5 ms·

The Making of Dungeon Master

55 points by jsnell 11y ago

mrbill 11y ago
I played the heck out of that game on my Amiga in the late 80s/early 90s.
- zhoujianfu 11y ago
  Me too, me too. Man, it was just so scary and intense, creeping around that dungeon in realtime, with the stereo sound effects. It was about 1000x more exciting than bard's tale 2 (which I did love too)!
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
incepted 11y ago
If like me, you are curious about the copy protection mentioned in the article, here is the patent that was filed about it: http://www.google.com/patents/US4849836 http://www.google.com/patents/US4849836 It relies on "fuzzy bits" which were stored on a specific track. Reading this track repeatedly should yield different values. If the same value is found multiple times, the disk is a copy. The devious aspect of this scheme is that if the program detected an illegal copy, it wouldn't abort right away but later, in various ways (system errors, killing your entire party, etc...). The check was also performed multiple times during the game (e.g. changing levels). All these reasons combined explain why it took more than a year for the first real cracks to appear.
- Udo 11y ago
  I'd imagine the rate of false positives was also quite high.
  - incepted 11y ago
    Apparently not. The fuzzy bits created on the master discs were extremely reliable (and by that I mean "unreliable"): every time you read the track, you would get different values. Remember that a track contains a lot of bytes. The copy protection was only checking one fuzzy bit to declare the disk genuine. And these fuzzy bits were by design impossible to create on regular disk drives (thankfully!). The hardware required to create these tracks was extremely expensive and sometimes even out of stock, leaving hackers no other solution than to actually remove the protection if they wanted to produce a crack. Years later, a disk copier appeared that was able to preserve these fuzzy bits but it was way after there was any commercial interest left in the Dungeon Master titles.
    - TeMPOraL 11y ago
      > Years later, a disk copier appeared that was able to preserve these fuzzy bits but it was way after there was any commercial interest left in the Dungeon Master titles. I wonder what's the story behind that copier. Was its ability a side effect of the method they used? Or was there a legitimate commercial interest in preserving those fuzzy bits in copies? Or was actually built with pirates in mind?
- jjbinx007 11y ago
  The history of copy protection would make for a fantastic article in itself. The only sad thing about the copy protection in Dungeon Master is it's difficult to play the game using an emulator as you don't know if the version you're playing is a fully working crack until you get to the later levels.
- MereInterest 11y ago
  Wasn't that the same technique that caused StarForce DRM to destroy the CD drive? When reading the fuzzy bits, the drive's firmware notices that it is getting different values each time, and slows down its read speed to compensate. This happens many times, with no way in the firmware to reset the read speed, resulting in a useless drive.
bostik 11y ago
I remember Dungeon Master fondly, even if I never finished it. It was a truly great game. One silent aspect of that was probably the lack of scripted story. Just a few fragments of text on scrolls and a few more scattered around, chiseled on the walls. (Author notes that story didn't really come into the play until the final level.) The level that killed my interest was the annoying, slapped-on-for-malevolent-humour "Zoom!". Everything until that point is a marvelous gaming experience, but the forced timing and counting based teleport field problem is a big misstep. In a game where sometimes returning to earlier levels was not only possible but also encouraged, facing that single funnel-like problem raised a terrible spectre of a thought: "I may need to go through that again". It killed the game for me. But considering how massive an influence Dungeon Master had on a generation of gamers, it's probably not a coincidence that the release of an indie game that promised the ability to relive the experience was was so eagerly expected. [0] Oh, to have time to play again... 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Grimrock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Grimrock
- jstelly 11y ago
  Dungeon master was definitely one of my favorites back then. I play it all the way through and even played the sequel "Chaos strikes back". I enjoyed this article for the nostalgia. I wish it had mentioned two other games though: Dungeons of Daggorath [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath] This did many of the things Dungeon Master did but much earlier. I can see it's arcade-style gameplay being thought of as different, but I didn't see it that way as a player. Black Crypt [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Crypt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Crypt] This really improved on the formula. It was released around the same time as Ultima Underworld, but it's a much more direct comparison to dungeon master.
__david__ 11y ago
If anyone is interested in a modern take on Dungeon Master, checkout Legend of Grimrock.
- sqldba 11y ago
  I saw that but wasn't very interested in anything without a solid story and story progression...
  - crispweed 11y ago
    The story side of Legend of Grimrock 2 is pretty good, I think, and the story side of things worked pretty well for me, although it's always going to be more of a set of related puzzles kind of story I guess. (It's a bit like the Dark Souls games, maybe, where a bit of story helps to make it interesting, but keeping this kind of minimal and keeping the story out of the way of the actual experience is also important.) Just got reminded about the following, also, from the comments below the article: http://dungeonkingdom.com/ http://dungeonkingdom.com/ (In Steam early access currently, looking pretty good also, but didn't play it yet.)
sqldba 11y ago
Anyone reading on iOS notice there are no scroll bars even when scrolling down? For such a long article it made it extremely irritating to read; never knowing if it was going to continue on or if I was near the end. I ended up skipping a huge portion and moving on. Sorry; if you ruin user experience then I'm not going to waste my time on your site.
wazoox 11y ago
If you're interested in this game and want to get a feel of it, I can't recommend enough the "CRPG addict" playthrough: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-33-dungeon-master-1987.html http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-33-dungeon-maste...

55 points by jsnell 11y ago

mrbill 11y ago

I played the heck out of that game on my Amiga in the late 80s/early 90s.

zhoujianfu 11y ago
Me too, me too. Man, it was just so scary and intense, creeping around that dungeon in realtime, with the stereo sound effects. It was about 1000x more exciting than bard's tale 2 (which I did love too)!

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

incepted 11y ago

If like me, you are curious about the copy protection mentioned in the article, here is the patent that was filed about it: http://www.google.com/patents/US4849836 http://www.google.com/patents/US4849836 It relies on "fuzzy bits" which were stored on a specific track. Reading this track repeatedly should yield different values. If the same value is found multiple times, the disk is a copy. The devious aspect of this scheme is that if the program detected an illegal copy, it wouldn't abort right away but later, in various ways (system errors, killing your entire party, etc...). The check was also performed multiple times during the game (e.g. changing levels). All these reasons combined explain why it took more than a year for the first real cracks to appear.

Udo 11y ago
I'd imagine the rate of false positives was also quite high.
- incepted 11y ago
  Apparently not. The fuzzy bits created on the master discs were extremely reliable (and by that I mean "unreliable"): every time you read the track, you would get different values. Remember that a track contains a lot of bytes. The copy protection was only checking one fuzzy bit to declare the disk genuine. And these fuzzy bits were by design impossible to create on regular disk drives (thankfully!). The hardware required to create these tracks was extremely expensive and sometimes even out of stock, leaving hackers no other solution than to actually remove the protection if they wanted to produce a crack. Years later, a disk copier appeared that was able to preserve these fuzzy bits but it was way after there was any commercial interest left in the Dungeon Master titles.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    > Years later, a disk copier appeared that was able to preserve these fuzzy bits but it was way after there was any commercial interest left in the Dungeon Master titles. I wonder what's the story behind that copier. Was its ability a side effect of the method they used? Or was there a legitimate commercial interest in preserving those fuzzy bits in copies? Or was actually built with pirates in mind?
jjbinx007 11y ago
The history of copy protection would make for a fantastic article in itself. The only sad thing about the copy protection in Dungeon Master is it's difficult to play the game using an emulator as you don't know if the version you're playing is a fully working crack until you get to the later levels.
MereInterest 11y ago
Wasn't that the same technique that caused StarForce DRM to destroy the CD drive? When reading the fuzzy bits, the drive's firmware notices that it is getting different values each time, and slows down its read speed to compensate. This happens many times, with no way in the firmware to reset the read speed, resulting in a useless drive.

bostik 11y ago

I remember Dungeon Master fondly, even if I never finished it. It was a truly great game. One silent aspect of that was probably the lack of scripted story. Just a few fragments of text on scrolls and a few more scattered around, chiseled on the walls. (Author notes that story didn't really come into the play until the final level.) The level that killed my interest was the annoying, slapped-on-for-malevolent-humour "Zoom!". Everything until that point is a marvelous gaming experience, but the forced timing and counting based teleport field problem is a big misstep. In a game where sometimes returning to earlier levels was not only possible but also encouraged, facing that single funnel-like problem raised a terrible spectre of a thought: "I may need to go through that again". It killed the game for me. But considering how massive an influence Dungeon Master had on a generation of gamers, it's probably not a coincidence that the release of an indie game that promised the ability to relive the experience was was so eagerly expected. [0] Oh, to have time to play again... 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Grimrock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_Grimrock

jstelly 11y ago
Dungeon master was definitely one of my favorites back then. I play it all the way through and even played the sequel "Chaos strikes back". I enjoyed this article for the nostalgia. I wish it had mentioned two other games though: Dungeons of Daggorath [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath] This did many of the things Dungeon Master did but much earlier. I can see it's arcade-style gameplay being thought of as different, but I didn't see it that way as a player. Black Crypt [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Crypt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Crypt] This really improved on the formula. It was released around the same time as Ultima Underworld, but it's a much more direct comparison to dungeon master.

__david__ 11y ago

If anyone is interested in a modern take on Dungeon Master, checkout Legend of Grimrock.

sqldba 11y ago
I saw that but wasn't very interested in anything without a solid story and story progression...
- crispweed 11y ago
  The story side of Legend of Grimrock 2 is pretty good, I think, and the story side of things worked pretty well for me, although it's always going to be more of a set of related puzzles kind of story I guess. (It's a bit like the Dark Souls games, maybe, where a bit of story helps to make it interesting, but keeping this kind of minimal and keeping the story out of the way of the actual experience is also important.) Just got reminded about the following, also, from the comments below the article: http://dungeonkingdom.com/ http://dungeonkingdom.com/ (In Steam early access currently, looking pretty good also, but didn't play it yet.)

sqldba 11y ago

Anyone reading on iOS notice there are no scroll bars even when scrolling down? For such a long article it made it extremely irritating to read; never knowing if it was going to continue on or if I was near the end. I ended up skipping a huge portion and moving on. Sorry; if you ruin user experience then I'm not going to waste my time on your site.

wazoox 11y ago

If you're interested in this game and want to get a feel of it, I can't recommend enough the "CRPG addict" playthrough: http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-33-dungeon-master-1987.html http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/11/game-33-dungeon-maste...