Dungeon Master Custom Dungeons

[meynaf]

Hello,

This thread is made to be a central thread about DM custom dungeons here on EAB.

If some of you have ideas, but not the means of implementing them (or if actual programs don't support what you need), then you can ask for help in here. New graphics are welcome too, they just have to use ingame's color palette.

Hacking the code is relatively easy for me (some parts are, others aren't).

If all you want is to play, then you can grab something here :
meynaf.free.fr/tmp/customdungeons.lzx

You will find the latest version of my "insane difficulty level" dungeon there, but I've included another, new one in the archive.


Whaddya think of this ?


LATE EDIT:
The thing has been moved.
Links are :
meynaf.free.fr/pr/dmcsb.lzx main archive
meynaf.free.fr/pr/dmcsb-others.lzx extra dungeons not made by me

[wlcina]

what about dungeon editor ? (with event / item / monster editor) - does that exist ?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by wlcina

what about dungeon editor ? (with event / item / monster editor) - does that exist ?

Of course there exists some editors !
You can play a little with e.g. CsBuild.

But my own way is quite different : I edit level cells separately from the contents, which is some sort of a script (allows copy-paste, search-replace, whatever a text editor can do). It's a little bit crude, but very efficient for my own purposes.

If you had an editor, what would you do with it ?

[wlcina]

currently I am starting work on "dungeon master" style game, unfortunately for PC (we will use GameMaker (which I own), or MultiMedia Fusion 2 (testing demo), you may have look our previous demo game based on AB series, check thread http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=49816

We have 3 options (for the Windows game)
- use RTC engine - free, but customization of game, dungeon, spells is very limited
- use GameMaker engine - I own licence, but there are some limitations too, and we have to build game engine
- use MM2 - I do not own licence yet, I will use demo for testing engine

I wil use ripped gfx from the "dungeon master" like AGA games (ishar, and so on), until I find someone who can paint gfx for us, I am not fan of rendered images, I like the old DM/DM2/EOB/ISHAR style.

[stevsurv]

Just as a matter of interest in relation to Dungeonmaster, check out these 2 sites -

http://dmweb.free.fr/ - Everything you want to know about all the Dungeonmaster games ever released. I was one of the major contributors to this site about 9 years ago.

http://www.ragingmole.com/RTC/ - Accurate conversion of Dungeonmaster, Chaos strikes back and Dungeonmaster 2 for Windows.

Cheers

[wlcina]

stvsurv
maybe you didnt read my previou post carefuly :-) I mentioned RTC as option 1, but the RTC engine is very limited, we want to add more features:
- new spell system, similar to the DM system
- interactions between characters
- weather system
and more

[stevsurv]

Originally Posted by wlcina

stvsurv
maybe you didnt read my previou post carefuly :-) I mentioned RTC as option 1, but the RTC engine is very limited, we want to add more features:
- new spell system, similar to the DM system
- interactions between characters
- weather system
and more

No problems friend, I actually did read it right but put the links for others here on this site to check out.

cheers

[Marcuz]

uhm, maybe split this thread and move wlcina stuff in his own?

DM and Chaos Engine' levels and puzzles, as seen in the old magazines and solutions, always captivated me, but i never could really play them, because of their difficulty as games and the gameplay i did not liked (stamina, food etc)

if those could be tweaked, i would like to play these custom levels too!

[meynaf]

There are already many clones out there ; those sites you mentioned were already known by me. But this thread is about DM, not clones

What I'm doing here is using and extending the original dungeon engine.

@Marcuz : what exactly needs to be tweaked ? I've never found anything difficult in here...

Btw didn't anyone check my dungeon archive ?

[Marcuz]

meynaf: as long as food and water are there i will not play DM or Chaos strikes back (in my previous post i named it Chaos engine!) simply i can't bother to play RPG with that stuff.

[skan]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

meynaf: as long as food and water are there i will not play DM or Chaos strikes back (in my previous post i named it Chaos engine!) simply i can't bother to play RPG with that stuff.

If you can't stand food and water, you should stick to Chaos Engine indeed!

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

meynaf: as long as food and water are there i will not play DM or Chaos strikes back (in my previous post i named it Chaos engine!) simply i can't bother to play RPG with that stuff.

Then you'll never play DM and CSB, because food and water are part of it. Remove them and it's not DM anymore. What I want to know is why you don't just play DM, instead of worrying about food and water?

[Marcuz]

because last time i played it that part sucked. i didn't go very far without characters starving

[wlcina]

Eat, man. You have to eat something There are plenty items you can eat ;-) The food system principle is to remove "camping" element from game

[Marcuz]

yep and that's the thing, i don't feel comfortable in a rpg game where i cannot take a break from action. but enough of that, i'm sure it's a coll game, just not for me.

[Thorham]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

yep and that's the thing, i don't feel comfortable in a rpg game where i cannot take a break from action. but enough of that, i'm sure it's a coll game, just not for me.

I'm not going to try and convince you to try DM, but I will state some pointers here.

Taking a break from the action is certainly very possible. Resting is actually part of the game, and is used to quickly regenerate mana, for example. Without this, DM would be really frustrating to play. Resting isn't a luxury in DM, it's a necessity.

Furthermore, food can easily be farmed from certain parts in the dungeon, and when you start to find drumsticks (can be farmed from rats, if needed), you'll have all the food you need. Simply don't waste food by eating when not needed.

When you opt to play with only one character, the whole food and water thing becomes completely irrelevant, because the amount of food in the dungeon is probably based on playing with four characters. When playing like this, you can easily get chests full of food you'll never use. A single chest full of drumsticks is probably all the food you'll need.

Just think about it, before never looking at the game, the whole food/water thing isn't such a big deal here. That said, not everyone likes everything, of course. I tried Captive, and liked it at first, but I grew very bored with it after blowing up the first base.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Thorham

That said, not everyone likes everything, of course. I tried Captive, and liked it at first, but I grew very bored with it after blowing up the first base.

That's too bad, as all the technological gizmos make the game far more interesting in later bases, as well as a right chore to finish.

[meynaf]

Anyway, if food is a problem, trying Captive is good too

If I understand well, the problem is that food and water are to be eaten/drunk manually. If you prefer the "camp" system, then you can try Amberstar/Ambermoon.

First time I played DM, I ended up with starving characters at level 12, but since then I end up with chests full of food. I know this can be frustrating. But there are monster generators out there (especially at level 4) so that you have infinite amount of screamers.

This gives me the idea to make food and water a little bit different. The game never warns you about this and you just weaken and die. What if it wrote a warning message at the bottom, like Evil's doom does ?

[Marcuz]

that would be cool imho, and maybe if it was possible to tweak the rate of the decreases of the food/water bars a bit, but it seems that's unpopular here

however, i have some old maps of the game printed somewhere in a stash of magazines, i will try the game again and your new levels when i'll have the time... (sadly not in the close future)

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Marcuz

that would be cool imho, and maybe if it was possible to tweak the rate of the decreases of the food/water bars a bit, but it seems that's unpopular here

Yes, tweaking the rate at which they decrease is perfectly possible, along with adding a message at the bottom area when they become low.
Only thing is : how to make it configurable ? Should it be dungeon based (else it might be unfair) ?

Originally Posted by Marcuz

however, i have some old maps of the game printed somewhere in a stash of magazines, i will try the game again and your new levels when i'll have the time... (sadly not in the close future)

Old maps are useless for my game, because it's about completely new maps here.

And, oh, yes, why not trying my main dungeon ? You'll have no food and water troubles here - because you'll not live long enough for that heheh