I just downloaded Return to Chaos and have started playing it for the first time. I have to say I'm impressed.
I've not played Dungeon Master for over 10 years, so it's good to be able to feel right at home again. I still get that adrenaline rush when unexpectedly encountering a monster and having to react quickly... and it's still creepy! *lol*
I liked the idea of being able to tweak the game using the Editor, it's let me make a couple of spells that makes the game (for me) a lot less "hurry up before you die" kinda thing - two spells to create food & water, so I can take my time and level up my magic classes if I want to.
I tried really hard to resist the temptation to God Mode, it's a bad habit of mine and I know it ruins the gameplay. So I think I've done pretty good so far with just those two spells, even if I did class "Make food" as a Fighter spell and "Make water" as a Ninja spell so I can practise levelling up those areas too.
But yeah, anyway. I'm liking Return to Chaos muchly.
Yes, rising through the levels, err desceneding through the levels, whatever (see http://www.giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantIT ... ript?SK=12 and you'll know what I mean) only is fun when not tweaking the game too much. However, only by completing the completetly unmodified dungeon you will be able to join the global Hall of Fame on the RTC site.
While I can see that there are a couple of modifications that would make it worthwhile to become gHoF incompatible, the ones you made aren't truly necessary, because there are 2 places in the DM dungeon (and also in the CSB dungeon) that already produce an unlimited amount of food, and both, especially the later one are easy to access, even from deeper levels.
Parting is all we know from Heaven, and all we need of hell.
Are there? That's cool. I like taking my time and levelling up as much as I can as soon as I can, that way it makes the more dangerous levels slightly easier to manage without getting killed too much.
If worse comes to worst, I'll just pretend that this first play is a "practise game" to get me used to it before I play "properly" without the training help.
Well, of course I should mention that you have to kill your food first using the official way - but then this might be welcome training, at least it's better than torturing doors.
Speaking of training - while I did this on Amiga in order to have the best possible chances for CSB, I don't do it in RTC, because while on Amiga there's been only a single opportunity to port characters (DM->CSB), in RTC you can reimport any characters from any dungeon and any savegame in any combination into virtualy any dungeon (except the designer deliberately disabled this), so there's no point in boring training sessions. Even playing the same dungeon 100 times is still more fun than killing 90000 rats (the engine strengthes monsters a bit though for poweful parties reimported in easy dungeons to keep things interesting).
Speaking of rats - that's the most useful food ressource in DM. In the rat level there is a room with a rat generator, that can be sealed in by closing a portcullis. A few tiles away from that room there is an invisible floorpad that will activate the generator. In these controlled conditions killing the rat generated is rather easy, and the drumsticks left behind by dead rats are very nourishing food. Water is also nearby. There is a secret shortcut staircase accessible by finding the skeleton keys (but beware, 6 locks and 5 keys, so best pass the second-last access) that interconnects all the deeper levels and later allows to easily access the rat room.
Similar to this in the worm level there is a room with a screamer generator, it can also be sealed off with a portcullis, it also has water nearby, and it can also be accessed by a single shortcut staircase that can be opened from below via a button. Once you have passed the couatl level and half of the level after that, it's a bit unpractical to return there, but if you take enough food with you, you won't have to return there (though you can via a certain pit + teleporter). Before leaving the screamer generator for the last time though store sufficient water, it will be some time until the next well can be accessed.
Also I recommend to always preferably eat the least nourishing food and keep the most nourishing, that way you can easily carry enough food to play a long while without additional supplies. Keep dragon steaks & drumsticks, also cheese & bread, use up worm rounds & screamer slices.
Parting is all we know from Heaven, and all we need of hell.
Yeah I notice that - cheese is the neaviest food. I heep drumsticks for last, and eat stuff like Screamer slices, corn, bread etc. I don't bother to loot Worm rounds, and by the time I get to the Dragon I'm so full of stuff that, coupled with the fact that end-game is only a few mins away, I just leave the steaks where they are.
The single steak you find on its own on (I think) Level 9 I just take and shove at the bottom of a chest forever lol. As has been said, though, you can just raid the Rat Room at the end of Level 9 if you for some reason find yourself low on food in the latter stages of the game. There's a fountain in the room just down the corridor too (think the room has the last Ra Key in it), and it's right by the Central Stairwell so access isn't a problem.
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Ameena, self-declared Wordweaver, Beastmaker, Thoughtbringer, and great smegger of dungeon editing!
I love how certain things become universal. Back in the ST and Amiga days I always camped out in that portcullis room near the Rat room and the staircase, using it as my 'base' for exploring the rest of the dungeon, and the Screamer room on level 4 was always a place I used to get some relatively easy combat practise in, as well as a nice source of food for the upper levels.
Just installed the newest RTC on my laptop - holy cr@p, this has DMII included now! I'd played an earlier version, and I'd been delighted then just to be able to play DM and CSB again.
Rat room in DM - heaven. A perfect base of operations!
My laptop has a Function key that switches some of the alphabetic keys to a simulated keypad, but if you're focussing on the screen, it's not easy to keep your fingers on the right keys - hence the value of an external keypad. I don't have one yet, but it's on the "good idea to buy" list anyway!
