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The Dungeon Crawler thread.

Krathoon

Krathoon

Member
Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a particular kind of game, the dungeon crawler.

This game has caught my attention lately. It seems fun. It is an RPG with a heavy metal soundtrack.

I give you Thunderscape.


It is your classic dungeon crawler with it's mazes to get lost in. It even had 3D auto mapping.

There have been others. Like:

Lands of Lore Series.


Might and Magic: World of Xeen


What dungeon crawlers do you hold near and dear to your heart?
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
Krathoon said:
What dungeon crawlers do you hold near and dear to your heart?
Click to expand...
Are you asking strictly about "blobbers" (first person, party moving as a unit, movement in "cells" and so on) or any type of dungeon crawlers?
 
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Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
Krathoon said:
Really, any type. Diablo would count as a dungeon crawler.
Click to expand...
Oh, I'm going to subscribe the thread because this is a topic I hold particularly dear.
From Ultima Underworld to Might & Magic; from Legend of Grimrock to KOTC, I loved this genre for almost three decades at this point.
 
Vyse

Vyse

Gold Member
Sentenza said:
Oh, I'm going to subscribe the thread because this is a topic I hold particularly dear.
From Ultima Underworld to Might & Magic; from Legend of Grimrock to KOTC, I loved this genre for almost three decades at this point.
Click to expand...
Loved Ultima Underworld, Might & Magic and Lands of Lore.
 
DrDamn

DrDamn

Member
Captive on Atari ST/Amiga - also came to PC. Developed by a small team and designed by Tony Crowther. Included really impressive procedural generation and thousands of planets to land on and explore the dungeons. So many little bits of tech and features packed in to the game too. Well ahead of it's time in 1990 when it was released.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Captive (video game) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org

Captive_Amiga.jpg
 
Fredrik

Fredrik

Member
Comandr said:
Kills me there’s never been another game quite like Wizardry 8. Free movement, challenging encounters, excellent skill system, charming party and NPC voices.

It’s just too bad the game is so god damn obtuse. And there wasn’t another one.
Click to expand...
My wife still play that all the time, no doubt her favorite game.

Too new for me though. My favorite is Dungeon Master on the Amiga. Fantastic game!

There were others from the same era. Chaos Strikes Back of course but also Eye of the Beholder, I played some Black Crypt too.

For ”modern” ones I could recommend Legend of Grimrock, very oldschool and lots of nostalgia for me who grew up with Dungeon Master. Great game!
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
AJUMP23 said:
Ultima underworld was a big one for me. Just felt like infinite places to explore.
Click to expand...
I was 14 or 15 when I played the game for the first time and I *still* remember exploring every corner of every floor looking for secrets for hours and the way the game made me feel like being lost INTO its world like never before.
Not just because the game was a technical marvel for its time (and Jesus, it WAS), but because the layout design of the entire place managed to sell you the illusion of being lost in a real place REALLY hard.

For contrast, I remember learning to love Might & Magic VI and VII few years later because they were incredibly fun to get lost into, but that was more of an acquired taste because at first the games felt rather antiquated and underwhelming from a technical standpoint when they released.
 
Krathoon

Krathoon

Member
Ogbert said:
This was my main type of game on Amiga / ST.

Loved Eye of the Beholder one and two, Black Crypt, Bloodwych. All awesome.

A more recent game was The Keep on 3DS. Lovely little game.
Click to expand...
Yeah. I am going to have to dig into the Amiga games. It may be better to use an Amiga emulator than the Amiga mini.
 
ReyBrujo

ReyBrujo

Member
I'm such a fan of these games! I am pretty sure there are a good number of them in the eXoDOS compendium but I was waiting for a Linux patch (which looks like it has been recently released so might check it myself as well). Lately I've been thinking about a particular one I think I finished when I was 19 or 20 but which was older, maybe 1991 or 1992 of which I remember very little except that you got a shareware copy that would create a hidden file in the C:\ root whenever you "registered" it. I remember debugging it until realizing how it made its checking and then playing it til the end. Wish I could remember its name.

Nowadays I mostly play on Switch, finished Labyrinth of Gallery: The Moon Society recently which I absolutely loved, finished the first Etrian Odyssey of the HD Collection pack, finished Dungeon Encounters, a simple dungeon crawler by Square Enix, waiting for a few others to arrive (Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City, Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi, Moero Crystal H, Mary Skelter 2, Mary Skelter Finale and Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk, all these in the first person perspective), and already got the old and the new Shiren the Wanderer queued. I wish more western first person dungeon crawlers existed in Switch but I won't object Japanese ones (although I want my Wizardries!).
 
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Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
March Climber said:
Here's a modern-ish game I enjoyed in the genre.

maxresdefault.jpg


It even has grid-based movement.
Click to expand...
The sequel is leaps and bounds better, in case you missed it.

Also, while it's not exactly a beloved classic in the eyes of many, I would advise people to not sleep on the (relatively) recent Might & Magic X.
It was made by a C team at Ubisoft with shoestring budget and recycled assets from the already mediocre Heroes of M&M VII, so it's ugly as sin comparatively to its year of release...
But it's surprisingly fun and engaging to play and filled with great secrets and puzzles, not to mention an almost-excellent itemization (the randomized items are worthless trash to fill empty slots, but the dozens of unique "special relics" are incredibly satistying to collect and use).
 
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Krathoon

Krathoon

Member
You can get Might and Magic X deluxe edition for $6 right now.
store.ubisoft.com

Buy Might and Magic X: Legacy Deluxe Edition - PC

After a decade, a Might & Magic® RPG is back with both the unique core formula and a new set of improved and fine-tuned features. The best RPG of its class! Might & Magic® X Legacy is an authentic solo experience in the classic first-person RPG genre. Create and lead your group into an exciting...
store.ubisoft.com store.ubisoft.com
 
simpatico

simpatico

Member
Wizardry is one of the most underrated game series. I played so many hours of the NES version. No guides, no clues, just scraping by. Kinda sad there's no way to simulate that experience today. Hard to describe how epic and vast this game felt. People who weren't there will never understand.
 
Krathoon

Krathoon

Member
Ubisoft is having one hell of a sale right now. You can get complete versions of AC Odessey and Valhalla for real cheap.

I don't mean to derail the thread.
 
ReyBrujo

ReyBrujo

Member
simpatico said:
Kinda sad there's no way to simulate that experience today.
Click to expand...

They could but nobody would buy it. I spent hours grinding just to get a bad set of dice throws and get the whole team exterminated. I finished Dungeon Encounters a couple of days ago in there if you fell in a bottomless hole your party would be shuffled between all 100 floors and you would need to find them again. Also, if any member was petrified you would have to leave him there to find an altar to pray for him to become playable once more. And it didn't even have permadeath, that's literally taboo nowadays (except in short bursts like Slay the Spire, Balatro, Inscryption, etc).
 
Hohenheim

Hohenheim

Member
Lunacid should be checked out by everyone who enjoys a good, old skool dungeon crawler. No hand holding, amazing music and atmosphere. Very Kings Field-ish, but without the clunky controls. One of the best indies from 2023.

 
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simpatico

simpatico

Member
ReyBrujo said:
They could but nobody would buy it. I spent hours grinding just to get a bad set of dice throws and get the whole team exterminated. I finished Dungeon Encounters a couple of days ago in there if you fell in a bottomless hole your party would be shuffled between all 100 floors and you would need to find them again. Also, if any member was petrified you would have to leave him there to find an altar to pray for him to become playable once more. And it didn't even have permadeath, that's literally taboo nowadays (except in short bursts like Slay the Spire, Balatro, Inscryption, etc).
Click to expand...
I mean just the amount of imagination used while playing. The scope of the game was a mystery, but I made it gigantic in my mind. Wondering what you'll see next, how big the actual game is, what you might find etc. Filling in all the blanks the simple graphics leave.
 
Neon Xenon

Neon Xenon

Member
Been playing Brandish: The Dark Revenant (PSP) lately, popping in and out of the game in between other games. It felt good getting into this particular Dungeon Crawler. Just you, your items, your Spells Fire Magic (really, it's mostly just this one), and occasionally Dela the Dork Sorceress showing up. The original is also on the SNES, but with the improved smooth rotation alone, this is the definitive edition of the game.

Playing Brandish: TDR is also getting me in the mood to play Vagrant Story again. I notice the solitary atmosphere of these games is what's so appealing to me. Music can play a major part in establishing that:


On a somewhat side note, while these games aren't quite exactly dungeon crawlers in the sense of this thread, I also started playing both Cogmind and Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup today.
 
SpiceRacz

SpiceRacz

Member
I don’t have much experience with the genre, but I played Might and Magic 6 a few years ago and thought it was excellent.

Labadal said:
The developer might be batshit crazy, but Grimoire was a splendid dungeon crawler.
Click to expand...

Gonna second this. I didn’t find it to be super accessible. Still enjoyed what I played of it though. Feels authentic to the old dungeon crawler games if that’s what you’re looking for.
 
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Darkmakaimura

Darkmakaimura

Member
Krathoon said:
Back in the 80s and 90s, there was a particular kind of game, the dungeon crawler.

This game has caught my attention lately. It seems fun. It is an RPG with a heavy metal soundtrack.

I give you Thunderscape.


It is your classic dungeon crawler with it's mazes to get lost in. It even had 3D auto mapping.
Click to expand...

Oh man, poor Sinatar. I really like this streamer and it's a real shame he took his own life.

Edit: he was also a member of this forum.
 
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dreamstation

dreamstation

Member
Keen to see recommendations for more modern games of the genre. I know about and have both the Grimrock games but want to see what else people suggest.
 
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IAmRei

IAmRei

Member
Krathoon said:
What dungeon crawlers do you hold near and dear to your heart?
Click to expand...

Shin megami tensei 1-2, Strange Journey.
Its hard as hell, but glad to be able to manage it. Especially Strange Journey, pseudo scifi supernatural rpg which playing into apocalypse theme. The music and the story is brilliant. And the main character is american, although the design looks like generic yakuza member face person : )) 13/10 stars game for me.

Etrian odyssey 3DS, Mary Skelter 1, and 7th Dragoon DS. These game like timeskip and makes me feels like real explorers. I know its anime style games. But hey i am asian...

Also for the harder style is dark spire and wizardry. But i never finished to these two.
 
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