I might not have done the game justice, fixating too much on its limitations rather than what makes it fun to play. As I said in the video, it's hard to get across the fun just by watching the gameplay footage--this is really one you have to play first-hand to "get it."
One indeed needs to as your video is like so often a bit short on actual game footage...
Quote:
The key to this game is the real-time gameplay; it *looks* deceptively like a turn-based game, but it's definitely not. The lag "feature" also makes a dramatic impact. So, basically you're trying to type as quickly and accurately as possible to get through some very intense battles! I also enjoy the game's eccentricities, such as the business with the left and right hands and having to specify what hand for each action. What I like about this is that it feels very realistic. In most games, combat is handled quite smoothly and expertly by the character. With this game, it's up to you and your fumbling fingers at the keyboard (plus trying to keep straight the left and right, order of commands, and of course that beating heart!). I say it feels more realistic because I'm sure this is closer to what actual combat would be like--intense, lots of fumbling, soaring heart rate, and then it's over (one way or the other) in a few seconds. No other CRPG has gotten my adrenaline pumping like this particular game.
Then perhaps you haven't played Dungeon Master that much? ;-)
But indeed the real-time aspect is the game's most important aspect - in conjunction with the first-person graphics!
This is also what striked me when I first heard about the game about four years ago: It is neither a Wizardry clone or a more advanced version of the early Ultima dungeons (what could be suspected when viewing screen shots) - but in principle an early Dungeon Master and Ultima Underworld 1 predecessor!
Some important similarities:
- We have a game-world that consists of a single, multi-level dungeon.
- We have the complete game happening in first-person perspective - no inconsistencies as far as I can see. (Dungeon Master: Party of four, UU1: single character)
- We have the whole game happening in real-time - including the combat. Enemies act on their own.
- While the game features a mix of animals and humanoid enemies the central baddie has to be killed to finish the game (quite common for the time but the point is that neither DM and UU1 aren't really better in this regard, even if UU1 takes more trouble in convincing the player that it is necessary to do so).
What is different?
- DoD offers nearly no plot and is essentially a dungeon combat simulator. A (pseudo)3D-version of Rogue if you will.
The graphics are, true to their time, purely vector-based but the game isn't really three-dimensional: It's a pure 2D game with a 3D-interpretation of two-dimensional maps. Travel between levels is done via "ladders" and "holes" that strictly seperate the different 2D-maps.
Speed not considered it pretty much maxes out the platform - which is indeed pretty limited (no sprites, no raster interrupts, very limited color palette...) - especially considering that the amount of memory the game needs (code & data) and works with (necessary system RAM: 16 KB).
On a side note: The sound is mono (again a system limitation common at the time) but the enemies are getting louder the nearer they get. This could be done in a 2D-only game, too, but works much better in a first-person game.
- DM offers also nearly no plot but a richer game world with scrolls, signs and more objects like food - not only on the monsters but also lying around. Magic is being used mostly with a real system consisting of syllables that have to be connected under pressure.
The game however is still a gauntlet with the levels simply being mazes that have to be traversed to find the main baddie waiting for the player at the lowest level.
It's also still a 2D-game but simulates 3D more thoroughly with a limited height system (for throwing objects) and several "distance levels" to place objects on the floor within a movement block. Travel between levels is mostly done with "stairs" - also special fields to switch level maps with no possibility to see what it below or above yourself.
The game uses a 16 color mode, is fully texturized (walls, ceilings and ground), enemy animation and animated objects like levers and portcullis (also usable as a weapon which I liked very much as it rewarded gamers utilizing their surroundings to their advantage).
The sound is of higher quality (digitally sampled) and the Amiga version even features stereo sound which helps in finding out from which direction the enemy attacks -> more immersion.
The memory usage is much higher, requiring half a megabyte for the ST version and even more on the Amiga. The game comes on a single double-density disk with just under a megabyte of data.
- UU1 unsurprisingly offers the richest game world with more graphical diversion but also more optional things to discover and solve. It's more a game of exploration and getting immersed in the surroundings than to simply find and fight the next enemy. The player not only has a wider array of weapons and magic (including a rune system) but also much more objects to help him. There are puzzles, hidden objects and some architectural marvels - realized by perhaps the best 3D engine for commercial RPGs until then.
Not only does the player move fluidly within the dungeon and not by stepping from field to field - it features angular walls, "real" stairs, ramps, bridges and cracks in walls. When shooters like Wolfenstein 3D used their raycasting engine to give you texturized walls, UU1 was fully texturized from ceiling to ground and allowed players to even look down and up. There are also some bridges crossing over streams and passages at various heights supporting swimming and flying(!) - but the game ultimately cheated the player in thinking that it was a fully three-dimensional game, too. It was just better at it than the earlier games! ;-)
All this comes with a cost: The memory consumption is much higher and the game needs more than 10 megabytes of harddisk storage and 2 MB system RAM.
So, by comparing the differences, we found another common thing: The games pretty much maxed out their platforms. They used what was available on the given platform and offered pretty much the maximum of what was possible without making gameplay annoying by swapping disks. The game worlds became more detailed, like with other game genre evolutions, but the combat remained surprisingly similar.
I might not have done the game justice, fixating too much on its limitations rather than what makes it fun to play. As I said in the video, it's hard to get across the fun just by watching the gameplay footage--this is really one you have to play first-hand to "get it."
One indeed needs to as your video is like so often a bit short on actual game footage...
The key to this game is the real-time gameplay; it *looks* deceptively like a turn-based game, but it's definitely not. The lag "feature" also makes a dramatic impact. So, basically you're trying to type as quickly and accurately as possible to get through some very intense battles! I also enjoy the game's eccentricities, such as the business with the left and right hands and having to specify what hand for each action. What I like about this is that it feels very realistic. In most games, combat is handled quite smoothly and expertly by the character. With this game, it's up to you and your fumbling fingers at the keyboard (plus trying to keep straight the left and right, order of commands, and of course that beating heart!). I say it feels more realistic because I'm sure this is closer to what actual combat would be like--intense, lots of fumbling, soaring heart rate, and then it's over (one way or the other) in a few seconds. No other CRPG has gotten my adrenaline pumping like this particular game.
Then perhaps you haven't played Dungeon Master that much? ;-)
But indeed the real-time aspect is the game's most important aspect - in conjunction with the first-person graphics!
This is also what striked me when I first heard about the game about four years ago: It is neither a Wizardry clone or a more advanced version of the early Ultima dungeons (what could be suspected when viewing screen shots) - but in principle an early Dungeon Master and Ultima Underworld 1 predecessor!
Some important similarities:
- We have a game-world that consists of a single, multi-level dungeon.
- We have the complete game happening in first-person perspective - no inconsistencies as far as I can see. (Dungeon Master: Party of four, UU1: single character)
- We have the whole game happening in real-time - including the combat. Enemies act on their own.
- While the game features a mix of animals and humanoid enemies the central baddie has to be killed to finish the game (quite common for the time but the point is that neither DM and UU1 aren't really better in this regard, even if UU1 takes more trouble in convincing the player that it is necessary to do so).
What is different?
- DoD offers nearly no plot and is essentially a dungeon combat simulator. A (pseudo)3D-version of Rogue if you will.
The graphics are, true to their time, purely vector-based but the game isn't really three-dimensional: It's a pure 2D game with a 3D-interpretation of two-dimensional maps. Travel between levels is done via "ladders" and "holes" that strictly seperate the different 2D-maps.
Speed not considered it pretty much maxes out the platform - which is indeed pretty limited (no sprites, no raster interrupts, very limited color palette...) - especially considering that the amount of memory the game needs (code & data) and works with (necessary system RAM: 16 KB).
On a side note: The sound is mono (again a system limitation common at the time) but the enemies are getting louder the nearer they get. This could be done in a 2D-only game, too, but works much better in a first-person game.
- DM offers also nearly no plot but a richer game world with scrolls, signs and more objects like food - not only on the monsters but also lying around. Magic is being used mostly with a real system consisting of syllables that have to be connected under pressure.
The game however is still a gauntlet with the levels simply being mazes that have to be traversed to find the main baddie waiting for the player at the lowest level.
It's also still a 2D-game but simulates 3D more thoroughly with a limited height system (for throwing objects) and several "distance levels" to place objects on the floor within a movement block. Travel between levels is mostly done with "stairs" - also special fields to switch level maps with no possibility to see what it below or above yourself.
The game uses a 16 color mode, is fully texturized (walls, ceilings and ground), enemy animation and animated objects like levers and portcullis (also usable as a weapon which I liked very much as it rewarded gamers utilizing their surroundings to their advantage).
The sound is of higher quality (digitally sampled) and the Amiga version even features stereo sound which helps in finding out from which direction the enemy attacks -> more immersion.
The memory usage is much higher, requiring half a megabyte for the ST version and even more on the Amiga. The game comes on a single double-density disk with just under a megabyte of data.
- UU1 unsurprisingly offers the richest game world with more graphical diversion but also more optional things to discover and solve. It's more a game of exploration and getting immersed in the surroundings than to simply find and fight the next enemy. The player not only has a wider array of weapons and magic (including a rune system) but also much more objects to help him. There are puzzles, hidden objects and some architectural marvels - realized by perhaps the best 3D engine for commercial RPGs until then.
Not only does the player move fluidly within the dungeon and not by stepping from field to field - it features angular walls, "real" stairs, ramps, bridges and cracks in walls. When shooters like Wolfenstein 3D used their raycasting engine to give you texturized walls, UU1 was fully texturized from ceiling to ground and allowed players to even look down and up. There are also some bridges crossing over streams and passages at various heights supporting swimming and flying(!) - but the game ultimately cheated the player in thinking that it was a fully three-dimensional game, too. It was just better at it than the earlier games! ;-)
All this comes with a cost: The memory consumption is much higher and the game needs more than 10 megabytes of harddisk storage and 2 MB system RAM.
So, by comparing the differences, we found another common thing: The games pretty much maxed out their platforms. They used what was available on the given platform and offered pretty much the maximum of what was possible without making gameplay annoying by swapping disks. The game worlds became more detailed, like with other game genre evolutions, but the combat remained surprisingly similar.
take care,
Calibrator
take care,
Calibrator