Dungeon Master Forum

I'm running the Atari ST version 1.1 (not harddisk version) downloaded from this site on the latest STEEM emulator.

I'm on level 2, not counting HoC, the level with the the rock monsters and the 6 puzzel rooms. If I walk around around for a few minutes on this level my characters spontaneously die. There are no monsters around and no fireballs/traps that I can see. Everyone just turns into skeletons instantly from full health. It seems to happen more quickly when I am in the secret room with the compass, but even if I just go to the puzzel chamber and don't open any doors I still die.

Any ideas?

Anyone know the difference between ver 1.0 and 1.1? I read that the version on the Automation disk is bad and you can't finish the game with it -- is that true?


Thx!

Great site!

I've heard that this was part of the copy protection of some old versions: You could test the game, but you couldn't play it properly, if the programs thinks, that you are not using an original disk.

It is my considered opinion that the dungeon.dat file is
damaged. I had the same problem as you when I used
WinSTon. Here is what I wrote to Christophe:
===============================
I am more and more convinced that DungeonMasterAtariST.st
is damaged.

CSBWin has problems with some of the text. I look at it
with a hex editor and it looks wrong. I used WinSTon and
it had the same problem. I removed it from my hard drive
and downloaded it again. Same problems. The file
dungeon.dat is different than the same file on the
hard-drive version. So I think I can say with great
certainty that something is wrong.

I cannot get to megafile.atari.st or mindbomb.atari.st
to get a new file to see if it is OK there.
===============================

I agree with Lunever, as Dennis Walker once wrote me this about the copy protection:

"Eventually the game would start to fall apart if the copy protection was found violated (it didn't just barf on you), so this made it difficult to isolate all the checks that are made."

So it is probably true that dying in that way is part of the copy protection, don't you think?
I believe CSB4win does not have that problem because the hacked version you ported to PC did not include anymore the copy protection code. Am I wrong?

There were strange things in the CSB code. They reminded me of
copy protection. But none of it seemed to actually do anything. I
took it out but it looked like it would not have made any difference
if I had left it in. I felt that maybe it had been copy protection in the
DM code but had not been used as such in the CSB code.

Nevertheless.....I still believe the dungeon.dat file is damaged and
in a way that could cause craxhes. It caused a crash in CSBWin, too.

If I remember correctly, it is easy to distinguish:
If you die normally, a restart button appears. (after a short delay.)
If the copy protection kills you, it won't appear.

(This difference was actually the main weakness in the copy protection,
which was otherwise almost impossible to understand)