Underplayed Gems

Dungeon Master (1987)

Dungeon Master cover
Developer
FTL Games
Publisher
Psygnosis, JVC Musical Industries, FTL Games, Victor Musical Industries
Platforms
Apple IIGS, Sharp X68000, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari ST/STE, DOS, FM Towns, Amiga, Super Famicom
Genres
Role-playing (RPG)
Rating
4.3 of 5, 26 player ratings

How it feels

A groundbreaking real-time dungeon crawler where you navigate a grim fantasy underworld through direct, tactile interaction with the environment.

immersivefirst-persondark fantasyexplorationreal-timedungeon crawlatmospheric

About

Dungeon Master established several new standards for role playing and computer games in general. Dungeon Master was a realtime game instead of the traditional turn-based approach that was prevalent until then. Instead of using text-based commands to interact with the environment, players directly manipulated objects and the environment by clicking the mouse in the enlarged first-person view. 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. 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. Other factors in immersiveness were the then-revolutionary use of sound effects to indicate when a creature was nearby, and (primitive) dynamic lighting.

Screenshots

Dungeon Master screenshot 1Dungeon Master screenshot 2Dungeon Master screenshot 3Dungeon Master screenshot 4

More games like this

More by Software Heaven

This page is from Underplayed Gems, a catalog of older and overlooked games. Not quite it? Tell the Catbot what you feel like playing and it picks from the whole catalog, or browse by platform and genre.