Dungeon Master Forum

I have visited this site a few times over the years and have always found it alive and kicking nicely. I was a huge fan of DM and CSB from the old Atari ST days.... boy- we were the original playstation generation, years before Sony caught on!

I would like to ask people about any other game theyve played that they feel capture a sense of what made DM/CSB so great.

I think there is a slight difference between the feel of DM and CSB, despite the obvious fact they both use the same engine. DM feels like the more sophisticated and almost classical game, whereas CSB feels a little more Hollywood.

I was a fan of the early Tomb Raider games, and I feel there is a similarity in the sense of quiet exporation and isolation to the DM. There is also a certain shared respect for the ancient and mysterious that comes across to me. What do others think about this?

There is a also a similarity in how the world is built, with regard to blocks being replicated. In the DM engine, there is one position in each block, by that I mean you are either standing at co-ordinate 1,1 or you are standing at 2,1. Tomb Raider seemed to make things more detailed by enabling you to stand in a variety of positions within a block.

Also crucial to both games I think is the strength of the creative imagination. On the face of it, the monsters in both games are not really scary, but when you put them in the context of the game, the feel of the game engine and the story, they work superbly because your imagination adds to the involvement. They say this is what makes good horror films work too.

Think of the characters and object names in DM, you can kind of guess at a whole history just from their name, appearence and statistcs. You feel like you can link up certain objects you find with certain characters.

I would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on these kinds of things.

Thank you

Luigi

I like Half Life and think it has the same feel. Dm had the clean feel where you could emerse yourseld in the game, the game window is large, the mechanics are minimised as much as possible, and I always loved the way you manipulate and place objects in the dungeon. Just very emersive.

Similarly, half life keeps the mechanics in the background (alright, an FPS isnt' that hard) but did it in terms of cut scenes and how you intereact with the people too...everythign is seemless and designed to not knock you out of the world you are in.

Bane of the Cosmic Forge! So many weapons, items, strategies, people, monsters and plots. Don't let the graphics and sound put you off, this is a cracking game.

Resident Evil was the first game to scare me as much as DM used to... After that of course, a good old solo game of Quake or Half-Life, not to mention Doom 3 (I quit playing after 10 minutes, too much stress for my weak nerves).

i like diablo 1 and 2 for the same reasons than DM - easy to handle, high replayability.

I don't think any of those games have the same atmosphere, although they certainly have a unique factor.

I think it was the fact that DM was about progression through more and more difficult areas, with new and interesting puzzles, monsters, traps and challenges.

Half-life gave me nightmares because its world was well-designed, believable, and frightening to me. I can't watch it any more, which is a shame because it is an awesome game. I don't play survival horror games or any really scary games because I can't handle them. DM isn't scary like that to me - it isn't like it has undead zombies eating your souls and lots of gore or a really twisted and disturbing storyline. DM has atmosphere and suspense.

I honestly don't think I've ever played a game that reminded me of DM, atmospherically. I've seen similar magic systems, similar concepts behind the dungeon, but never a similar atmosphere - something that manages intensity without creepiness, suspense without calling on horror, while combining it all with an extreme (to me) difficulty. DM is the sort of game that is really scary but kind of comforting all at once. Hmm.

This is an incoherent rant brought on by lack of sleep. Hello!

I remember in DM, as soon as I enter a new area, close the door behind me, run around and check out the entire place as fast as I could for other monsters, then relax and explore it in more detail.

DM can still make you jump if you go to sleep and get awakened by a mummy or monster with a similar sound effect...

I've always enjoyed the King's Field series that started on the PS1.

Another I just thought of is AD&D - Treasures of Tarmin (AKA Minotaur) for Intellivision.