That is to say, you are not required to resurrect/reincarnate a full party of four characters. So reincarnation is the way to go, because when you reincarnate a character, all of their attributes are increased in exchange for their losing their names and class XP.įinally, the game is a lot of fun to play with only one character, which most people end up trying on their second or third replay of the game. Any character, even ones who start with no mana, can be raised to be MON Masters in every class, but the attributes have a profound influence on the character's performance in the game, and they are much more difficult to raise (1 - 3 stats may improve slightly with each level increase) than class levels or health/stamina/mana. Woe betide the party who got stuck in a dead-end on level 2 (level 3 if you count the hall of champions as level 1) with a rock lobster attacking them! Before anyone else objects, the obvious reasons that this tactic is better than just slamming the monsters with doors are that a) the party has to stand in front of the monster and withstand its attacks while it is getting slammed by the door, and b) the party gets no experience from letting the door defeat the monsters (aside from a little fighter XP from taking damage).Ī note on reincarnation: by the end of the game, it becomes clear that what is most desirable in the characters are high ability scores, not class levels.
This tactic, more than using doors to slam them, is what really helps a party early in the game, and it makes for some interesting tactics, as you have to constantly consider where there are places to use this attack method, and figure out how to lure the monsters there. You can keep doing this as long as your stamina holds out stamina is a great mechanic to limit how fast you'd otherwise move through the levels using the keyboard movement. The real-time nature of the combat has some nice results: for example, since all of the monsters have a "facing," you can run around them and attack them from behind, then dodge away again as they turn to retaliate. I'd been reading through your blog in chronological order over the past week, in fits and starts as I had time here and there, but in the end I got impatient and had to jump ahead to Larn and Dungeon Master, just to get your impressions. "Puzzles" in dungeon crawlers usually involve a lot of backtracking to find obscure secret doors and such. Now that I'm in the era where it doesn't matter as much, though, I'm going to continue as is.
Helm, to be honest, if I had to start over again last February, I'd probably bite the bullet and learn the other emulators. I don't even know if "tile-based" is the right term, but you know what I mean. You would expect tile-based games to be turn-based, and real-time games to be continuously scrolling. Still, it does seem a bit odd to have a real-time tile-based game. Lame, I was wishing the same thing, but I might feel differently now that I know how to pause. Rizla, I remain a little confused about how skill development works, so I do look forward to seeing what you mean. I probably should work on improving my tech: get an actual domain name, better images, more videos, etc. This wasn't anywhere within the documentation I found, and I must have tried every other key.
I'm sure you will the love this game but will you think the same about DM2, especially considered that it took them six years to make it? Reply Deleteīreakdance: great name. Most of these ripoffs were either fantasy or sci-fi scenarios so not much variety either. Instead, we got dozens of games from other companies (or shareware) ripping of the interface while often never reaching the technical excellency of DM (especially for ST and Amiga platforms).
Could've been very interesting but it was perhaps the small size of the company and/or low revenues from DM as it probably was one of the most pirated games at the time. I remember interviews from the time where they imagined spy- and/or detective scenarios with it. The real pity is that FTL never realized other projects with the engine, though. nitpick: FTL did develop at least one other game: "Oids", a lunar lander variation that still ranks favorably with Atari ST fans. Enjoy the 18-page story prologue as it is, well, the biggest chunk of plot you'll get from the game (if I remember correctly, played the Amiga version back at the time).