Old-school dungeon crawls - post your favourite, and why!

[Moggs]

Thanks for the links. If it's a difficult set-up I might just stick with the Amiga or PC version. Is there any advantage for using the Mac version (aside from you having MMI saves on a Mac)? You mentioned an improved UI?

 

[Jasede]

The UI is extremely improved and the game looks much better. It has a much better interface and everything controls better.

This Let's Play is currently halfway through Might and Magic 1 and has many screenshots: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... genumber=1

The thread also contains hints on setting up the Mac emulator.

http://waffleimages.nwpshost.com/files/ ... 5abe77.gif

http://kalleboo.mirror.waffleimages.com ... f4d1e5.gif

The resolution is much higher and you can use a mouse for everything. That makes up for the black & white.

 

[ady5]

Wow, noone so far has mentioned Demise.
I still carry my party over countless hard disk formats, for over 6 years now.

I never played a roguelike game as hard as Demise, hard mostly because there always was a chance for a dungeon feature or creature to fuck you up good, be it a teleporter(scatters your party all over the dungeon) or a thing that can stone or generally kill you instantly(stoning=death in Demise, not getting high).

Oh man, how i miss playing this game...But it is too time consuming to start it up again

 

[Moggs]

Oh yeah, the interface looks much nicer! That might be work the hassle of setting up the Mac emulator.

Do you know how the spellbook works on the Mac? On the Amiga/PC versions, you had to just pick two numbers (level and spell number), without any spell names, so you had to remember which two numbers result in which spell. Shoddy graphics I can cope with. Remembering ~50 numbers and their corresponding spells - not so much!

 

[Redeye]

Miracle Warriors, an old Sega Master System Dungeon/Overworld romp. It was my first RPG, loved that game. You could easily snag an Emulator and ROM for it.
http://freespace.virgin.net/james.groom/MWarr/Mwarr.htm
...
I'm sure it's mostly Nostalgia by today's standards, but it was my first RPG.
...
It's somewhat non-linear in that you can go anywhere at any time. The issue is difficulty though. Traveling around will result in your death if you aren't prepared.
...

Yes. Good. Level scaling = fail.

... a mantle that prevents the weaker enemies from attacking and being annoying,

I remember the Sand Bums in Wasteland attacking my power armored laser rifle toting Rangers. over... and... over... and...

...a helm for reading hyroglyphs in the dungeons, and other such items that add functionality or abilties to your group.

I like the idea of languages in games. It would add an interesting element.

Dialogue trees with guesswork.




As for suggesting Dungeon Crawls, how about Sword of Fargoal?

Explore 15-20 levels of dungeon and grab the thingy, then escape in 33 minutes.

Your map can be lost, blacking out an entire level. And the thingy is stealable, causing you to have to return to grab it again.

Very annoying.

Edit: The OP wrote "favorite" old school dungeon crawl.

Prolly Icewind Dale. Very weak RPG, but a nice enough hack n slash.

I liked the aquarium at the top of the mountain, and Bone Golems in the Hand.

 

[Jasede]

Oh yeah, the interface looks much nicer! That might be work the hassle of setting up the Mac emulator.

Do you know how the spellbook works on the Mac? On the Amiga/PC versions, you had to just pick two numbers (level and spell number), without any spell names, so you had to remember which two numbers result in which spell. Shoddy graphics I can cope with. Remembering ~50 numbers and their corresponding spells - not so much!

In the MM 1 Mac version, it is still numbers. But you get used to them since you really don't use that many spells and I always keep the manual in the background.
However, and you will like this: In MM 2, Mac version, you can pick the spell just like that, complete with name! A huge improvement to MM 1 if you ask me. [Though for some odd reason I enjoyed memorizing all spell names in Wizardry 1-5. I liked it because it was, well, traditional! TILTOWAIT! BADIALMA! LOKTOFEIT!]

 

[Xi]

Wow, noone so far has mentioned Demise.
I still carry my party over countless hard disk formats, for over 6 years now.

I never played a roguelike game as hard as Demise, hard mostly because there always was a chance for a dungeon feature or creature to fuck you up good, be it a teleporter(scatters your party all over the dungeon) or a thing that can stone or generally kill you instantly(stoning=death in Demise, not getting high).

Oh man, how i miss playing this game...But it is too time consuming to start it up again

I played Demise on and off for a few years. I don't have my old saves so all my progress was lost, but I currently have a Human/Artisan character that I quickly leveled up to 100 just for the sake of fast leveling. I was surprised by his ability to go deeper and deeper into the dungeon. Form what people had been telling me they were too weak, but the upside is that they equip the best items loong before other classes can. So, I was wielding some pretty sweet stuff that other guilds would need 30-100+ levels more than I had to use.

Anyway, it's a pretty addictive little game, but the time requirement was always my pet peave. I hated the 2 level pinning system that always forced you to run back out of the dungeon, and the guild penalties, etc. With 10,000+ potential levels to grind, it never made sense to me that they should slow this down like they did. With David Allen no longer in charge and Decklin mostly as an amateur developer(who now owns the IP to the game) it's pretty much dead in the water. Though there was word that they were going to release a new patch soon to add new things and change/fix some stuff. They said this a long time ago so I'm going to take my recent email from them seriously.

If ya want to play give me a PM and we can do some MP together. I have the newest version and not the older Artifact Entertainment edition. Just so ya know.

Great game!

Yes. Good. Level scaling = fail.

My description of the difficulty system in miracle warrior made it sound like I disliked it, but that wasn't my intention. If anything it is a great example of how one of the first RPGs was able to perform the task correctly. I prefer this static placement system as it gives each location far more character and significance.

The game you listed looks pretty interesting. Like someone's Q-Basic project, but still pretty awesome for its time. It's a shame no one makes games in this style anymore, or at least not high budget games with a few of the newer bells and whistles.

TILTOWAIT! BADIALMA! LOKTOFEIT!]

A modern Might and Magic with the same older style of the 1st ones, though I would prefer a style closer to 6-8, would be utterly fantastic. I would spend $100 on a modern version of games like those. Give them updated graphics, stories, new and improved skills, and well just keep the same Mythos of the older games in design. Something that feels the same but with modern technology. That would be fantastic!

 

[Moggs]

However, and you will like this: In MM 2, Mac version, you can pick the spell just like that, complete with name! A huge improvement to MM 1 if you ask me

Well in that case, I'm sold, and will try setting up the Mac emulator on my laptop for my plane flight home! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[Though for some odd reason I enjoyed memorizing all spell names in Wizardry 1-5. I liked it because it was, well, traditional! TILTOWAIT! BADIALMA! LOKTOFEIT!]

Masochist.

 

[Saxon1974]

I adored MM2 back on the Amiga. I wouldn't mind giving it another go. What platform are you emulating to play it, Saxon? And do you have a copy of the manual, I seem to remember there were some "refer to page 45" type screens in the game?

Im using the lemonaide front end with the winuae emulator for the Amiga version. It is great, and really pretty easy to use. I have been playing all the old classics on it, almost all of them are much better than the PC versions, especially the sound.

The only drawback is you need to find the core amiga files, kickstart ROMS or something like that and they are not freeware. I bought them for 30$, but it was well worth it as I am playing multiple oldschool classics on the amiga emulator. Once you get those files you can pretty much play any amiga game. I have heard some people found them for free on the net but I couldn't.

Here is a link if your interested;

http://www.winuae.net/

I thought about using the mac emulator for MM1 since it's not available on the Amiga, but after Jasesde said its a pain to get the mac emulator working, I decided to pass on it.

 

[Jasede]

I am not saying that I promote piracy, but there's is a website where you can find the Kickstart Roms and the Workbench (Worth installing, I actually do all my writing and what have you on the Amiga since I like it better and my real A500 broke. Darn.)

I'll post a link to that website and hope the mods don't delete it: www.google.com

 

[Saxon1974]

Oh well, I guess I wasted 30$ then. I remember finding a bunch of sites that had the file, but most of them charged for the files.

I don't mind though, I have had way more then 30$ worth of fun playing amiga games.

 

[Jasede]

Definitely. Desperately looking for a good Amgia 500 on Ebay for cheap because I miss that sonuvabitch.

 

[Saxon1974]

The UI is extremely improved and the game looks much better. It has a much better interface and everything controls better.

This Let's Play is currently halfway through Might and Magic 1 and has many screenshots: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... genumber=1

The thread also contains hints on setting up the Mac emulator.

http://waffleimages.nwpshost.com/files/ ... 5abe77.gif

http://kalleboo.mirror.waffleimages.com ... f4d1e5.gif

Screens look pretty good. Is there any sound at all in the Mac version? I don't recall if there was much if any sound back when I played it on the C64 as a kid.

would you say the mac emulator could be setup in less than an hour? I will probably play MM1 after I play MM2, but I am turned off by the DOS version so Im considering trying this thing out.

The resolution is much higher and you can use a mouse for everything. That makes up for the black & white.

 

[Jasede]

There's beeps. And music in MM3. Also, MM2 has a brief intro music ditty.

 

[Saxon1974]

There's beeps. And music in MM3. Also, MM2 has a brief intro music ditty.

Ok sound must be the same as PC version then.

MM2 is such a great game, I realize it the more I play. Its pretty hard for a while but once you to your characters above level 10 it gets a bit easier and more fun, I can finally explore outdoors without getting my but kicked in each battle.

This game has so much to it, so many dungeons and caves to explore so many weapons and unique items. It doesn't tell you how to solve a quest, it just gives it to you and you have to find out how to solve it. This is something I don't think most kids playing the newer games today would like because I think it would be too difficult and they wouldn't have the patience. This level of difficulty makes it all the more rewarding.

I remember now why that game holds such fond memories for me as a kid playing for days on end over the summer breaks....

It wasn't just nostalgia, it really is a great game.

 

[Jasede]

Yeah! It's like MM 1, except everything bad has been fixed so you're left with a game that's good in every single damn regard.

Honestly, getting to play MM 1-8 for the first time... it's the Christmas present I gave myself.

 

[ecliptic]

Demise is good fun

 

[burrie]

Doom RPG.

(I'm not joking)

 

[Bar Tec]

While Ultima Underwold II is my favorite RPG, I would not consider it a dungeon crawler, it's just a "full RPG".

Among dungeon crawlers, Eye of The Beholder 1 & 2 were absolutelty fantastic and rather difficult for inexperienced gamer. I remember playing EoB II on my first PC with crappy monochrome monitor on which it was impossible to see some details - it added additional diffulty to already challenging game

 

[Au naturel]

Anyone remember playing Knightmare and Captive on the Amiga? Those were great dungeon crawlers with a twist. Bloody big and difficult too. Unfortunately, when I last tried playing my copy of Knightmare on the Amiga, the disks had gone to corruption, and the rom I found online was also corrupt.

If anyone finds a fully working version, then post it in here as it is a real treat for the crawler/puzzler types.

 

[Section8]

Captive was a pretty good twist on the Dungeon Master formula, and I liked the modular robots. Actually, I'm going to see if I still have the ROM around somewhere.

 

[mondblut]

The thread also contains hints on setting up the Mac emulator.

http://waffleimages.nwpshost.com/files/ ... 5abe77.gif

http://kalleboo.mirror.waffleimages.com ... f4d1e5.gif

I followed all instructions on that page and on vMac page, but can't run any game. I got emulator, the rom file and the system disks, installed system on a blank "disk" and... that's it. M&M1, as well as some other games I downloaded from mac underdogs, are in .sit format. Extracting them with StuffIt, I get a bunch of files instead of a disk image. Transfered them into emulator disk image using that ImportF1 program, but there is nothing to launch the game with. Any clues? Do I need to extract them inside emulator instead?

 

[made]

Anyone remember playing Knightmare and Captive on the Amiga? Those were great dungeon crawlers with a twist. Bloody big and difficult too. Unfortunately, when I last tried playing my copy of Knightmare on the Amiga, the disks had gone to corruption, and the rom I found online was also corrupt.

If anyone finds a fully working version, then post it in here as it is a real treat for the crawler/puzzler types.

Funny you should mention this, I've stumbled upon those games recently while browsing for oldschool Amiga RPGs here:

http://www.lemonamiga.com/?game_id=584

Notice also Spirit of Adventure, the predecessor of the ROA series by Attic, or Fate: Gates of Dawn.

I haven't downloaded from that site yet, however, so cannot comment on the availability of the actual files.

 

[Jasede]

I followed all instructions on that page and on vMac page, but can't run any game. I got emulator, the rom file and the system disks, installed system on a blank "disk" and... that's it. M&M1, as well as some other games I downloaded from mac underdogs, are in .sit format. Extracting them with StuffIt, I get a bunch of files instead of a disk image. Transfered them into emulator disk image using that ImportF1 program, but there is nothing to launch the game with. Any clues? Do I need to extract them inside emulator instead?

You need to extract them in the emulator, running System. For this you need to find a diskette with an expander program on it, like Aladin Expander. I think there's one on the site. Then, when you extract the .sit file, you fill get a folder like M&M 1 and it contains a single icon, or two, or three; just click that to play the game.

Setting this up is a pain; took me half of a Saturday.

 

[The Dude]

Swords and Serpents is a little known dungeon crawler for the NES, produced by none other than Brian Fargo. It's a straight from the book, old school romp with riddles and secret walls (also minimap!), albeit a tad simplistic. I remember liking it at least as much as the Bard's Tales back then. I replayed it a year or so back and it was definetely still playable, although it drags on a bit towards the end due to the extreme amount of encounters coupled with an annoying level cap. Anyway, it's easily playable through an emulator and there's a lot worse ways to kill time.