Dungeon Master (Third Review)

Title		Dungeon Master (Third Review)
Game Type	RPG
Company		FTL
Players		1
Compatibility	All (AGA patch maybe necessary for earlier versions)
Submission	Tony Crowther

Review
What was it I liked about "Dungeon Master"? To my eyes, it was just well
cool! Some games have only got visual appeal, but with Dungeon Master you
could really live in it, totally immersed in the game with it's corridors
and the little beasties.
 I saw it on the Atari ST first, and I waited ages for the Amiga version.
Why? Because ST's weren't very nice, you always seemed to get a cut down
version. I'd really gone from the C64 straight to the Amiga. My ST was out
of the way on top of a cupboard, it was good that it had a midi port as
standard, but I wanted "Dungeon Master" on the Amiga.
 The game was a new genre, a first person adventure in a kind of 3D world,
with the role playing aspect that allowed you to build up the various
character strengths. Actually, "Dungeon Master" got me to try out real
Role Playing Games, without a computer, it really freaked me out.
 "Dungeon Master" was a different concept, so well written, and with no
reference to other games. Like the latest concept is Quake, it looks
better, but it doesn't play as well, it just doesn't really work for me.
Dungeon Master is like Chess, where everything is square to square, in
Quake you can dash around your opponents, but in Dungeon Master if
someone's blocking your way you can't avoid them.
 We used to have competitions. We could finish the game in a day. I learnt
who you needed to kill, and who you could avoid. Playing the game with
just one character was another one. That was really hard, because if you
got killed there was nobody there to carry your bones to a rebirth
chamber. I did maps of the levels, I even got one printed in the
magazines. This was one game I played to death. You could say I did a
course in "Dungeon Master" and I learnt it well.
 There were a lot of "Dungeon Master" clones, but it seemed every game
missed out all the good stuff. The various bits you could throw around
and so on. I decided that I could do this, so "Captive" is very similar but
within a high-tech environment. "Liberation" wasn't really the same kind of
game, it had too much text in it. In "Dungeon Master" you just get text
telling you things like you've advanced to the next level. If I wanted a
lot of text, I'd buy a book. It used the medium really well. Mind you,
I've played a lot of text adventures, like "Hitchhiker's Guide" and
"Leather Goddesses". I couldn't get on with the "Zork" ones though.
I never met the "Dungeon Master" programming team, although I was with
Mirrorsoft, they were in a separate part. Mirrorsoft couldn't release any
"Dungeon Master" type games, so I had to get "Captive" released through
Mindscape.
 I can't choose a special part of "Dungeon Master" that was my favourite
bit. It was the whole concept, and in "Captive" I was trying to recreate
that. It inspired me in a big way, it was the whole damn thing.

Alphabetical list.