Dungeon Master Forum

Been playing for about a week straight now. I have hit a wall considering restarting from scratch because i wasted a few keys that i shouldn't have but i had no idea there were not enough keys in the game to complete it. Seems like kind of lame game design if true, I mean how was i supposed to know what keys to save?


Most everything I am having issues are on Level 5: Here is a lvl 5 map if you want to look, you may remember this area with thr flying snakes and pits and such and hopefully someone can give me a clue on how to grab ANY one of these because that is all i need is 1 of these and I can beat this game..

http://dmweb.free.fr/games/chaos-strike ... /level-05/

I Need either 4 sets of speed boots( I have 3 sets) OR 1 ruby key OR 1 winged key OR 1 Onyx key to beat the game.

Fairly certain all of these are currently impossible to get with my current save. I used the editor "CSbuild2021112101.exe" to look at my saves.

I already have 3 of 4 boots of speed with 2 more located at:
05,17,10 and the other at 09,31,36

Problem is i cant get the boots of speed the editor showed me at 09,31,36 as I already killed the Vexirk and i dont believe I can respawn him to complete the "Vexing Vexirk" puzzle so that's out. Please correct me if I'm wrong but i have never seen him once since i killed him the first time.

I can't get the other boots of speed the editor showed me located at "05,17,10" because its behind an Onxy key door(L04 on map) and the editor shows Zero results of Onxy keys in my dungeon (unless im doing something wrong in the editor ,for example does this build editor show keys on monsters?)

So i wasted those super important keys unknowing at the time, that they were the most important keys in the game and that the game doesn't even have enough keys to complete it.

Next I can not get the ruby key (05,28,28) without boots of speed or the one remaining Winged key (located at 05,24,14). Which again I wasted all my winged keys on other areas, and according to the editor there is only one remaining Winged Key in the entire dungeon which is surrounded by pits. You can only access the switch to shut off the pit and grab that winged key, through the Onxy key room I refereed to earlier. (it's appears to be the room AFTER the Onxy key (with the last remaining boots of speed) The switch to turn off the pit is located on the map at (05,22,16), Again unless there is another way to get that key that i maybe missing here?

I also tried to suicide one of my characters so all 3 of my party had boots of speed, but that didn't work either to get the ruby key..So what do i do here?

I was enjoying this game up until this point but now I'm currently just finding this frustrating.

The only other thing i can think of is hoping i can find a pit to jump down to land in those areas to be able to hit the switch or land in the room with the boots of speed... so i can grab that winged key or boots....but I have wasted hours doing this and its just getting on my nerves guessing which pit may work.. since no maps cover this I'm currently mapping all the pits myself but its getting old fast, jumping down pits non stop and marking them all down....

I think i could remake and have this done in 3 days or less now but, wow is that the only option? Please tell me im missing something here..

Do i really have to restart from scratch for using my winged keys and Onxy keys. Sorry but this was a week of playing down the drain if its true. I really can't believe they designed CSB to screw people over or punish 4 person parties. If I was aware of this from the start i would have only made a 2 person party( but i wanted to import my full group from dungeon master). I now know why so many people play this game with 2 or 1 person parties, it's because, This game is way easier to beat with a smaller party when you only need 1 or 2 pair of boots of speed to grab the ruby key in dain, seems like poor game design or intentional malice for larger groups.

Maybe I'm missing something (which i hope i am) but after reviewing the editor I'm fairly certain this is indeed a fact. I will send my save file to anyone if you want to look yourself. Maybe im missing something.

I don't remember needing Winged or Onyx keys in particular (I can't even remember what the Winged Key is used for in this one )...the bit with the Flying Snakes and pits is around where you get the Ruby Key if I remember rightly - there's a bit with the word "Bridge" on the wall, where you walk along a straight path between two rows of pits, and somewhere nearby is written "Prove you are a Wizard", next to an eye on the wall (you need to [spoiler[show it a Zokathra[/spoiler]) which I think opens the bit with the Ruby Key in it. Usually for me the tricky part is jut finding the "Bridge" area in the first place. Once I've done that, I don't recall any particular difficulty going from there.

Nah im past that part im at the part you need boots of speed to get over the pit to get the ruby key, but thanks. Or you need the winged key to access the ruby key room, but to get the winged key in the center of that room (surrounded by pits) i need the onyx key to access the lever that turns off the pit in front of the last remaining winged key according to the editor.

So if i could get either 1 set of boots of speed, 1 onyx key, or 1 winged key i would have already won but, it seems impossible unless there is something I'm missing here.

I had no idea you could actually run out of keys in this game but, it appears to be the case unless the editor doesn't show keys on monsters for example. (like maybe i missed a monster that has an onyx or winged key and the editor doesn't show those but , that's just an assumption at this point as I'm unsure what the editor can and can not see in the game)

I'm pretty sure there are multiple ways to get past a bunch of the obstacles in this game. You definitely don't need Boots of Speed - I don't think I've ever really used any, if I even find them. Back in the day, if I ever found any they didn't seem to do anything, but even now knowing that everyone has to be wearing a pair to get the speed boost, I've never gone out of my way to look for them and definitely still never had everyone (which these days is just two people) wearing any. I just make sure my team are in the grey and don't carry any excess. I think they end up still in leather boots or something by the end .

Correct there are 3 possible ways to enter the ruby key room, that i know of.

1 -The puzzle that requires all party members to have boots of speed. (the purple line)
2 -The onyx key so i can access the orange area and get the boots of speed and the last winged key.
3 - a winged key so i can unlocked the yellow area.

these 3 are the only way i am currentley aware of that you can access the ruby key. Hense why i wrote this thread. Is it possible there is a 4th way sure, but please tell me because i see no solution.

The editor as stated shows that there are zero results for onyx keys in my save,it also shows that there is ONLY one winged key remaining in the game... and the other is 4 boots of speed. Which i only have 3 and i cant acess either of the 2 boots of speed remaining in the game because of what i wrote in the first post.

So as i said i dont see any solution.

Please download thios map and read what i wrote
https://ibb.co/LhXNtn40

So i never figured out how to solve this issue , so i ended up remaking from scratch, and ran through the entire game as quickly as possible and finally beat it just 10 minute ago.. So now i have finally beat Chaos Strikes Back and Dungeon master. Thank for trying to help, but weird you can indeed run out of keys in this game if you unlock everything.

Not sure the exact time it took me to beat it, but probably about 6 hours once you know all the puzzles its not that hard.

Also once i knew i need to conserve my keys this game was easy.

I had 3 chests full of extra keys. I used lock picks on every key hole that i could...
even had an extra Onyx Key in the end and even an extra master key.

4 corbums
https://ibb.co/pBpvZkJY
End screen:
https://ibb.co/GQrm36Vh
Team:
https://ibb.co/hRjYWKwf

Yeah, the key thing is weird, never had that happen to me. I know I end up with a whole load of spare Iron keys and a few Gold ones, and a miscellany of others which I may or may not end up using . The lockpicks are useful but only work on certain locks I think, and can also get you killed at a few locks - one causes a Fireball trap to trigger and blast you if you use the picks instead of a key, for example :O.
Anyway, gratz on your victory - sounds like you had a far easier time of it than, well, pretty much all of us if you did it all without using any guides or maps or whatever. Still great games, even after all this time - 40 years for DM in a couple of years!

Yah well i did end up using guides in the end, due to this weird running out keys thing because I knew something was wrong so I looked into the ways i could beat it which did give me a few solutions that i wish i didn't know. Just due to watching walkthru.

Up until the keys issue I didn't use any guide but, i did play the game years ago and just recently finished DM and imported a strong team from dungeon master which I'm sure also helped.

Overall I like CSB but i did prefer the original DM. In my opinion, CSB had too many false walls and some of the "direction" or paths that you were supposed to take were just not really clear. Mostly when it came to the DDD area, and the JOW area until you really learnt the maps. Even the ninja one (ROS) where you needed to climb down like 20 pits to figure out where you were going wasn't my favorite. It just seemed to be intentionally confusing to increase game time. Overall it still was a great game better than 90% of game made these days that hold your hand like you're a tard. I am also looking forward to figuring out how to run dosbox or find a windows version of Dungeon Master 2 because I have heard it is more like original Dungeon master which by far is my favorite game,and i never even knew there was a part 2 until literally a few weeks ago. So i feel like a kid in a candy store and my focus will now go to attempt to solve Dungeon master 2, I'm excited to play a dungeon master i know for sure i never played. So, Thanks again for trying to help solve the issue, I do appreciate you trying.

There's some DM2 clones on the forum that definitely run on Windows though I'm not entirely sure how close to the original they are (that is, some of the versions or maybe all didn't rip the source code but tried to replicate the thing by touch and feel). I played one of them and it felt close enough to my memory of the original as to make no difference (I think it was the RTC one).

Just don't start with Return to Skullkeep because that's a very creative reinterpretation of the game and pretty hard too

Yes I have already ran into those versions, one started off in the exact same dungeon walls CSB and DM but it seems that's not the orginal DM2.I believe the original DM2 skulldeep Seems to start in a basement cave like walls that looks like futuristic and portraits of people with a staricase leading up....
The graphics are much different. (not better imo)

I currently have figured out how to get the original dm2 working on dosbox or dosbox x issue is i cant get the sound working in game. I have the background sound working but the spells/keys/running into walls/ and footsteps are not. I read on the DM2 forums this seems to be a reoccuring issue dating back 20+ years. Seems some people figured out how to fix it others have not. I'm still trying to figure out how to fix it myself because I wont even bother if i can't hear the enemies or spells. Just too hard to get into it if i can't hear those effects and all i hear is the background music.

Update: fixed the sound issue on dungeon master 2... step by step on how to fix this on PC is found here for anyone having this issue- viewtopic.php?t=31696