The Game of Dungeons v8: VICTORY (AT LONG LAST)

It feels weird not to be playing this game.  I started playing it on August 28th of 2015, and I finished it on August 28th of 2016.  One year.  And when I say that I played this game for a year, I mean a whole year.   I didn't take any breaks, I didn't go on hiatus.  I played a bunch of other games in the interim, but I always had The Game of Dungeons going in the background.  I played it almost every day.  So when I say that it feels weird, I mean it, because it became a sort of permanent fixture in my schedule.

My last post left off with my capture of the Grail, which is one of two items needed to win.  The other is the Orb, which sits at the bottom of the Caverns, one of three 30-level dungeons in the game.  The instructions mention that the Orb is guarded by a Dragon, but give no guidance as to how strong the Dragon might be, or how it might be defeated.  Version 5 of The Game of Dungeons had a special Dragon Spell that would kill the Dragon instantly, but at the cost of draining every last bit of your magic.  That spell isn't in Version 8, and to be honest it was more trouble than it was worth.  I didn't use it to win Version 5, so I won't miss it here.

The Caverns, despite being the third dungeon, were easier to map than the Tomb of Doom.  There were a few hairy ones; Level 25 was nothing but one-square rooms with doors on every side, and Level 30 was full of hallucination squares, making it impossible to know what was adjacent to my character.  Level 30 was also chock-a-block with teleporters leading back to Level 29, and the constant random teleportation was really frustrating.  There was nothing as bad as the worst levels of the Tomb of Doom, though, which still take the cake as the most difficult mazes I've ever had to navigate.

Level 25 of the Caverns.  Brown lines are for doors, black for walls, 
blue and green for teleporters up and down.  Good luck navigating 
this sucker: remember, every time you enter you'll be in a 
random location.

Looking at my notes, I just noticed that I either forgot to map Level 15, or it got deleted somehow.  I must admit to some small temptation to grind up another character and finish that last map, but there's no way.  I can get obsessive about these things, but even I have limits.

After mapping out the Caverns (with the aid of many Astral Potions), it was time to make the final foray.  As I did when going for the Grail, I made sure to drink a Potion of Revival before heading to Level 30: it would ensure my resurrection if I died, albeit at the cost of all my magical items, including the Grail.  It's not ideal, but it's better than outright death.  This is a hard game, but I'm thankful that there are safety nets in place for players that want to use them.

Level 30 can be accessed quickly by use of the Excelsior Transporter (found on Level 1), at the cost of a small number of hit points.  Getting back up is more difficult.  With an Astral Potion you can easily move up and down between levels, but without one doing so eats up your spell slots.  I was being careful, and the whole process should have gone easily, but I had one last scare that almost ruined everything.

After buying a Revival Potion, I left the Potion Shop and started teleporting myself down, not using the Excelsior Transporter but using my own spell power.  This is what I would normally have done while Astral, and I had gotten into a routine with it.  By the time I realised my mistake I was on about Level 20, and I started frantically teleporting back up.  My spell power ran out on Level 13, and I had to make the long slog back to the surface with no magic to protect me.  I managed it with about 50 hit points (out of 800+), despite one heart-stopping moment where I fell in a chute I hadn't marked on my map and tumbled from Level 4 back to Level 10.  It was one last bit of stupidity and suspense from a game that's provided me plenty of both.

Finding the Orb and the Dragon was, as expected, a bit of an anticlimax.  There's no warning that they're nearby, and I'm not even sure that they're always found in the same square.  They just appeared suddenly as I was exploring, and even though I was actively looking for them it still took me a few moments to register that I'd reached my goal.

The poor old Dragon doesn't even get his own icon.

Killing the Dragon was similarly anticlimactic.  The game's two most damaging spells are Fireball and Lightning Bolt; I wasn't about to try casting a fire spell on a Dragon, so I opted for the Lightning Bolt.  It was enough to kill the Dragon instantly.  Like I said, anticlimactic, but in a game that's so long and time-consuming I'm not going to complain that the final battle was too easy.

With the Orb in hand, I started teleporting back to the surface.  My magic ran out on Level 9, but I had no trouble in making it cautiously back to the surface.  I took a quick snapshot of my character on the verge of success, to preserve for posterity.

It should be noted that the name 'npm' was something I typed in accidentally (it was meant to be my password).  I could have changed it to something more evocative, but I ended up just going with it.  I also didn't begin the game as an Elf: I was polymorphed when I read a cursed book.  I hate elves on principle, but being polymorphed costs a point of Endurance.  As much as I hate Elves, I don't hate them enough to compromise my stats.

And now, the long-awaited victory sequence:

See that, above?  That's what I got for my efforts.  One word, marred by a bunch of vector lines.  There's an extreme pettiness to this, as though the creators of the game just refused to graciously congratulate anyone who beat the game.  There's also a certain amount of humour to be gained from the fact that I strove for a whole year just for this.  I laughed, anyway.

This is more like it: a leaderboard!  There I am, at the top, and even though my character had a terrible name, it's the second-best name on there.  Huzzah!  Huzzah for npm!

Having finished version 8 of The Game of Dungeons, I'm glad that I played it.  I very nearly didn't bother; I assumed that it would be slightly altered or improved from version 5, but basically the same game.  While there are similarities, the two are different enough that I would consider them different games.  It makes me wonder about the other versions, and in what ways they might have been different.  At this point in time they're lost to the ages, which is a damn shame.

The main reason I decided to play Version 8 is that I loved Version 5 so much: it's currently ranked second out of all the games I've played on the blog, and it's the top-rated RPG.  Version 8 is larger, longer, and more difficult, but there's one thing it isn't: better.  The earlier game was tight, and although it was difficult and featured perma-death, it wasn't so long that it felt like a slog.  Version 8 is a poster-child for the idea that bigger is not necessarily better.  It has a total of 90 dungeon levels, which would be a lot even in an RPG where you can save your game.  With perma-death, it's just way too many.

I guess I have to do a Final Rating for this, don't I?  It's a strange feeling to be boiling a year of my life down to a few numbers, but that's the nature of the blog, innit?  Besides, it's not like playing The Game of Dungeons is all I did in the last twelve months.  Watched a lot of pro-wrestling as well.  It's a life well lived.

FINAL RATING:

Story & Setting: Like most games of this vintage, these categories are virtually non-existent.  There's not so much a story as a goal: get the items from the dungeons.  Why are those items there?  Why are they important?  Why are those monsters guarding them?  Pretty basic questions given the set-up, but there are no answers forthcoming.  The story is the game, and the game is the story.  Rating: 1 out of 7.

Characters & Monsters: The game has a strong variety of monsters, with differing strengths and weaknesses, but by the end those differences get smoothed away because you can brute force your way through most encounters with little regard for tactics.  The monster variety is on a par with those in Version 5, with the main difference being the addition of the various slimes.  I'm not even sure they qualify for this category, as they're more obstacles than characters, so I'll rank this game equal to its predecessor.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The graphics are simple, and there's no sound, but I do love that orange-and-black PLATO colour scheme.  There's a lot to be said for graphics that are functional, as well.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Mechanics: While combat and spellcasting in this game are simple (involving little more than a few keystrokes), the game has a lot of functions and implements them flawlessly.  Just think, how many times have you screwed up a keyboard-based game because of an errant keystroke?  It's happened to me more times than I can count, but in this game, which I played for a solid year, it didn't happen even once.  The key commands are set up in such a way that the really important ones are paired with the SHIFT or CTRL keys, which makes it really hard to screw things up.  I don't think I've ever played a game that has considered this so carefully, and I have to give it kudos for that.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Challenge:  This is where this game is going to take a hit, because it's just too long.  I really like perma-death as a game feature, but it only works for very specific types of games.  While this is the right style of game to feature perma-death, it's exactly the wrong length.  I was prepared to rate this at the minimum score, but the ability to buy potions saves it.  If I'd figured that out earlier I would have finished this game months ago. Rating: 2 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: I'm struggling to think of anything this game does that wasn't done better in other, earlier PLATO RPGs.  I was thinking that it might be the first RPG to feature multiple dungeons, but then I remembered Moria, which has four.  The use of slimes as a hazard is a first, though not a particularly notable one.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Fun: I vaguely recall enjoying this game once, in the dim dark days when I first started playing it.  The fun long since drained out of the experience, and it simply became something I did.  It was part of my schedule, and by the end I was playing just to win, not because it was fun.  Rating: 1 out of 7.

Does this game earn the bonus point?  HELL NO.  The above scores total 15 , which doubled gives a Final Rating of 30.  That puts it fourth from the bottom, and the lowest-rated RPG on the list.  That's perhaps unfair: a lot of care went into the interface of the game.  It's a better game than, say, Space or Dungeon Campaign. It's just a shame that it was hurt by being so difficult and so, so interminably long.

ADDENDUM:

Somewhat later in this blog I made the decision to overhaul my Final Rating system, so I'm going back through and fixing all of the games I've already played as of March 2020.  I've ditched the Innovation and Influence category, and replaced it for CRPGs with a category for Combat.  I've also changed the purpose of the bonus points, saving them for games that are important, innovative, influential, or have features that are otherwise not covered by my other categories.

Also, the Final Rating is a boring name.  The CRPG Addict has his GIMLET.  The Adventure Gamers have their PISSED rating.  Data Driven Gamer has his harpoons.  So I'm ditching the generic name and calling my new system the RADNESS Index: the Righteous Admirability Designation, Numerically Estimating Seven Scores. It's a pretentious mouthful, but I'm going with it.

Combat: This version of the game's combat isn't all that different to that it version 5, so I'm giving it the same score.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Bonus Points: 1. It's a significant part of the dnd lineage, and it's possible it was played by more people than v5.4. These games were in constant development, and at this point it's impossible to know which version was the most influential.

The Game of Dungeons v8's RADNESS Index is 31. That puts it equal 8th so far, and 5th out of seven CRPGs. It's significantly below v5.4, but I think it changed most of the things I really liked about that game for the worse.

NEXT: I've started Moria again, which is another PLATO RPG and could be another multi-month affair.  I'm pretty sure, though, that it might be the last massive mainframe RPG I have to tackle.  There's Oubliette, but I've heard that game is basically unwinnable as a single player.  My current plan is to go hard at Moria and get it out of the way.  It's going to harm the blog in the short term, but I really want to get these huge games behind me.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Late Night Victory Post

It's too late to post in full, but I just have one thing to say.

I DID IT.  I WON.  I BEAT THE GAME OF DUNGEONS.

I started playing this game in August 28th, 2015.  I finished it on August 28th 2016, exactly one year later.  (Well, technically it's 3AM on the 29th, but I'm still counting it as a year.)  It's been a hard slog, but it's finally over.  I'll post a proper wrap-up soon, but I wanted to mark this occasion, and let my loyal readers know that I ain't dead yet,

In your faces, Dirk and Flint Pellett!  Victory is mine!

The Game of Dungeons v8: Two Down...

I took me ten months to complete Whisenwood Dungeon.  A lesser (or perhaps I should say wiser) person would have quit a long time ago.  The second dungeon, thankfully, took me just one month, and it's all thanks to the Potion of Astral Form.

Seriously, from now on I am going to read the documentation thoroughly before I start a game.  The Game of Dungeons has been running in the background for almost a year of this blog, and there's no doubt that it's seriously impeded my progress.  Now the end is in sight, and it's all because the Potion of Astral Form allows me to map in near-total safety.  If I'd been paying attention, I'd have realised that a lot sooner.

The second dungeon of the game (although you can tackle them in any order, and switch between all three whenever you want) is the Tomb of Doom.  The goal at the bottom is the Grail, which is guarded by a Vampire.  The documentation is vague regarding the Vampire's abilities, and whether he's stronger than the game's regular vampires.  As you'll see later, I never really found out.  The cursory nature of combat in this game makes it hard to know exactly how strong your enemies are.  Either you kill them, or they kill you.  There are no drawn out fights, which is a blessing and a curse.  (In a game of this length and difficulty, I would say it's more of a blessing.)

The maps are more complex in the Tomb of Doom than they were in Whisenwood.  The trick they most often rely on is repetition: lots of interlocking areas that appear exactly the same.  This is especially effective in The Game of Dungeons, because moving from one level to another always puts you in a random location.  Getting lost is easy, and even with a map getting your bearings can be difficult.  Here's an example of what I'm talking about, level 21 of the Tomb:

As you can see, it's repetitive as hell, and super-frustrating to map.  Without the Potion of Astral Form it would have taken me hours.  In addition to the repetition, pretty much all of the doors are one-way; you can pass through in the direction of the arrow, but you can't go back through from the other side.

Below is a map of level 19 of the Tomb, which may be the single most difficult RPG maze I have ever had the misfortune to encounter:

Seriously, just look at that thing.  How do you even make sense of it?  It's nothing but walls that exist on one side but not on the other, and I found it almost impossible to keep my bearings while exploring.  Without the Potion of Astral Form I'd have had no chance.  I very nearly gave up on mapping it, until my stubborn streak kicked in and I refused to be defeated.  I ended up mapping it systematically, starting in the bottom left corner and mapping row by row.  I'm not convinced that it's perfect, but it's as good as it's going to get.

Finding the Grail proved to be a bit more difficult than the Fountain at the bottom of Whisenwood, mostly due to the nature of Tomb level 30.  The tricky thing about this level is that it's loaded with transporters that send you back to level 29.  It's hard to move more than a few steps without stumbling into one.  I got it mapped eventually, but I know I haven't marked down every transporter on the level.  I got enough that I can navigate the map, but even on my last game I walked through one that I had missed.

With the mapping done, it was time to make a run for the Grail.  I was being extremely cautious; just as I had been using the Potion of Astral Form to help me map, I wasn't going to explore Level 30 without a Potion of Revival.  This meant grinding for treasure occasionally between forays, but it's worth it.  Even with the Potion of Revival dying is a setback: you lose all of your equipment, as well as a point of Endurance (which can result in a significant drop in hit points).  That said, it's better than losing your character altogether.  (Also, I've just realised something: it's possible that if I have to use a Potion of Revival from now on, I might lose the Grail.  I'll have to keep an eye on that.)

For my first ten forays into the dungeon, I wasn't able to find the Grail.  I'm not sure if it moves around like the Fountain, or if it's location is fixed.  With perma-death in effect, I'm not about to go back in to find out.  My character actually died on one my tenth foray: teleporting back to the surface backfired on me a few times, and I ran out of spell power on level 13.  I tried in vain to navigate my way out the old fashioned way, but without magic I was losing hit points with every battle, and I had to walk through slimes rather than kill them.  I didn't make it, but my Revival Potion saved me.  I lost all of my gear, one point of Endurance and about 100 hit points, but my caution had saved my character.

I'd like to say that the final, successful foray I made was the stuff of legend, but it was something of an anticlimax.  I stumbled across the Grail and the Vampire in the upper left of the map, and without thinking I cast the cleric spell Holy Word.  The Vampire died instantly, I claimed the Grail, and then I teleported back to the surface.  It's hard to get a good story out of it, you know?

So that's another dungeon down, but I feel more relieved than excited by it.  It will be a massive weight off my shoulders to put this game behind me.  I just mapped level 17 of the Caverns, so I'm well on the way.  As long as I can avoid stupid mistakes, I'm on the home stretch.  Thank fuck.

The Game of Dungeons v8: A Third of the Way to Victory

I've done it.  I've finally done it.  After ten months of constant grinding, mapping, and frequent character deaths, I've completed one of the dungeons in this game.

It seems ridiculous, when I think about it.  Ten months?  Really?  But you know what, I have other things to do besides play games.  And this game is especially frustrating and difficult.  It's long, its hard, and every death sends you right back to square one.  A smarter person than me would have moved on from it long ago.

My last character died while mapping level 29 (of 30), at the hands of a slime.  I had gotten to the point where the monsters were no longer any threat, but the slimes remained deadly.  Because of this I'd decided not to map out the very lowest levels, and instead concentrate on finding the fountain.  After another look at the game's instructions, I changed my mind.

Here's the thing about The Game of Dungeons, and PLATO RPGs in general: their documentation is thorough.  Just about anything you want to know about the game will be in there.  So I was giving it a re-read, and I noticed something about the Potion of Astral Form: it makes you immune to slimes.  Sure, you can't collect gold while using it, but you can walk through walls, teleport up and down between levels without using spell slots, and avoid slimes completely.  It's the perfect item for mapping and exploring.

You can find potions while you explore, but the better option is just to buy one from the shop on level 1 of the dungeon.  An Astral Form potion costs 48,000 gold, but you can stash gold on level 1 and use it to buy thing from the shop.  I made a stash of about 200,000gp and set about exploring.

It took me two trips to map out level 29 and level 30.  Two trips!  Before that, without the potion, it would probably have taken me twenty or thirty.  I can't believe I never figured this out sooner.  It's going to make mapping the Tomb of Doom and the Caverns a lot easier.

I was a little puzzled after mapping level 30, though, because I never discovered the Magic Fountain.  I figured that it was probably because I was in Astral Form, but later on I discovered that the Fountain isn't always in the same place.  It could just be that I never hit the right location while mapping.

With mapping done, it was time to hit level 30 for real.  This time I wasn't taking any chances, and I bought a Revival Potion from the shop: if I died, it would resurrect me and take me back to the surface.  I'd lose all of my magic items, but that's a lot better than losing my character altogether.

I had stroke of good luck, because I entered level 30 only a few steps away from the fountain.  Drinking from it restores all of your health, grants you as much gold as you can carry without being encumbered, and sometimes bumps one of your stats up.  The documentation says that you might encounter the Grim Reaper, but I took two trips to the Fountain and never met him.  At this stage of the game, I'm not about to risk it.

So now I have two dungeons to complete, but I'm attacking them in a wiser fashion.  With smarter tactics, I expect I'll have this game finished pretty soon.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Dirk and Flint Pellet Are Bastards

Deciding when to stop doing something can be tricky.  When it comes to something you've sunk a lot of time into, it can be even trickier.  We've all been there, I'm sure.  It's easy to drop something early on; if you decide that The Walking Dead sucks three episodes in, you can dust your hands and walk away without a problem.  But if you decide it sucks five seasons in...  That's a decision that's more difficult to make.  How do you justify the time spent on those earlier seasons if you're not even going to make it to the end?

This is something I'm guilty of a lot.  If I start a book, I finish the book.  I don't walk out of movies.  Basically, if I start a piece of media, I'm going to finish it.  It's a compulsion.

That's where I am with The Game of Dungeons v8.  I've been playing this game since August last year, and I've probably sunk hundreds of hours into it.  I'm not really enjoying it any more.  I should give up, and move on to something else.  And yet... it's so much time!  If I don't finish it, what was the point?  You could say that it's a waste of my life to keep playing, but to me it feels like a waste of my life if I stop playing. 

As you may have guessed from the above paragraphs, my character died.  Again.  Joe Average had reached the lofty heights of level 160, and had almost 1,000 hit points.  I was in the process of mapping level 29 of Whisenwood Dungeon, and eagerly anticipating the prospect of finishing one of the dungeons off.  With extreme caution, surely it was only a matter of time before I completed the game.

That's what I thought anyway, and I had a reasonable cause to believe it.  Monsters weren't much of a threat.  I was able to escape from the deep levels of the dungeon without much trouble now that I had complete maps.  I was ignoring chests and books, so traps weren't going to kill me.  There's one factor in this game that always remains a threat, though, and can't really be planned for: the slimes.

You may recall that slimes killed my last character.  They killed Joe Average as well, despite his having nearly 1,000 hit points.  Once you hit the deep levels, there are slimes that do 400-500 points of damage per hit, so they never stop being deadly.  And while you can avoid them by moving carefully, there's always the chance that you'll find one on the other side of a door, and those can't be avoided.

That's what happened to me: I stepped through a door into a puddle of Living Mercury, which ate my sword.  Normally this would be my cue to rapidly magic my way back to the surface, but I only had a few squares to explore to fill out a section of the map.  So I went through another door, right into some Orange Glop, which dropped me from 700 to 200 hit points.  Orange Glop can only be killed with a sword, so I frantically started tapping arrow keys to escape.  I managed to get out without taking further damage, but my zealous tapping sent my character racing down the passage, right into a Roving Sludge.  So died Joe Average: in the end, he lived up to his name.

(This death is depressingly similar to the one that killed my last high-level character.  I need to take a hardline stance, and leave the dungeon straight away when I lose my sword.)

Needless to say, I've started again, and I'm back to grinding for XP during the wrestling.  I have a new plan.  Slimes are bastards, but they don't get really deadly to high-level characters until you hit level 25 (or thereabouts).  So I'm going to ignore those levels completely.  I'll map the three dungeons to level 25, and after that I'm going straight to level 30 to look for the goal.  There's also a magic rod you can find that prevents you from stepping in slimes.  I've rarely found one, but I might just purchase one from the shop for when I get deeper into the dungeon.  I need to get smart about buying the correct items.

So, my war continues.  Go to hell, Dirk and Flint Pellett!  You'll never break me!

The Game of Dungeons v8: My Secret Stash

Once again, I'm progressing in The Game of Dungeons v8.  Losing Strider, the character that I had advanced to beyond level 100, was a harsh blow, but I've picked myself up and started again.  My current character, the poorly-named Joe Average, is currently on Level 38.  I'm advancing quickly, perhaps even more quickly than I have been in this game so far.

(About that name.  Yes, I realise that Joe Average is a terrible name.  He had decent stats when I created him, but only 3 hit points, so I never expected him to survive.  Now that he's higher level I should rename him to something like Joe Noteworthy.)

There's a reason that I'm advancing a bit faster than before: I've discovered a feature of the game that stops me from wasting excess gold.  Every character in this game has a carrying capacity based on strength, race, and a couple of magic items.  Once this capacity is exceeded, excess gold will be discarded every time you move.  This was really annoying, because whenever I found a sizable haul of loot, most of it would be gone by the time I reached the surface.  Occasionally a chest will contain some astronomical sum from 100,000 to 500,000 gold pieces, which is often enough to advance a level or two.  I was being forced to drop a lot of gold.

What I figured out, after a careful reread of the manual, is that you can keep a stash of gold in the dungeon protected by magic, by pressing CTRL-ALT-H.  That stash remains so long as you don't start another one elsewhere, and you can keep going back to it and taking more gold.  So now whenever I stumble across a hoard of over 100,000gp I can claim every last bit of it over the course of multiple trips.  It's really helpful.

If you keep a stash on Level 1, you can use it to purchase items from the shops.  I'd often wondered at the astronomical prices of the magic items, but it makes a lot more sense now that I know I can establish a bank of sorts.

I give it another week or two before I'm going to start mapping again.  As I've mentioned before, I'm going to have to map the whole damn game, all 90 levels.  It's the only way to guarantee a safe exit to the surface, and it's going to take a while.  I'll get there one day.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Of Course You Know, This Means War

So.

I died.

Regular readers will be  aware that I've been playing this game since about August last year.  It's been humming along in the background while I polished off a bunch of shorter games.  In early January I started carefully grinding a new character, with the intention that I would level up to a point where I could quickly knock the game off my list.  I should have known it wouldn't be that simple.

Before I get into the ill-fated details, though, I should talk a bit about The Game of Dungeons, more commonly referred to by its filename of dnd.  The game was developed in 1975 by two students, Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood, for the PLATO mainframe.  Later on it was expanded by two more guys, the ultra-manly-sounding Dirk and Flint Pellett.  Two versions of the game are currently available to play at cyber1.org: version 5.4 and version 8.  The former is a version of the original game, and the latter is the expansion by the Pellett brothers.

The Game of Dungeons version 5.4 is a hell of a game.  It's currently sitting at the top of my Final Ratings, and is by far the most enjoyable game I've played for the blog.  The goal of the game is to delve to the bottom of Whisenwood Dungeon - twenty levels deep - retrieve the Orb and return to the surface.  It's really well designed, and has an elegant system for increasing the difficulty: the more gold you carry, the tougher the monsters that attack you.  When you begin the game your carrying capacity is limited, so the difficulty is capped at a certain level.  Later you will find a Bag of Holding to increase the amount of gold you can carry, but this also makes the game harder.  Finding the Orb ramps it up again for the endgame.  It's really well done.

 

The halcyon days of version 5.4

The game also deletes your character permanently if you die, which can be frustrating.  But it's short enough that I regard this as a feature rather than a bug.  The tension of perma-death can be a beautiful thing.

Fast-forward to my gaming present, and The Game of Dungeons version 8.  The core of the game remains similar, but there's much more to it.  Rather than one dungeon of twenty levels, there are three dungeons of thirty levels each.  Not only do you have to retrieve the Orb to succeed, but you also have to find the Grail.  There are more monsters, more spells, more items.  Just more of everything.  At first glance, this looks like it should be better than the earlier version.  More stuff equals more good, right?

There are other changes, though.  The elegant difficulty levels I outlined above are gone, replaced by a more traditional system where the strength of the monsters is determined by dungeon level.  There are slimes everywhere, almost impossible to avoid, that eat your magic items.  There are magic runes, most of which are great but one of which can just kill you outright, with no chance to avoid it.

Hate.

Worst of all, it has perma-death.  I know that I praised that very feature earlier, but like I said, version 5.4 isn't that long.  It has twenty dungeon levels.  Version 8 has ninety.  Ninety!  And if you die, it's back to square one.  Version 8 has removed almost everything that made the game great, added a bunch of things that are just frustrating, and made the game four times as long.  It's still a good game - the attention to detail paid to the interface is outstanding - and it's fun to play.  It's just not fun to play all the way from start to finish.

With the preliminaries done, I'll get to my recent travails, and my ill-fated attempt to take a short-cut to the finale.  My character, Strider, had reached the heady stratosphere of level 110, with close to 700 hit points (for the sake of comparison, my winning character in v5.4 had over 100,000; it really is a different game).  I felt confident that this was enough, as most of the characters sitting in the Hall of Fame are at about this level.

I also had a plan.  This plan involved the potion shop on Level 1 of each dungeon.  The shop sells every potion in the game, and my plan was to buy a Potion of Revival.  This would ensure that if I died while attempting to complete the game, my character would be whisked back to the surface alive and well.  This part of my plan worked, although there were some nasty, unforeseen side-effects that I was none-too-pleased with.

Buying a Potion of Revival.

The other part of my plan hinged on the ability to teleport quickly up and down between dungeon levels.  Getting to Level 30 of a dungeon is no problem in this game: the Excelsior Transporter found on level 1 of each dungeon will transport you to any level for the price of a small number of hit points.  As for getting back up, I figured that I'd use my teleport spells; by pressing Shift-PgUp and Shift-PgDn you can quickly move between levels.  It uses up spell slots, and sometimes moves you in the opposite direction you intended, but I've found it fairly reliable, and I thought I had enough slots to get me back up to familiar territory (I've mapped all three dungeons to level 12).

So I took the transporter down, and started exploring the bottom level of Whisenwood Dungeon.  The monsters were tough in battle, but my spells were able to kill them easily.  I didn't find what I was looking for, though, and it wasn't long before my spell slots started to deplete and I felt the urge to retreat to the surface.  So I started spamming Shift-PgUp, to see how close I could get.  It didn't go so well.  I had a bad run of luck with my teleport spells reversing, and by the time I had used up my spell slots I was on level 17 with no idea of how to escape.  I wandered around for a while looking for the exit, but my death was inevitable.

I wasn't overly worried: I had my Potion of Revival, and it did its job in resurrecting me and returning me to the surface.  What I didn't know is that I would lose all of my magic items, and also 1 point of Endurance.  I should have known, it's spelled out in the documentation, but I obviously hadn't read carefully enough.  Losing my magic items was a blow, but the Endurance loss was worse, as it dropped by hit points total by over 100, from about 670 to 530.

Needless to say, my plan was shot.  There was no way to reliably and safely short-cut to the end of this game.  I was going to have to map the whole thing, so that I'd have an escape route ready.  The potion hadn't been as useful as I'd hoped. but I still planned on using it; it had helped me escape perma-death, after all.

With my character over level 100 there was no more need for me to grind for XP, but there was a need for me to map.  I'd been grinding while watching copious hours of professional wrestling, because that sort of TV requires minimal attention.  I watch basically every WWE show, so I'd had plenty of hours to get my character strong.  I figured, hey, I did my grinding during wrestling hours, why not my mapping?

It was a terrible mistake.  With one window open for rasslin', one for the game, and one for Excel, I had minimal space to work with.  And my focus was split.  It was one thing to play the game on autopilot while wandering around on dungeon level 3, but for mapping I needed to be on level 12 and 13.  I needed my wits about me.

It went okay for a while, and I managed to map two levels during an episode of Raw.  Monsters weren't a problem, as I was strong enough to kill them automatically.  Disaster struck in the form of a slime.  The slimes on lower levels are tough, and were draining me for about 100 hit points at a time.  Every slime has its own specific weakness, but I have those memorised, so it was never a massive problem.

That is, until I walked into a puddle of Living Mercury that ate my sword.  Normally I would exit the dungeon when this happens, but my character was strong enough to kill monsters with his bare hands, so why would I leave?  What I hadn't taken into account were the slimes that can only be killed with a sword.  I stepped into a Roving Sludge, and with no sword I wasn't able to kill it.  I should have tried to break free by moving, but instead I just kept spamming ineffective Fire spells at it.  I think it was my split focus, and a bit of confusion from my sword not working, but soon enough I was staring dumbfounded at the Death Screen, while Ryback wrestled an interminable match against the Wyatt Family in the background.  Over a month's work, down the gurgler.

A few posts ago I had dramatically foreshadowed suicide if I lost my character.  Obviously I haven't taken that drastic action.  Instead, I am declaring war on The Game of Dungeons.  I'm back to grinding during wrestling, and I am going to grind the shit out of this game.  I'm going to map every damn square, and kill every damn monster, and take every damn treasure, and I am going to do it cautiously, methodically and spitefully.  Dirk and Flint Pellett: screw you both, and screw your game.  I'm going to beat all of you, no matter how long it takes.  The war of attrition begins anew.

This guy will definitely finish the game and not die at all I am certain of it.  Probably.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Widening My Scope

After a few weeks of focusing on one dungeon, trying to explore as deeply as possible, and dying repeatedly, I've changed tactics.  The Game of Dungeons has three dungeons, after all: Whisenwood, the Tomb of Doom, and the Caverns.  I've decided to broaden my focus, and explore all three dungeons in parallel.

This is working pretty well so far.  None of the three dungeons is more dangerous than the others, so there's no reason to avoid any of them.  After exploring the top levels of all three dungeons (and doing a decent amount of grinding) I have a 9th level character, with a decent selection of magic items.  If I proceed with the appropriate caution, I think that Geoffrey will do well.

Caution is the key word, as I'm taking very few risks.  I'm determined to grind until I'm perfectly safe on dungeon level 2 before I descend any further.  I've stopped reading magical books altogether, as there's really no protection against Explosive Runes.  I don't drink potions unless I know they're safe, and I don't open chests that I know have traps in them.  It slows my progression a bit, but not as much as starting over from scratch.

The Tomb of Doom and the Caverns aren't significantly different to Whisenwood, but I've noticed that they have their own quirks that make them more difficult to navigate.  The Caverns are loaded with areas that cause hallucination, while the Tomb has a lot of transporters leading up and down.

I've taken a look at the Hall of Fame to figure out what level I need to reach to finish the game.  The lowest level there is 68, and the highest is over 700.  The majority are around level 80, so I think I should be fine if I advance to about level 100 or so.

And now, a selection of things I've observed in the last week of gaming:

• Once you get strong enough, monsters of low levels pose no threat at all.  My character, currently at 9th level, can't be harmed by monsters of 3rd level or below.  You can even set it so that your character automatically fights monsters below a certain level.  It's very satisfying to watch your character mow down enemies without ever having to press the Fight key.  In a smart move by the developers, auto-combat turns off for Rust Monsters and Eyes of Thieving.  Those enemies are best dealt with via magic, and fighting them is never a good idea.

Geoffrey is set to Auto-Fight monsters below level 3, and to ignore books.

• Not only can you set the level for Auto-Combat, but you can turn some other options on and off as well.  I don't want to risk reading books any more, so I've turned them off: they don't show up at all while I'm exploring, and that removes any temptation to read them.  You can do the same with chests and potions, too.
• I forgot to mention this, but during character creation you must choose an Order that your character belongs to.  The Orders have names such as Black Knights, Ruby Crown, and Ivory Tower.  My favourite is the Dead Moose Order.  As far as I can tell, this has no effect on gameplay whatsover, and I wonder why anyone bothered putting it in the game.  If you look at the Hall of Fame, the vast majority of characters there have chosen Emerald, which suggests that players are just automatically hitting 1 when the option comes up.  I like to choose my Order based on my character's stats and race; I can't resist the urge to do role-playing.

• I had thought that the Cleric spell Dispell was the most effective against Eyes of Thieving, but for some reason it hasn't been working so well lately.  I've switched to the Pray spell, and it seems to be working better.
• I haven't mentioned them yet, but sometimes you will randomly find Symbols.  Some of these will increase your stats, and there are ones that gives you more experience, money and hit points.  They take effect on you automatically.  There are a lot of negative symbols as well, but I haven't encountered those yet.  Apparently they don't affect you automatically, but there seems to be no way to avoid them except by chance.
• Using the PG-UP and PG-DN keys, you can teleport up and down between levels, at the cost of 1 magic and 1 cleric spell.  This comes in very handy when you get lost, or fall down a chute, but occasionally it backfires and does the opposite of what you want.
• Similarly, you can hit the P key to pass through any wall, at the cost of a magic spell.  It's another handy navigational tool.
• You can use your Clerical magic to restore hit points.  Even better, the option is there to do it on the Open Chest menu, so you can heal yourself before risking a trap.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Monsters

I've been splitting my gaming time (usually about an hour each night) between Moria and The Game of Dungeons, so I haven't been making a great deal of progress in either.  (Indeed, when it comes to Moria my progress has been backwards, as I died very stupidly and have to start from scratch.)  The majority of my time on The Game of Dungeons in the last week has been spent grinding for experience, which isn't the most interesting thing to write about.  Instead I thought I'd describe the various monsters, and their weaknesses.  Here is a screenshot showing every monster in the game:

Shadows: Rather than attacking your hit points, Shadows drain a point from your Strength on a successful hit.  This means that they don't pose much of a threat to your mortality, although they can apparently kill you if your Strength is drained to 0.  This hasn't happened to me yet, mostly because Shadows aren't all that difficult to kill.  The Cleric spell Light Candle kills them quite easily.

Rust Monsters: If a Rust Monster attacks you, it will eat your sword.  If you attack it, you will also lose your sword.  This isn't much of a problem if your sword is normal: you just have to go back to the surface to get another one for free.  If your sword is magical, that magic is gone forever.  The best spell to use on them is the Magic spell Eye of Newt; this turns the Rust Monster into a newt, allowing you to step on it (often with a satisfying "Squish!" message).

Mind Flayer: Mind Flayers drain your IQ rather than your hit points.  They're a little more difficult to deal with than Shadows, as I haven't worked out a good spell to use against them.  They are strangely susceptible to being charmed, though, and they're great to send into battle against Wizards.  My current character has a really low IQ, so I always get a little concerned whenever I have to fight a Mind Flayer.

Vampire: Vampires drain your experience points, which is just the worst.  If you lose enough XP your level will drop, and if they drain you below 0 you die.  This can be used to your advantage, though: if you gain a level and don't get many extra hit points, you can always get drained by a vampire and try again.  Like Mind Flayers, they're easy to charm, and the Cleric spell Holy Word is effective on them as well.  Apparently you can defeat them with a cross as well, but I've yet to find one. 

Dragon: Counter to most games, Dragons aren't all that difficult.  You just have to remember that the Magic spells Fireball and Flaming Arrow barely affect them.  I usually go with Eye of Newt.

Wombat: I live in Australia, and I've seen a lot of wombats in real-life.  Threatening they ain't, and I'm quite mystified as to what they're doing in this game.  Regardless, a Flaming Arrow spell is usually enough to kill them.

Death: Actually not all that deadly.  Their only special ability is that it's impossible to run away from them.  A Holy Word spell works well on them, as do the usual damage spells (Flaming Arrow, Fireball, Lightning Bolt).

Spectre: Thankfully, unlike in tabletop D&D, Spectres don't drain experience.  They simply damage your hit points.  A Lightning Bolt spell won't work on them, but Flaming Arrow and Fireball do, as does Holy Word.

Eye of Thieving: If you get into melee combat with an Eye of Thieving, there's every chance that it will steal one of your magic items.  It's chances depend on the difference between its level and yours.  The only way to avoid it for sure is to use magic, and I've found that the Cleric Dispell is the best against them.

Phantom: Strangely for an undead creature, it's resistant to Cleric spells like Holy Word.  I find that a Flaming Arrow works okay, or just plain melee.  I've had a lot of trouble with Phantoms; I haven't found a spell that's super-effective against them, and they seem to do a lot of damage in combat.

Warrior: It's almost refreshing to encounter one of these guys, and to know that you're just fighting a regular dude.  If they're 4th level or under a Sleep spell will defeat them, otherwise Flaming Arrow is good.  I find that Charm also works well, and will net you a versatile minion with a decent number of hit points.

Balrog: The first time a Balrog attacks you can be a bit scary, but any reputation they have from Tolkien hasn't translated to this game.  They're not all that tough, and a Holy Word or an Exorcise spell does well against them.  I'm pretty sure they're resistant to fire spells.

Wizard: Wizards are very susceptible to the Magic spell Mind Blast, and the Cleric spell Light Candle.  I don't think they have any particular special abilities, and I've never had all that much trouble with them.

Demon: Demons are resistant to fire spells, and most of them will be killed by an Exorcise spell.

You might have noticed that I didn't detail the various Slimes.  That's because it's quite difficult to figure out which type you've encountered.  You can see their icon from one step away, but to actually discover what type of slime it is you have to enter their square.  I've been blowing them away with spells where possible, so I haven't gone about cataloging their abilities.

(Oh, and while I was tooling around in the dungeon trying some things out for this blog, my 10th level character got blown up by a trapped chest.  Fuck this game.)

The Game of Dungeons v8: The Death Spiral

I've been caught in something of a repetitive loop playing this game: create a character, grind until it's about 6th level, delve to the lower levels to do some mapping, die, start all over again.  I'm not quite sure how to break out of it, to be honest.  After 6th level, advancement slows considerably, and I don't feel as though the difference between 6th and 7th is all that significant.  Perhaps I just need to grind it out until I reach 10th level, or even higher.  It's just a matter of time, if I'm patient enough.  I just hate sinking time into a game and making no progress.

Currently I'm mapping the 4th level of Whisenwood Dungeon, but I don't really have much to write about that I haven't mentioned already.  In lieu of genuine content, here are my maps of the first three levels:

Whisenwood Level 1

Whisenwood Level 2

Whisenwood Level 3

As you can see, every dungeon level is the same size: 15x15 squares.  I should have marked it on the map, but your starting location on level 1 is always the square just south of the Excelsior Transporter (marked with a T).

The game is difficult to map accurately, as you can see from the arcane notations above.  I've used different colours to denote walls, doors and transporters.  The walls, of course are black, and the doors are brown.  The light blue borders are transporters that take you up a level, and the green ones take you down a level.  As in the earlier version of the game, when you go to a new level you appear in a random location.  This is part of what makes mapping the game difficult: you have to start by mapping little bits and pieces, because you won't always be transported to the same sections of the map.  Gradually the map can be pieced together, but until that happens it can be hard to get your bearings, and even harder to find a transporter that takes you back up.

(Luckily, there's a feature that's carried over from the earlier game: a spell that can teleport you up or down a level, by pressing SHIFT-PGUP or SHIFT-PGDN.  It uses up both magic and cleric spell slots, and it can also backfire and take you deeper into the dungeon, but it's vital for getting out of an unfamiliar level.)

The Excelsior Transporter that I mentioned earlier is great: you just have to step on it, type what level you want to go to, and it whisks you there instantly at the cost of a few hit points.  Also on the first level is an alchemist and a weapon store, but the prices are exorbitant; at this point I'm much better off converting that gold into experience points.

You may also have noticed a lot of arrows all over my maps.  If an arrow is pointing at a wall, that means the wall exists from one side, but not from the other; you can walk through in the direction that the arrow is pointing.  If an arrow is pointing at a transporter or a door, it likewise only exists from one side.  Sometimes the other side will be a wall, and sometimes it will be an empty space you can move through; I haven't figured out a good way to mark that on the map.  So the maps aren't 100% accurate, but they're good enough to tell me where I need to go.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Two Steps Forward...

As you may have gathered from the above screen shot, I've been dying quite a bit while playing The Game of Dungeons.  Like all the PLATO RPGs, death in this game is irreversible, but at this stage it's not such a major setback.  I'm currently mapping level 3 of Whisenwood Dungeon, which requires a character of about 5th or 6th level to explore in reasonable safety.  Reaching 6th level can be done quite quickly with a bit of grinding on the entry level of Whisenwood, so exploration has not been much curtailed by my frequent deaths.

Let's examine some of the ways that I've been dying.  The screenshot above is an extreme example of my own stupidity.  I had been exploring level 3 of the dungeon, when I was attacked by a  level 5 Spectre (there are a limited variety of monsters in the game, but they get stronger the deeper you explore).  I decided to hit it with a fireball spell, but the spell backfired on me (regular readers may recall that fireball and lightning bolt are the two most powerful spells in the game, but have a tendency to damage the caster).  Not only was I reduced to 18 hit points, I was also blinded.  While I sat waiting for the blindness to wear off, I was attacked by another monster.  Because I was blind I had no idea what type of monster was attacking me, so I decided to chance using the fireball again, as I wanted to make sure of killing it.  It backfired again, and killed me, resulting in the embarrassing screen shown above.  It was my best character so far, done in by a series of bungles and misfortune.  Such is life and death in the unforgiving RPGs of the 1970s.

I've had a few deaths caused by monsters, but not too many; a decent knowledge of the spells, and the addition of the ability to charm monsters, has served me well.  Most of my deaths have come from other sources: explosive runes from trying to read magic books, drinking potions of degeneration that drain hit points with every step, falling down chutes to lower dungeon levels and running out of spells.  It's a lot of the same stuff that was killing me in the previous version of the game, to be honest, but I would say that v8 is a bit less deadly on the whole.

The last thing I wanted to talk about was character progression.  In the version of The Game of Dungeons that I played before, character progression is constant.  So long as you survive your dungeon trips, you'll gain more hit points and items, and will steadily grow more powerful.  Version 8 is different.  There are Vampires that drain your experience points, Slimes that eat your boots, Shadows that drain your Strength, Mind Flayers that drain your IQ, and Eyes of Thieving that steal your magic items.  It's inevitable that these monsters will get you at some point, so the progress of your character won't always be upwards.  I spent a while building one character up to level 7, only to be drained by a Vampire and swarmed by Eyes of Thieving.  I escaped the dungeon, but I was back at level 5 and all of my magic items were gone.  It's frustrating, but there's nothing to be done about it but head back into the dungeon.  What else am I going to do, stop playing?

I don't mind these setbacks, because the game is fun.  The constant threat of losing things permanently, with no safety net, is a big part of the appeal of these games.  If you don't like the idea of playing without a saved game, then the PLATO RPGs probably aren't for you.

The Game of Dungeons v8: Fun With Invincibility

Most of my gaming time has been devoted to Moria (because it's so damned big), but I've managed to fit in a few hours of The Game of Dungeons over the last week.  I've only lost four characters so far, which is quite good; I think that I might still have some residual talent for the game from when I played the earlier version.  My current character is an elf named Melf, who has reached fifth level by way of a huge treasure haul.  He's at the point now where he's basically invincible against all of the monsters on level 1 of Whisenwood Dungeon.  I can roam around without fear, killing everything in sight and never taking even a single hit point of damage.  It's quite gratifying after the caution required at the start of the game, and it's a great aid to mapping as well.

I found out the hard way, though, that you have a cap on the amount of treasure that you can carry.  The haul I mentioned above was a chest containing 100,000 gold pieces.  I was only able to take about 25,000, much to my dismay.  The limit is based on your Strength score and your race: Humans can carry the most, then Dwarves, Elves and Gnomes.  As an Elf with a Strength of 10, I can't really carry a lot.  I'll need to find a Bag of Holding as soon as possible.  (Also, the Help file states that you can only gain one level at a time, but I'm certain I jumped from 2nd level to 5th in one go.)

I've only mapped the first level of Whisenwood Dungeon, so my progress is somewhat slow.  There are a few things I forgot to mention last week though.

The game still features the same odd trash-talk.  Messages such as "Skewered!" and "Ribbons!" appear at the top of the screen whenever you kill a monster.  Above is my personal favourite: "What a Moose!", said while defeating a Phantom.  It's baffling.  Note also that my character in the image above has no sword: it got eaten by a Rust Monster.

There's an area on the first level that causes you to hallucinate.  My character above is seeing hallucinatory cobwebs and slime.  The doors aren't real either.  It was a bit disconcerting the first time it happened, and can really play havoc with your sense of place.  It didn't do my map any favours either.

I didn't mention slimes last time around, but they're a pretty major addition to the game.  There are seven varieties of slime in the game (including the cobweb pictured above)  Each slime affects you in a different way: some will do damage, some will eat magic items, and there are even ones that anesthetize you so you have no idea how many hit points you have left.  I've been wading through them and suffering the consequences, but just tonight I discovered that you can kill them from one space away by using magic.  You get the option of using Fire, Cold, Lightning of your sword.  Each type of slime has it's own particular weakness, and if you pick the correct one it will always succeed.  I haven't figured the various weaknesses out yet, but it's good to know now that I can get rid of the buggers.

That's it for this week.  It's time to send my character deeper into Whisenwood Dungeon, and hopefully by next week I'll have made some greater progress.

Game 6: The Game of Dungeons (aka dnd) v8 (1978)

Back when I started The Game of Dungeons, I noted that there were two versions on cyber1's PLATO emulator.  I played and finished version 6, but I said at the time that I would eventually revisit the game and play version 8.  Since Moria is becoming a drag I figured that now is a good time.  I'm glad I did, because version 8 is certainly different enough to merit some posts.

In version 6 of The Game of Dungeons, the goal was simple: find the Orb at the bottom of Whisenwood Dungeon, defeat the dragon guarding it, and escape back to the surface.  That goal remains in version 8, but the game has been greatly expanded.  There are now three dungeons: the aforementioned Whisenwood, the Tomb of Doom, and the Caverns.

Whisenwood Dungeon in this version of the game no longer holds the Orb.  Instead there's a fountain at the bottom that supposedly cures all ills, which is guarded by the Grim Reaper.  The Orb and the Dragon are now found on the lowest level of the Caverns.  There's another quest item in the game as well: the Grail, which is in the Tomb of Doom and guarded by "The Vampire".  Retiring to the Hall of Fame is done by claiming both Orb and Grail.

I've been playing version 8 for about an hour or so, and while the basics of the game remain intact, I'm also noticing some significant differences.  The most notable of these is probably character advancement.  Version 6 didn't have levels; instead, any gold you carried out of the dungeon was directly converted into hit points, at a rate of 1 hp per 4000 gold.  Now the game has levels, and your gold converts into experience points instead of directly into hit points.  It's difficult to figure out how much experience is needed to gain a level, because I can't find a screen that shows me what my current experience is.  You also gain experience for defeating monsters, which I'm pretty sure is new to this version of the game.

I've been exploring the top level of Whisenwood, and the layout is different than it was in v6.  It looks as though the levels are 15x15 squares, but I don't know how deep the dungeons go (Whisenwood had 20 levels in v6).  The Excelsior Transporter is still there (for the uninitiated, it can be used to quickly transport to any level of the dungeon, but using it costs hit points, and takes more the deeper you go).  The top level also has two new additions: an Alchemist and an Armory.  You can buy potions from the former, and magic weapons and armor from the latter, but the prices are steep.

There are new monsters in the game, and they do more than take away hit points.  Rust Monsters will eat your sword (and your icon changes to match, in a charming touch).  This makes you less effective in combat, but you can get a new one by making it back to the surface.  Shadows drain a point from your Strength score, while Vampires feed directly on your experience points (and yes, you will lose levels).  Mind Flayers feed on your Intelligence score.  As in v6, monsters have strengths and weaknesses against the various spells, which I'm still trying to figure out.

Character creation has a couple of new touches that makes things more interesting.  The first is your race.  In v6 this was never specified, but here you can be a Human, Elf, Dwarf or Gnome.  It's randomly determined, unfortunately, but at least it gives a small amount of differentation.  Elves are better at spellcasting, and have higher IQ and Wisdom.  Dwarves are better at fighting, always know what level of the dungeon they're on, and have higher Endurance.  Gnomes are more agile, better at running away, and also better at avoiding traps when opening chests.  Humans can carry more gold than the others.

Also, every character has an inheritance, and most of them will begin the game with a magic item.  My first character started with a +1 helmet, and others have had potions and amulets of ESP.  I'm a big fan of this, it makes each character feel unique.  It also gives some extra menace to the monster known as the Eye of Thieving, which often pops up to steal your stuff.  There's not much point to it if you don't have anything to steal, is there?

The magic system hasn't changed a great deal, except for one great addition: charm spells.  You can charm any of the monsters that attack you, and they will follow you around the dungeon and fight for you.  I don't think you can have more than two at a time, but it's cool to have minions to order around, and it does a lot for the survivability of low-level characters.  I've been getting a lot of use out of my meat shields.

You can see at the top of the screen that I have a charmed Vampire in my service.

There's more to The Game of Dungeons v8 that I haven;t mentioned yet, but I think I'll save it for future posts.  I'm having a blast getting back to this game: v6 was probably my favourite of the ones I've played so far in the blog.  It's certainly a welcome change from Moria.