Dungeon Master Forum

This fourth quarter Nintendo is planning on releasing the Nintendo Wii. They plan on making all old NES, SNES, etc. games available for download.

I suggest that we form a group and bug them ("them" referring to Nintendo, FTL Software, or any good old 3rd party group) to make a new Dungeon Master for the Wii!

That would be amazing.

And also to re-release the SNES version of Dungeon Master too, just in case?

Yes!

We may be lucky that the SNES version of DM will be available for download.

I wonder if they would make it along the same lines as that "Dungeon Master Nexus" version I was reading about on the DM Encyclopaedia...

It would be cool if they could have all the different "official" versions in one package, like Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon Master II as unlockable bonus mini-games in Dungeon Master Wii.

If someone made a new one...
-Same Old Beautiful Graphics (graphics are overrated anyway)
-Plot (the original would have been perfect with a touch more plot)
-Music (the intro for the original (in that one system only, can't remember) was incredibly addicting, but the quality was low)
-Puzzles (puzzles made the original incredible. Solving those puzzles was intriguing)
-"AND MORE!" as commercials like to say.

Dungeon Master Revived.
<3

Of course if DM were revived commerically, especially attached to Sony, I am sure all the clones etc would feel the fist of copyright start to thump down on them : (

As long as no lawsuits ensued, that would be okay. The whole point of the clones was that so people who weren't able to buy the game before they stopped making it could play it. Now those people will be able to buy it.

And it won't even be very expensive. Nintendo predicts old game downloads to be similarly priced to songs on iTunes. $4 max, I've heard. Only up to $10 for the popular N64 games.

attached to Sony? Huh?

oops, sorry, nintendo ... i meant nintendo!

Chish wrote: -Music (the intro for the original (in that one system only, can't remember) was incredibly addicting, but the quality was low)

Do you mean the CSB intro? Because that was great!

No. Not the music from CSB. Original Dungeon Master. It was only for the main menu, though. Which led me to record it using Audacity and then play it while I played the game.

edited to remove small taste of stupidity.

Chish wrote:As long as no lawsuits ensued, that would be okay. The whole point of the clones was that so people who weren't able to buy the game before they stopped making it could play it. Now those people will be able to buy it.

Weren't FTL the original "inventors" of Dungeon Master?

How do they feel about these clones available for download?

If they, as the original people who made the game, don't have a problem with websites like this, then I don't see why Nintendo would have cause for complaint.

profit magrins. If the game is not making money.. there is no one losing money. If however, it begins to make money again.. then they start to look for leaks in their cash flow. Ie clones, emulators, etc.

So, since FTL is not making money on this now.. there is no money lost.. however, if a company like nintendo, sony, or MS. Were to take on the licence.. then they would feel the need to put pressure on others. Atari did this when they re-released a lot of the old games like asteroids and so on. They went around to the popular clones and tried to stamp them out. Lawsuits were rampant.

moo

Yeah quiet little 'cease and desist orders' etc : ( At the moment we know that the people in FTL are aware of the sites, etc and aren't doing anything - as said, because no one is losing money really.

Anyway, didn't want to put a dampner on anything - yeah new DM etc etc

Thinking about it, there is a possibility of a remake though - all it takes is a lead designer or someone in a relatively well-off games company to turn around and say, 'Hey you know what, we've run out of ideas, we should remake Dungeon Master!'. I mean a lot of people in the industry, especially the older ones, remember DM and it is a game that constantly keeps re-appearing in magazines / game discussion sites. I'm surprised it hasn't been thought of already.

The legality of all the clones does prove worrying if this were to come about. RTC and CSBWin are an integral part of this community and I fear what would happen if some big company got hold of the licensing for DM...

RTC can subtle shift out of it thouhg, as it is a new engine - it owuld need alternate graphics, but toherwise names etc could be changed qquickly

CSBwin, on the other hand, has the core code transfered (would this still be copyright infringenet?) and uses the core files of DM ... I fear it is inextricably linked : ( Still, not insurmountably perhaps

Anyway, relax and enjoy positive thoughts on remakes!

Chish wrote:I suggest that we form a group and bug them ("them" referring to Nintendo, FTL Software, or any good old 3rd party group) to make a new Dungeon Master for the Wii!

I am 99.9% certain that this will never happen.

I am 100 percent that your 99.9 percent certainty is accurate.

What about if a group like you guys were to take on the license, and lease it on to Nintendo or whoever...?

You can't infringe your own copyright.

no one here owns the license.. it's FTL.. Wayne Holder specifically..

if somehow anyone was to do it, it would need to go through him.

moo

I believe Des Bro Brain meant that if we made our own version of Dungeon Master for the Wii (with approval from Wayne Holder, of course), we could either sell it to Nintendo or have them publish it, and be the owners of the game ourselves.

We do seem to have a fair number of people... one of us has got to be a good DM-style artist. Doesn't that one super-awesome guy post here? (can't remember the name, but I'm sure that will get a lot of "you mean me? of couse!"s)

...I know how to program a bit. Not a professional, but I know Visual Basic really well and I'm learning C++. If that helps. I've also got a lot of extra time on my hands.

*snort* Des Bro Brain.

But yeah, if people like us were to take the license, lease it to the designers at Nintendo to make a game based on "our" Dungeon Master, it should leave people free to carry on as normal with things like Return to Chaos and custom dungeons and so on...?

Super-awesome guy.. no idea who that is. Gambit is a fair artist though with some really nice DM graphics . However, it's still a DM game and thus as pointed out.. needs to go through Wayne and last I was told he has no real interest in DM anymore. He now is a Java programming teacher or something.

as for me.. I have no idea how to draw.. really..

*runs*

I can draw stick monsters, or blob monsters, or blob monsters with sticks coming out of them... or....

Seriously, the possibilities are endless, here!

Yeah me too! Who met my Pooh Monster?

Hmm, if the license is owned by Wayne Holder and he doesn't have any interest in DM anymore anyway, it probably wouldn't make a difference to him, whether he'd give such a license to Nitendo or to us. Yet in either case there would be money involved I suppose (at least Nitendo is supposed to pay for it, and anyone else interested is probably supposed to do so either), and while I think there are a number of people here who'd be willing to contribute something, I personally have no idea what dimensions we are talking about here in regard to cost.

yes, and so who knows how to develop for Wii? Somone here able to spare a few thousand for a dev kit?

and distribution? who will handle that? or it's to be sloley download?

what about advertisments? or none of that?

there are ofcourse other leagal issues with regards to who get's paid what and how much and who handles the taxes on all of this and if you have people from multiple countries it get's even messier..

Hit it spot on there cows, and organisation is another major problem. Games companies work 9-5 (often overtime too), get paid for it and are professionals with years of experience. Now I'm not dissing anyone on here because there are a lot of talented people among us, however those people have real lives and real jobs, no joke. It just seems like a pipedream I'm afriad. I don't even think in this era of videogaming it would be feasible for a small number of people to create a successful game

Funny, I was pretty sure I posted a big-ass post right here on Wednesday, but AOL is prone to screw up right when you want it to the least. Anyway,

-The original Dungeon Master was made by what, six people? Six people, right? Only six individuals in the credits.

-Dev Kit is 100% unneccessary if we make it for whatever version of Linux comes out for the Wii. Of course, we won't be able to sell our version if we develop it for Wii Linux, but we could easily distribute it for free. Easily. Internet.

-If it was free, we wouldn't bother advertising it.

Hey, don't get your hopes down. "Dare to Dream," as the corny saying goes.
"Ideas are bulletproof."

Now the question that comes to my mind is.. Where does this Wii thing come from? Other than the original post about Nintendo, of course..

If people (here, there, where ever) would seriously start doing a remake, why not just do a very portable c/c++ version that could be compiled on literally any platform.. Of course audio/video stuff might need platform specific stuff..

And the fact that a program is developed for Linux does not mean it must be free. It needs to be free only if it includes/uses GPL (or similar) lisenced code..

But seriously, with CSBWin and RTC would there be a need for this? I think not. Unless the remake would be done in 3D and utilizing greatly improved graphics (of course, with no sacrifices to gameplay and mechanics)..