Introduction:
Dungeon Master was a real time game in contrast to the traditional turn-based approach that was, in 1987, most common. Other factors in immersiveness were the use of sound effects to indicate when a creature was nearby, and (primitive) dynamic lighting. Abstract Dungeons and Dragons style experience points and levels were eschewed in favor of a system where the characters' skills were improved directly via using them. Dungeon Master was not the first game to introduce these features. Dungeons of Daggorath for the TRS-80 Color Computer first employed them in 1982. Dungeon Master was, however, responsible for popularizing these elements. Other features of Dungeon Master included allowing players to directly manipulate objects and the environment by clicking the mouse in the enlarged first-person view. It also introduced some novel control methods including the spell casting system, which involved learning sequences of runes which represented the form and function of a spell's effect. For example, a fireball spell was created by mixing the fire symbol with the wing symbol. This kind of attention to detail and focus on the user interface was typical of the game and helped create an often captivating sense of craft and ingenuity.
Originally, Dungeon Master was started with the name Crystal Dragon. Doug Bell and Andy Jaros began development in their development studio PVC Dragon, before they joined in 1983 FTL Games.It was finished there and published in 1987 for the Atari ST first. An almost identical Amiga version was released the following year that was the first video game to use 3D sound effects. The game was also ported to PC, Apple IIGS, TurboGrafx-CD, SNES, Sharp X68000, PC-9801 and FM Towns and translated from English into German, French, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
To date Dungeon Master retains a small but faithful following online, with several fan ports and remakes available or in development. A expansion pack called Chaos Strikes back was released in 1989 and Dungeon Master II was released in 1994
Man this game rules! When I first saw this baby on the commodore amiga around Christmas 1988 when I was a Kid I was blown away forever. Going from block graphics to smooth amiga graphics was going from a c64 to xbox overnight. I played the game from late 1988 til at least mid 1995 where I finally completed it. Since then I randomly play the game often, It never get's old. It's surely one of the best games ever created.One of the first real time 3d rpgs I think!?
Many save disks were created and worn out by this game! A big community still exists for this game with heaps of fan ports of the game. I still remember having nightmares as a child of a mummy chasing me in a dungeon. Other times I couldn't even play the game for 10 mins because I was so scared hahaha great times.
It's just one of the games now where you had to be there to appreciate it more. The squels also ruled, chaos strikes back was a lot more harder and crazy. Dungeon Master II was pretty good as well, but you can't beat the original engine of the game.
