@~This issue's double review is of the RPG Dungeon of Death,
@~reviews by Brian Burke and James Judge.

                      DUNGEON OF DEATH
             (RPG on SynTax Disk 880, PC only)

1. Review by Brian Burke

I don't know how far along the programming learning curve the
author of the above title is. If it's a first or second effort
then it's a good try. If it ain't.......

The game, which plays quite happily via Win95, opens with the
player choosing how complex a game they want to play.  You can
choose any number of Dungeon levels between 6 and 12.

Following this the player is given a start Inventory of Food and
Crossbow Bolts. You are given 200 coins to spend on more food,
more bolts or a choice of Healing, Magic Potions or Scrolls.

So OK, a nice start - levels selected, money spent so off we go
after reading the on-line Help Text giving the keyboard commands
for Potion usage, overhead Dungeon viewing and other assorted
instructions.

You land in a reasonably well drawn colourful corridor. The
ceiling is placed high so there's no sense of claustrophobia.
Movement and action commands are all via the keyboard, there's no
mouse usage at all.

The monsters appear pretty quickly and it's here the first and
major game flaw appears. The control mechanism for firing bolts at
the baddies relies on you hitting the spacebar at the right time
in order to centralise first a rapidly moving up 'n' down vertical
bar, and then a left and right horizontal one. Get it wrong and
your missile flies off past the monster and it's time to have
another try. I found this very arcadish and didn't like it at all.
It is possible to rush past the baddies and you could try this to
avoid them but half the joy in an RPG is baddie bashing - isn't
it?

Health points are regenerated by Sleeping, this consumes your food
store at the rate of one per minute. The minimum sleep time is 1
hour so you must have 60 food or you start losing health points
you've just gained. Food can be found after killing baddies, lying
on the floor (no use-by date on them!) and by opening Chests.

Keys are a rare commodity but must be found to progress through
the dungeon. Doors don't open automatically when you've picked one
up so you must use the appropriate keyboard command. Access to
lower dungeons is then via ladders.

Now and again what looks like a giant blue fridge appears.  You
can spend the money you've found here, on food or potions.

The game is repetitive in that one level is much like another. I
have to confess that after going through 3 levels I gave it up.
So there's a chance that the gameplay improves on the last level.
Through practice I did improve my accuracy level with the crossbow

but basically the lack of a story line raised the ennui level a
few notches.

Programmers have to start somewhere so it's probably unfair to
compare a PD game such as this against commercial releases. There
again it's your time and your money. For those of us in work the
former is all important. When you can buy CD-ROM versions of the
complete Ultima 7 and Ultima Underworld 1 & 2 for œ7.99 apiece, as
I've done in the January sales, you have to question just which
one you'd rather play.  No contest.

------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Review by James Judge

Having been infused with enthusiasm for the RPG after doing my
series of articles on the genre, I asked Sue for any RPGs she had
for me to review. I awaited on tenter-hooks expecting disks upon
disks to come gushing through the door with top-notch PD games on
them, like Deathwatch.

Disks and disks did come, but so did this game...

This is (very loosely) an RPG where you are undertaking a
challenge to become the king of the land. What has happened is
that the current king is dying, he hasn't any children and so
needs someone to carry the crown when he pops his clogs.

To find a worthy king, he has set the challenge that the first
person to enter the dungeon, go down to the bottom level and
retrieve the crown will then become his heir. Simple enough, so
off you trot into the dungeon.

When starting you can select a number of dungeon depths from 6 to
12 levels and buy some food, arrows and magic potions. The food
and potions heal you and the arrows kill enemies.

Upon entering the dungeon you realise just has crude this game is.
The graphics are appalling (EGA coloured vomit would describe it

pretty well) and there are so many limits placed on what you can
do.

You can perform six actions, all in all. First off there is
moving. Standard DM fare here - flick screen, one step at a time
first person affair. Then you can pick things up, open things and
take potions. You can also buy more food or potions from vending
machines around the place. Finally you can fight.

Fighting entails a very simple operation. When you try to fight a
vertical bar appears on the screen with a little white line going
horizontally across it.  The line then moves up and down the bar
at a regular speed and you must click when it is around the
centre. The process is then repeated, but with a horizontal bar
and vertical line. After your final click an arrow is let loose
and flies towards the enemy. Do this a couple of times and the
enemy is dead.

The aim of each level is to get a key to open a door to give you
access to the ladder which leads down to the next level.

And that is all there is to the game. Repeat this six times,
collect the crown and you've won the game.

There's no spells, armour, different weapons, tactics, sound
effects or gameplay in this game and all in all it is a piece of
dross. The only redeeming feature is that each level is randomly
generated, so you can play the game as many times as you want to
(as if you'd want to play it at all!).  The only trouble with this
is that due to the randomness of the game you may enter a level,
find the key one step away and the door another step away. Quick
level that was! On the other hand you may just be presented with a
door and no other place to go - thus making the game impossible.

The first time I played the game I was given an impossible level.
The second time I played it I completed it in 5 minutes (that's
including the time it took to exit the program and wipe it from my
HD which, in case you didn't know, is the correct way to finish
the game - get the crown, delete the game and burn the disk it
came on).

Oh, and once you've burnt the disk, you can send $7 off to the
author just for fun...

My opinion? I'd rather not say, it may offend.














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