![]() There are teleporters that dump you into the middle of fire or water. There are perpetually spinning squares in which you have to fight enemies coming at you from all directions without being able to stop yourself spinning. Plants suddenly come alive and eat you when you're adjacent. Fireballs roar continually down the hallways. #Vaporum walkthrough the librarian fullIt was one of the most hateful dungeon levels that I've ever experienced, full of things that the game hadn't even hinted were possible before. It showed that the developers were capable of extremely challenging environments they just didn't implement them for the 17 previous levels. The Halls of Rage was the final dungeon I explored for this entry, and it completely changed all the rules. Still, until the Halls of Rage, that's about as exciting as it got. There was a way to find your way through using messages, but I mapped the whole thing by dropping items on the floors. The dungeon near the Lake of Dreams had a maze of single squares in which three of the four walls had levers that activated teleporters. The Summer Vale had 12 small interconnected levels (all of them together still equaling the size of one standard level) which were a challenge to map. I don't want to suggest that none of the dungeon levels prior to the Halls of Rage had anything interesting. I'm thinking about dumping most of it because it weighs you down, and I think slows you in combat. Now my inventory slots are full, so I only need to keep a little money to buy passage into towns and the occasional meal or room at an inn. (Oddly, extra armor can't be sold.) There's nothing useful to buy in the armory, but jewelry stores sell Rings of Mighty Attack, Amulets of Strength, Amulets of Speed, and Rings of Protection, and I was able to give each character some new item every two or three dungeon levels. It's relatively generous as long as you save and sell extra weapons, gems, and jewelry. Sometimes it's tough to tell what's interactive and what's not.īefore I get to the Halls, I'll just talk a bit about the economy. The game has some interesting wall textures. In Abandoned Places, you might as well pull a lever the moment you see it because there isn't going to be any trick to it. I learned to play Dungeon Master and most of its lineage (e.g., Eye of the Beholder, Knightmare, Black Crypt) by carefully mapping without touching anything, then slowly testing things out. Or it might only open the door for a limited period of time. Or the switch might have multiple settings. ![]() Or you might need two switches to open the door. ![]() ![]() That switch might open one door but close another. Dungeon Master had puzzles like that, too, but it kept you guessing. ![]() Push a switch here to open a door somewhere else. For 14 of the 18 levels I've experienced so far, the enemies have been staggeringly easy, and for 17 of the 18, the puzzles have been entirely of the rote mechanical kind. Abandoned Places, at least for most of its run, does none of them. Ultima Underworld went largely with the latter two but also had some interesting puzzles. Dungeon Master made itself famous with the first two options, particularly the second. ![]()
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