuf]

Yeah, dungeon story is a good one...actually how about atmosphere instead?
How well the story and lay out actually make you think you are playing a different dungeon/sequel, not just a dmuted DM dungeon

I'm tryyyyyyyyyyying to update and refocus my jump site at some point as more of a news archive rather than anything up to the minute informative (honestly, sometime i will) so i can create a mirror section for all these reviews there - maybe like imdb where i show the average scores people have given, etc, and then i can have a further section with all the reviews listed, hidden away so you can rant about good traps and ares without worrying about spoiling it

I have a niggling suspicion that there is another dungeon not on the DM Web, but for the life of me i cannot think what it could be

and of course, there is the team dungeon - look out for that..umm..someday : )

[Zyx]

About other dungeons not available for download, eons ago Francis was creating an excellent, original dungeon. It was never released!

The Story/ambience is a good idea.

[beowuuf]

Gambit had one too that he never continued with, didn't he?

[sucinum]

did i mention that i keep reloading the page any 30 mins because im keen on your ratings??

[Christopher]

While you're waiting for ratings Amber, I certainly wouldn't mind if you would play my dungeon and rate it. I'll be sure that my next rating is of one of your dungeons.

[sucinum]

gotta replay all of them before beeing able to do this...hmm...ok.

[beowuuf]

man, I don't know whether it's scary how much i have forgotten about each one, or simply scary i can rememebr bits at all!

away to post reviews, sorry if they

a) ramble
b) use numbers
c) possibly don't stay consistent between the start and end : )

[sucinum]

wow michael, you rated them all!
for that only 8 points in difficulty, the next dungeon will be really hard :)
im just missing a theme for it...*idea*
ok, forget that, i will create it soon :D

[Rage]

nice work guyz, I'm gonna play some of those when I finished CSB, which isn't going great lately, lack o' time:)
I'm of to the Greece Isle to have some fun and sun there for 2 weeks.
But after that I'm surely gonna play some of this dungeons:)

[Simon]

Lets see, we have a forum full of DM enthusiasts, and I'm guessing most of you are too busy to make an entire dungeon...

Why not team together and make one grand dungeon? If each person designed a floor each, it shouldn't take up too much time :)

Why not give it a go?

[beowuuf]

*cough already doing it cough* : )

lol, the only trouble with that is that ,despite how it looks, everyone has real life stuff too...so you tend to go through periods where the person with the dungeon isn't doing anythign when there are people with free time - massive delays

check out the DMute forum to see our progress so far

amber has also made the offer in this forum to remove a level if anyone wants to try their hand (like yourself) at doing a level

like you say, a single level isn't as much challenge to build - the challenge will be balancing it out afterwards, and trimming object count to allow for late additions!

[Zyx]

I think there is still a free level. (the penultimate i think)

[Simon]

Not much good with DMute I'm afraid. I've been a fan of dungeon master for years, it remains my favorite game to the day, but sadly after following some tutorial for DMute, I gave up trying to make a torch holder with a torch in after about half an hour :/

Sad I know, but I haven't looked back at Dmute since. Maybe I'll take another look sometime :)

[sucinum]

lol, i never managed to make a torch holder, too. also cannot create switches changing graphics after usage etc. my dungeons only use the most primitive and handmade things. my shooters ie always face north, thats much easier.
concentrate on the main things. look with dmute at bennis dungeon I, these are only the easiest things and i think, its still playable.
a good dungeons musnt contain more than doors, monsters, buttons, false walls, pits and some items...

[beowuuf]

lol, please, always mail me if my tutorial are absolute rubbish! : )

Torch holders and changing graphics are fun though.

Changing graphics - torch holders

The main functioning part of the torch holder actually does all the work
All you need is a) an alternate graphic object, innactive
Then b) the active graphic after. Make it innactive using DMute.
All you need to do is add D 2 to the 3rd/4th byte and voila, torchholder
All the other hex changes suggeted aren't actually necessary!

Changing craphics - switches

Have one of the graphics doing all the activation work - toggling, switching, opening the door, etc
Have the other graphic innactive using DMute. Then hex edit the 3rd byte to be 1, and the 7th byte to be 10 - voila, this is the toggle graphcs part. Each time you press, it's this part that does the swap.


As for north facing stuff:
Yah, the trigger has to point to the face. By default all trigger items created point to the north face.
To target alternate faces add to the 7th byte:
East = + 10 (80 --> 90, etc)
South = + 20 (80 --> a0, etc)
West = + 30 (80 --> b0, etc)

But I agree, you don't need anything fancy to make a good dungeon
I'm just a nut for cool hex tricks personally ; )

[sucinum]

it hasnt to do with your tutorial, it is very good and its not too wordy, as you have feared by yourself - im just too lazy *cough* meaning i just want to concentrate on gameplay. and i always send my dungeons to you to overwork them ;) (should i have told that? - you might be going to get lots of mail now ;))
i personally would prefer the hexguide in another order, i had to scroll up and down many.

[Simon]

I agree, I'm probably too lazy too!

I'll be sure to re-read it some time soon =)

[beowuuf]

lol, anyone can mail me, i just don't promise to reply back, or keep my replies short and sweet if i do : )

[sucinum]

in reverse, you have the unique chance to be the first one to play my dungeons :)

i love to play around with img-code

[beowuuf]

lol, i think i have been the first to play about four - six seperate dungeons, one even being on DMJ : )

only now, at the end, do people realise the reason for the hex manual! bwahahahah!