Dungeon Master

The TSR trademarked term for Game Master or Referee for their role-playing games Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

A new(and unofficial) sequel Dungeon Master Java is available. It's not Open Source, but it might become that way. As you can probably guess, it is written in Java.

It is a bit harder, has a plot, and comes with a really nifty level editor so you can make yet another Dungeon Master clone!

Get it at http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~alandale/dmjava/index.html

Then
Dungeon Master was a computer game released about 1987 by FTL (Faster Than Light) technologies. It was originally released for the Amiga and quickly ported to the Atari ST. Since then a PC port was made, a sequel was made (Chaos Strikes Back, Amiga only) and a Dungeon Master II was created for the PC.

Dungeon Master was the first roleplaying game that used realtime instead of a turn-based engine. This revolutionized the computer roleplaying game market. For the time the graphics were very good as well and the atmosphere it created was unparalled.

Now
FTL has long since gone out of business, they were bought by Interplay (or at least they created Dungeon Master II). The fan community has created several projects since then. Those include the following:

DMute: A program to edit save games and dungeons in Dungeon master.
("http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~gg215/dm/index.html)

RTC: A clone of dungeon master not yet complete which will allow for more Dungeon Master type dungeons to be created with more control over them.
(http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~gg215/dm/RTC.html)

The DM/CSB Encyclopedia is a complete resource for DM information.
(http://dmweb.free.fr/DMCSBHome.htm)

DM Message Board is a place for current discussion about Dungeon Master projects and issues.
(http://pub17.ezboard.com/biansmessageboard69920)

The game Dungeon Master by FTL in fact appeared first on the Atari ST in 1987, and was then ported to the Amiga platform, as well as several others, including the PC, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Apple IIgs, and the japanese machine by Sharp called X68000.

The sequel to the game, namely Chaos Strikes Back, was ported to the Atari ST, the Amiga, and the X68000.

The Amiga version of Dungeon Master, features better sound, but also requires a full 1MB of RAM, and a double sided floppy. The Atari version needed only 512KB, and came on a single sided floppy.

The PC conversion of FTL's Dungeon Master was pretty well done. (Made by Interplay and Psygnosis, I believe - must check this one later). The graphics were supported all the way up to VGA and music was supported up to AdLib, so we SoundBlaster owners could appreciate Pretty Decent Music and Sound Effects. (I later tried Dungeon Master's Amiga version - did that one even have menu music, or was the emulator buggy?) The game fitted nicely on one 1440k floppy.

There were quirks, though. The game settings were never saved; the game dutifully presented a simple character-based menu when game started, asking the graphics / sound card / mouse types.

Also, at least in my case, the game had to be installed on hard disk, if you wanted to save the game. Floppy save support didn't work as intended (I think; There was something fishy here that I need to check.)

Also, they left in one of the annoying thing from the Old Versions: the pause command blanked the whole screen and put "GAME FREEZED" in the middle... What's wrong with leaving the game picture to the screen?

That's that for the technical stuff. Anything else wrong? Yes, in fact...

The manual spun a heroic tale about the Background for Dungeon Bashing; After that, the manual told how the game is played.

"To begin your adventure, remove the game disk from the box."

(No, I assure you, this game actually does require approximately IQ >15 to play. You know, those who don't code, write manuals, and all that.)

Also, the package had something saying that unauthorized broadcasting of the game was illegal. (Bet it's illegal to play this game on oil rigs too!)

(As you noticed, exact form of the facts of this writeup need to be checked later - but the facts presented here are as they are =)