Game 480: Dungeons of the Unforgiven (1993)

The graphics on the title screen change every time you launch the game. That's a fun touch.

      

Dungeons of the Unforgiven

United States

Moraffware (developer and publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS

Date Started: 10 January 2023

             

Dungeons of the Unforgiven is Steve Moraff's follow-up to Moraff's World (1991), which itself was an update of Moraff's Revenge (1988). So far, the changes between World and Unforgiven seem lesser than those between Revenge and World, but they're mostly positive. Gone are the pointless outdoor areas with their confusing "fractal landscapes." The game still insists on showing views in all four directions (a momentarily interesting approach that ultimately does nothing for gameplay), but it at least emphasizes the forward-facing view, and movement with the arrow keys is handled more intuitively than in World. I'll discuss more differences as we move forward.

       

Exploring a dungeon of the unforgiven.

      

(Almost every web site has this game as Moraff's Dungeons of the Unforgiven, but the title screen does not include the author's name. My general policy is to go with the most common two out of three between the title screen, the manual, and the box, but in this case, the game has no manual or box.)

      

Perhaps the most important set of improvements are graphical. (Logan Gilbert replaced Rodney Page in the "artwork" department.) As you launch the game, you get to choose from 13 different video modes, the options combining resolutions (320 x 200 up to 1024 x 768), colors (2 to 256), and adapters (CGS, EGA, VGA, SVGA, XGA, and one I've never even heard of: Ultra High-Res VGA). Many of these have more than half a dozen sub-options. I'm curious why so few other games offer so many options even when they have manifestly beautiful graphics. Did they all auto-detect the graphics card? The higher levels are well-used in the game; although the graphics retain a certain amateurish look, none of them are quite as goofy as in World. (I mean this in terms of graphic style; many of the monsters themselves are undeniably goofy.) 

      

Fighting a decently-drawn enemy. Here, I have the background set to black-and-white wireframes to improve movement speed.

     

Unforgiven offers more mouse support than its predecessor. You could, in fact, play it entirely with the mouse, clicking on the various windows and commands. Having had enough of that in The Mystic Well, I appreciated the option to turn it off and just use the keyboard.

   

One of the more pointless changes is in character creation. Where World had standard fantasy races, Unforgiven changes them to humanoid, ape, childman, rodent, hobo, giant, widget, and shrimp. I don't have any problem with unusual races in CRPGs. Sometimes, they're a refreshing change from the standard elves and dwarves and whatnot. But if you're going to create races like "hobo," "widget," and "shrimp," you've got to describe them. You've got to add some lore to your setting to give them descriptions and histories. Here, they just become sets of average statistics.

       

You have to wonder how someone that intelligent, wise, and lucky ends up a hobo.

      

Attributes are strength, intelligence, wisdom, constitution, agility, and luck. Class choices haven't changed since World, and they are relatively well described in-game: fighters, worshippers, monks, wizards, priests, sages, and mages. One of the things I liked about World, and like here, is that the class choice really does make a difference. A player who chooses a fighter, who relies on finding good weapons and armor, faces a very different game than one who chooses a monk, who cannot use either. Sages compensate for poor combat ability by finding more loot. Monks start with all spells but have lower casting power than the classes that have to find them. I don't know how well the various classes work in practice, but they sound good on paper. That said, they're also manifestly based on Wizardry, with the name changes (e.g., sage=rogue, mage=samurai, priest=lord) creating more confusion than necessary.

        

At least the classes are described.

      

Somewhere during setup, you choose a difficulty setting--"Normal" or "I Can Handle Anything." Supposedly, the former setting gives you access to only four modules where the latter includes a fifth, for "tough as nails, gritty players, who come from the streets with nothing." Being a somewhat soft, refined player who grew up in relative privilege, I chose "Normal." 

 

I went with the game's recommendation and chose a giant mage for my first character. After character creation, the game dumps you naked on the top level of a dungeon, with a mission to "explore vast dungeons and defeat evil monsters." The help menu--needlessly couched in the form of a little snake that rushes up to give you advice--has some more information about the backstory. The dungeons are on "Moraff's World," which is "somewhere near an old planet named Eart." Eart was consumed by race wars between human and non-human creatures, which led to the segregation of said creatures in the form of level groupings in the current dungeons. No one knows if the dungeons are in a planet or in a spaceship--no one has seen the outdoors in recorded memory. This is one of the few backstories for which reading it leaves you worse off than if you'd just imagined something.

     

The incomprehensible backstory.

     

The interface is highly customizable. The default shows you views in four directions with the forward-facing direction emphasized. All available commands are in the upper-left and called with a single key. The upper-right has an automap; the lower left the character sheet. Combat and messages appear in the lower-right. But the G)raphics menu allows you to change this screen in a number of ways. There's a three-way toggle for regular graphics, reduced graphics that show colors but not textures, and black-and-white wireframes. This would have been useful to contemporary players because the default graphics take a couple of seconds to load after each step or turn and would swiftly become annoying without the ability to increase the CPU speed. There are other options that reconfigure the interface to show less information and more of the game world, including an option to only show the front-facing view in a full screen.

      

An approaching enemy in normal view . . .

. . . a "zoomed" view . . .

. . . and a full-screen view.

           

The automap deserves special praise. It shows not only where you've been, but anything you've seen, and it marks ladders, doors, secret doors, and chutes. On the town level, it annotates shops using different colors.

    

An expanded map of the town level.

      

Moraff thus spent a lot of time on the interface. I wish he had spent as much time on content. The key problem with Moraff's World remains present here: nothing really happens as you explore the dungeons. The levels are enormous, but why? There's almost nothing to find in the twisting corridors except random encounters and ladders, of which there are so many that you hardly have to go looking for them. Unless things change on some of the lower levels, you never find treasures, NPCs, special encounters, or anything else in the dungeon, so there's hardly any reason to explore except to hunt for monsters to kill and level up.

   

Combat isn't that interesting, either. The fighter, who can't use spells, faces a particularly boring game, as the only physical combat options are to (F)ight or use the regular movement keys to run away. The monsters might be better drawn than in World, but they're no less goofy. In the first five levels, in addition to some nice-looking "gargalons," "Lesdidian warriors," and "harpeys," I fought giant balls, puffballs, rockets, a "druggie" with syringes for arms, and living trash cans.

        

Killing a giant ball for U.S. dollars. Just what I like to see in a fantasy game.

     

Spellcasters have a more interesting time. I do like that you acquire spells one-by-one (except the monk) and have time to test them out. As in World, the game offers a unique spell categorization system. In addition to wizard battle spells and priest battle spells, there are "preparation" spells that must be cast outside of combat and "permanent" spells that must be cast in town and take one month to cast. "Preparation" spells include buffs but also healing and navigation spells. "Permanent" spells include "Enchant Weapon Level 1," "Enchant Wand Level 3," and "Extra 3 Health Points."

        

This guy is oddly terrifying.

      

For combat spells, in my first few hours with the game, I acquired "Sleep," "Magic Zap," "Minor Protection," "Slow Enemies," "Strength," "Minor Shock," and "Magic Missile." Other characters are different, but my giant has so few spell points, that I'm encouraged to save spells for when I really need them, which is rare. Simply swinging a weapon is good enough for most battles, at least in the early game.

      

Casting a spell. I haven't found many so far.

     

I began the game by visiting the town and using my limited currency to buy a short sword and chain armor. These items are sold at generic "shops," along with crystals that restore magic points when you rest, and "culture stock," a weird addition that stops you from aging when you rest. The shops sell six types of weapons, from sticks (1 ruble) to long swords (450 rubles), and six types of armor, from robes (1 ruble) to field plate (9,900 rubles).

      

Buying my first weapon.

     

Temples let you cure wounds, poison, and disease, plus "help a child" for 100 rubles. The game tracks how many children you've helped; the statistic supposedly has an impact on how much you're charged in shops and inns. Inns let you rest for healing, spell recharging, and leveling up.

   

For some weird reason, when you find money on slain monsters, it's always in the form of U.S. dollars. The game wasn't terribly immersive in the first place, but that certainly doesn't help. You have to visit banks to change it to rubles. You can also deposit and withdraw money at banks. As with World, there's an option to rob them, but it doesn't actually work.

     

Moraff's "next game" was a Tetris variant, so I guess not.

     

From the town, there's not much to do but go down and start fighting. The dungeon is organized in groups of five levels, and the first five are the "Gargonian" section--"dominated by tough, evil, part human, part beast monsters which will try to defeat you!" The S)ection Info command gives you some background on the area and each of the foes you'll be facing.

       

This monster list is notably not exhaustive and does not include some of the more goofy foes.

     

I found most of the enemies in this area easy. I never came close to losing a combat, nor did I suffer any negative effects except for experience point draining at the hands of the occasional "sustrontima." I swiftly rose to Level 7. Some notes on this experience:

    

• One of the more annoying features of the game is invisible chutes which dump you to the next level. Fortunately, there are copious ladders to return to the previous level, and the chutes are thereafter marked on the automap.

• Another annoying feature: doors sometimes become "jammed" after you walk through them. I haven't been able to find a way to un-jam them. If you've walked into a dead-end on the other side of the door, with no ladders, the only way to escape is to use the T)unnel command, which takes a few minutes.

       

The door jams while I'm in a 1 x 1 square.

     

• There are teleporters scattered throughout the dungeon that take you to the other modules.

      

I'm not quite ready for that.

    

• The game pops up with hints and quasi-tutorials frequently, reminding you to do things like visit the inn to level up.

      

As I slay an enemy, the game offers me hints as to what to do next in the lower right.

       

• When you return to the town level after gaining enough experience to level up, the game gives you backhanded compliments, like "Hail wimp! You are no longer the weakest player in the world!" or "Congratulations! You are no longer a novice! Now you're a rank amateur!" These messages are also delivered by little snakes. I don't know what this game's deal is with little snakes.

• The otherwise-flexible interface has no options for strafing or moving backwards (the down arrow turns you around). 

• In addition to money, enemies sometimes drop minor healing potions, crystals, and weapons or armor. I managed to find a long sword and a breastplate. You cannot sell excess items in the shops.

• There are trap doors that let you jump multiple levels, but you have to find the associated key.

     

After a few levels, little snakes started approaching me with messages from the "Shadow Gargalon" on Level 5. The messages taunted me and invited me to come challenge her. Just like World, every fifth level has a boss with the name "shadow" in front of it. Killing it offers you a special item of loot. 

       

I feel like there's a tautology in here.

            

When I was  Level 7, I decided I was strong enough to try the Shadow Gargalon. I made my way down to Level 5. When you're on a boss level, the automap tells you roughly in which direction that boss may be found. I started heading in that direction, but she soon came to me. I had difficulty hitting her in melee combat, but my "Magic Missile" spell did a fine job. The reward for killing her was a "bottle of biotech-fluid from a mythical planet." It increased my maximum health by 30. "Now seek the Shadow Elemental on Level 10," the game said.

        

The "Shadow Gargalon" has more hit points than the regular gargalon, but it looks the same.

      

As I wrap up the first session, I'm having a problem. Inns want an escalating amount of money to let me stay there. It started at something like 5 rubles but had gone up to 2,397 by the time I was ready to make Level 9. That's more money than I've made in the entire game so far. There are dozens of inns on the town level, but they all seem to charge the same thing. I'll have to head deep into the dungeon looking for plunder if I want to afford the inn. I just have to hope my spell points and hit points hold out. The game has permadeath, so a lost character is gone for good. World had "resurrection contracts," but I haven't seen them here.

      

Those rooms better include free wi-fi.

    

MobyGames's summary on Unforgiven starts with this: "Dungeons of the Unforgiven is Moraff's World and Moraff's Revenge with a story." So far, I haven't really seen any evidence of this "story." It seems to me that it's going to be the same as World: bosses every 5 levels culminating in a final boss on Level 25 or 50 or something. In fact, I believe I remember commenters arguing with the idea that Unforgiven has a "story" in my review of World. (There are a lot of spoilers in that comment section, so I've resisted going through it in detail.) Nonetheless, I'll try to at least "win" the first module of Unforgiven and see if anything new is introduced during the process. I can't see sticking this out for four more after that.

          

Time so far: 3 hours