Dungeon Master

In general, the Atari ST has not made a deep impact on the history of gaming. It was mostly a platform to which, not from which games were ported. Fans of the Amiga were not all to happy that many of their games had to content themselves with 16 colors to ensure compatibility with the Atari ST. In Germany there was a good deal of Atari development going on, but these games (Ballerburg and Hanse, for example) were local celebrities that were never translated to another language. There is however one game that wrote gaming history and was originally released on the Atari. This game is Dungeon Master.

Dungeon Master was the first RPG with something that could pass as a 3D view. It was still a far cry from, say, Ultima Underworld, but on the other hand, it was also a far cry from Bard's Tale. It had some neat light effects, and monsters approached you slowly, visibly, in real time. Combat was in real time, too. There is a detailed inventory management and a high level of detail in general. Your characters have to eat, to drink, to sleep. Roguelike games are probably an influence here.

Versions

• Atari ST, 1987
• Amiga, 1988
• Apple IIGS, 1989 (according to Don Jordan, who ported it, this was the first port, done while the original Atari ST version was in development)
• DOS/EGA, 1989
• SNES, 1991
• Sharp X68000, NEC PC-9801, Fujitsu FM-Towns

Dungeon Master was one of the first games that was never ported to any 8-bit platform, probably because no 8-bit platform could have handled it. Another, from the same year, was Space Quest II.

1992 there was a re-release of the Amiga (3.60) and DOS (3.40) versions. These versions had some minor gameplay changes.

Sequels

• Chaos Strikes Back, originally planned as an expansion set. 1989, Amiga, ST, X68000, PC-98, FM-Towns.
• Theron's Quest, 1992, PC Engine.
• Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep, 1993 in Japan, 1994 in the US, 1995/96 in Europe. Amiga, PC, Mac, PC-98, FM-Towns.
• Dungeon Master Nexus, 1998, Sega Saturn, Japan only.

Reviews and Links

• Without a doubt one of the best RPGs ever made for any computer, home of the Underdogs says:

  What Dungeon Master lacks in terms of storyline and writing, it more than makes up for with sheer playability, ingenious puzzles, and incredible atmosphere. The puzzles go above and beyond simple "find key to unlock door" puzzles of a typical RPG—they include fiendish riddles, physical puzzles, and inventory-based puzzles that fans of adventure games will appreciate. No matter how difficult they are, though, they are very logical and addictive. I fondly recall the number of nights I've laid awake in bed, thinking about how to past that blasted mysterious door…on nights that I wasn't hooked with the game far into the wee hours of the morning, that is. The game's immersive atmosphere is achieved by a combination of real-time play (allowing the monsters to attack you by surprise, for example), great sound effects, and depth of role-playing features. Many races in the game had hitherto been unavailable in any RPG, and high-level spells are very imaginative (these are not your run-of-the-mill Lightning Bolts). The game's anal-retentive attention to detail, such as the fact that you must always pay attention to your party members' thirst and hunger levels and feed them when necessary, may be a nuisance to beginners or casual RPGers, but for anal-retentive gamers, it's a dream come true.

• Still one of the best ever games on any computer, Wolfgang Unger thinks and shares some war stories with the reader:

  Some distance away I've heard a few mummies moving around. Apparently they discovered me, because they slowly approached. My warrior threw a burning torch on the monsters, but mummies apparently wear asbestos bandages and refuse to burn. With my torch now gone, I'm in blackness. I quickly cast a light spell and make a hasty exit. The mummies pursue me, but can only move quite slowly. Before I fight them again I should find some decent weaponry. Or I could lure the mummies under a door, letting it fall on them repeatedly. Hehe. However the monsters are equipped in DM with a certain intelligence: Thus they may flee if they are under a door, or in a strategically unfavorable position, hiding themselves for the time being. Or they'll pursue the party, if they feel themselves to be at an advantage.

• To my eyes, it was just well cool, Tony Crowther remembers, who created a clone himself:

  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.

• It remains quite playable even in 2006, Matt Barton can definitely say:

  Although it is certainly not the first 3D real-time computer role playing game (see Dungeons of Daggorath), it's probably the first such game to really hit the mainstream. It was the #1 best selling product on the Atari ST platform, and remains one of the best-known and playable of the early CRPGs. Indeed, I've recently become addicted to the game and will probably not be happy until I've completed it! What I intend to do here is discuss some of the game's more innovative features and try to get at what makes this game so endearing and important.

• This has to be the most amazing game of all time, Kati Hamza was sure:

  The first person perspective ensures an incredibly realistic atmosphere—you just can't help really getting into the feel of walking through damp, echoing caverns searching for ghosts. You can touch everything, try to move everything, use an object you come across, drink water, throw things and even eat some of the monsters you've killed. The puzzles are incredibly devious, the spell system is really flexible and the need to practice magic and spells gives the whole thing that extra-special depth.

• The Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes Back Encyclopedica