Dungeon Master II: Crazy from the Heat

 

Code enforcement is lax in this universe.

        

The session began with the party in the caverns beneath Skullkeep, fighting skeletons and poisonous beasties, trying to find the square key that had been knocked down from an upper level. I forgot to mention last time that the underground has numerous gem veins in the walls that give you green or blue gems--blues are the most valuable currency in the game. At some point, I found a Kalan Gauntlet, which I'd had my eye on in the magic shop. It enhances hand-to-hand (ninja) combat.

   

The lowest level of the caverns was a small, twisty area with fumaroles at various points on the floor. The fumaroles were not dangerous themselves, but some of them repeatedly expelled these little fire fiends that charged the party and exploded. They were immune to normal weapons but could be damaged by the same DES EW spell that works on ghosts and tornadoes. Still, it was tough to get off a spell before they exploded, and I spent a lot of time healing from injuries.

      

The little bastard prepares to explode and burn us all.

     

The caverns also had a couple of places where the walls collapsed, and I had to swing at them with weapons to clear the collapsed area. Doing so created some more gems and pyro rocks. In the end, there really was nothing important in this set of caverns except the gems.

    

Beating at a rock wall with a sword seems like a good way to dull the sword. By the way, capturing a screenshot at the moment the damage is shown is no easy feat.

   

Having mapped the available underground and still not found the key, I decided to head back up to Skullkeep and toss the party into the same hole that the key fell down. It took a while to get there. Some of the Jawas had respawned and I had to go through the fireball corridor and gear corridor again.

   

I took a save before dropping down the pit. I'm sure one of these unidentified spells is "Feather Fall" or something, but honestly, as long as something doesn't kill me, it doesn't bother me all that much to heal the party. It's how I build cleric skills. Anyway, the fall damage wasn't bad. At the bottom of the pit, I found the key. It was in a corner of an area that I had explored and mapped, but the key didn't stand out enough against the background unless I knew I was looking for it specifically. I later realized that there's a perfect correspondence between ladder and pit locations on each level (I should have remembered this from the first two Dungeon Master games), so I could have more easily identified the key's location by just counting the horizontal and vertical spaces from the pit to the ladder that I originally took.

        

My cursor is pointing at the key. Would you have noticed it?

         

With no way back up to Skullkeep from the caverns, I had to go through the main entrance yet again. The worst part is the gear corridor, where a little mistiming sends the party on a one-way trip to the basement. Once I was through, I used the key in the second door and finally opened the way to the last part of the level. 

 

The rooms beyond had two more ladders down, two more portals in the walls, and a scout map. The way out of the area was blocked by a pressure plate with a pit on the other side. Standing on the plate caused a constant stream of spells to come out of a side corridor, each one alternately opening and closing the pit. I now understand that these are ZO ("Open/Close") spells, although I didn't realize they worked on pits.

 

One of the ladders down just led to a small area beneath the pit. The second turned out to be one-way (there was no ladder back up below), and it led to a network of corridors with shimmering mists at every intersection. Something kept giggling, and I kept getting blasted with fireballs no matter where I stood. It took me a while to figure out what was happening. Apparently, the mists caused anything entering them to deflect at a 90-degree angle. There were buttons on the walls that sent fireballs shooting from various launchers. Because of the mists, every fireball launched made a continuous loop around the corridors until it encountered something--like the party. Some little robed gremlin was running around the corridors hitting the buttons.

    

This was alas the only screenshot I took in this area.

    

It took me several reloads to identify a couple of safe squares on the level and even longer to launch hit-and-run attacks on the gremlin from those safe squares without getting blasted to smithereens. The gremlin's death opened a gate, behind which was a button that lowered the ladder. All I got for this insanity was a healing potion, a FUL bomb, and a magic box (the kind that freezes time).

   

Back on the main level, I figured that the scout map, found only one square from the pressure plate, must be the key to the pit puzzle. Specifically, I had to send the scout to block the stream of ZO spells. I've been under-utilizing the scout map--under-utilizing all the maps, frankly--so I had to frig with it for a while to recall how it worked. You hit a button to summon a spherical, flying "scout," after which you can click on the various parts of the map to send it to certain locations. I had to time it just right so the scout blocked the spells when the pit was closed rather than open. When I was finally able to cross the pit, I found a door back to an earlier part of the level (before the gear corridor) and (finally) a ladder up to Level 2.

      

Sending a scout to absorb the ZO spells.

    

In all, the coordinates of Level 1 of the keep run to 31 x 31, but at least half of that is unused. There are maybe 475 active squares. I don't think I've ever played a game that packed so much content in such a small space. And I'm not remotely done with it. There are generators and computers to re-visit once I've turned on the water valves on Level 3. Oh, hell--I just remembered that one of the signs said the "furnace on level below must be stoked and burning." I annotated something that might be a furnace, but I didn't do anything with it. I suppose I'll have to head back.

     

Level 1 of the keep. It is, alas, upside down.

      

For now, I continued up to Level 2. Upon arrival, in a corridor full of pillars, I met some kind of horned slug with a bow and arrow set. He was fond of running up and punching us, but he also shot a continuous stream of slayer arrows at us. After I killed him, I filled a quiver with them and kept others for resale.

     

These guys kept respawning, but they weren't so hard once I confiscated all their arrows.

     

A scroll in a niche advised me to "invoke ZO to close portals that evil minions have opened." A commenter said the same thing. I tried, but it just opened again. I swear I saw a treasure chest flying through the air at one point, but I couldn't find it later when I'd finished with the combats.

  

There was another gear, and another receptacle for the gear. Two different grates out of the area wouldn't open. One of them opened when I placed the vacuum fuse I'd purchased at the eastern village into a receptacle. This area had a "master key" that got me through the other door plus a later one in the level. After that, there was just an easy lever puzzle that got me through a bunch of closed doors and to the final area of the level.

     

Completing a circuit with a vacuum fuse.

    

The central chamber in the level had some kind of machinery that looked like bellows. Levers next to them activated them. There was yet another receptacle requiring a vacuum fuse--fortunately, I'd found another one in a barrel I smashed--and another lever that lowered a ladder down to the previous level. It took me to the room with the generators and computers, so it's good to know there will be easy access to this point.

   

People are always concerned about video games teaching violence, but what about them teaching you to turn on random machines?

     

What I didn't find is any stairway or ladder up. I had to loop around the level to find a keyhole I'd missed. Activating it with the cross key caused a ladder to drop from the ceiling, leading to Level 3.

   

I arrived on Level 3 to find a mess of tables in the small room at the top of the ladder. I'm sure I was supposed to work my way through the room by moving the tables around, like one of those sliding puzzles. Instead, I just smashed my way through them.

       

When in doubt, smash.

    

Beyond the levers was an area full of pits. Pistons with rams heads came thrusting out of the walls, shoving anyone adjacent to them into the pits. It took me a long time to solve this puzzle, partly because the graphics are a bit misleading. You would think that you would want to try to run past the pistons while they're retracting, as they only stay in the wall (fully retracted) for half a second. But if you step into the pistons' squares when they're anything but fully retracted, you get shoved into the pit, even if the piston was on its way "back" to the wall when you stepped in. I hope that makes sense. To get past them, you have to wait until the moment they're completely retracted, then run past. I spent a lot of time trying to damage them or evade them before I got the timing right.

       

I'm not sure why I can't just swing my sword and cut these in half.

     

The southeast section of the level had roaming teleporters that I had to elude, although the consequences of being teleported (the destinations are all in the same area) were not severe. There was a pressure plate puzzle on the other side of the teleporters that I felt quite proud for solving. The plate was surrounded by pits, and it was clear that I had to throw something on the plate. The problem was that everything I threw went sailing over the plate. The level was full of minion objects--little packages that activate minions as if you had cast the spell. ("Minion" is apparently the proper name for what I was calling a "probe" in the previous entries.) I figured they must have something to do with the puzzle. I summoned a scout minion and sent it over to the pressure plate, which did nothing. But then I tossed an item at the scout. Sure enough, it bonked off of him and fell onto the plate. It later occurred to me that the minion you can summon with the minion map probably could have just dropped something on the square directly. Either way, I got a little thrill.

   

Equally satisfying was a puzzle in the northeast section of the level. There were a bunch of reflector dishes on the north and south sides of a pit. You come in from the north side. You can move and turn the dishes on the south side however you want. Unable to reach the north side, you can only move and turn them with three levers, each of which rotates a dish and moves it backwards or forwards. A pressure plate on the south side of a pillar launches a fireball to the north of the pillar. By manipulating the reflectors, you have to get the fireball to circle the room and return to its source. Destroying the launcher closes the pits and allows you to progress to the northern part of the room. The hardest part of the puzzle was figuring out the intended destination of the fireball. I thought the point was to get it to strike a particular door, so I wasted a lot of time angling the reflectors to that end. When that didn't work, the origin seemed like the only remaining possibility.

        

A fireball heads for a reflector. It's going to bounce off that and continue past me on the left.

        

There was a ladder up in the northeast corner. The master key from the previous level opened the way into the center of the level, where again I found a bunch of contraptions and a lever activating a ladder down. There were four valves in the room, two of which opened some water pipes and two of which caused flames to come roaring from two lower pipes to heat something above them.

      

Turning on the water valves.

     

After activating everything I could find, I returned to the boiler on Level 1. The computers indicated that the water was flowing but the furnace wasn't activated. I dropped back down into the basement and found an evil minion parked in front of the furnace. After I killed it, I started picking up pyros to toss into the furnace, but it turns out that's the stone cyclopes' job. They were only hostile if I got near them. Otherwise, they kept gathering pyro pieces and feeding the furnace with them. Just another way that the AI of other creatures in this game is relatively advanced.

           

The automatons service the furnace.

     

Again, I had to get back to the boiler room on Level 1 the long way. When I did, I had to clear out half a dozen minions. But when I was all finished, I pulled the lever for the boiler, and it roared to life. My only question now is: what for?

   

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• The evil minions are getting more and more annoying as time passes. When I started this session, I had to fight one every minute or two. By the end, at any given moment I either was fighting one or could hear one coming for me from a distance.

      

These damned things are going on my list.

      

• Level 3 was full of the "packages" of guard and attack minions. I didn't find any obvious place to use them, but perhaps I'm supposed to be setting them up at key places (like outside the portals) to intercept the evil minions before they can reach me.

• I've been faithfully mapping everything, but I wish this game had some mechanism for clearly identifying north, and I wish it had explicit coordinates. I'm always more motivated to make complete, good-looking maps when the game world features both.

• It wasn't until this session that I realized you can smash furniture, including barrels, with your weapons. Some of the barrels have useful items in them.

• I'm doing my best to cast more spells, but mostly I'm relying on just a few standards: "Healing Potion," "Light," "Fireball," "Cure Poison Potion," whatever DES EW is called ("Kill Noncorporeal Enemies?"), and the one that raises everyone's strength with a sparkly field around them. I still don't really know what about half the spells on the list do.

• I've found pieces of three valuable suits of armor. The first begins with "Tech" (Techhelm, Techplate, etc.); the second begins with the runes for RA and SAR (light and dark); the third begins with "Fire" (Fire Poleyn, Fire Greaves). Some of them elevate statistics. The little meters suggest that the "Tech" objects offer more protection than the RA SAR objects, and RA SAR out-protects "Fire," but I'm not sure I'm interpreting things right. I really wish this game just gave you explicit statistics for items. This is doubly true for weapons as, unlike the first game, the damage you inflict flashes too quickly to discern.

         

Finding a nearly-full set of "Fire" gear.

    

The levels all seem to have the same basic shape. I like that they're not just square. Instead, the geography suggests a central tower with six turrets. This is in line with the image of the keep on the title screen.

        

Skullkeep's Level 2.

     

• Thirty hours into the game, I'm still accidentally clicking on the weapons in the characters' hands in the top row instead of the right panel when I want to attack.

• As mentioned earlier, the "combat waltz" doesn't really work in this game because enemies move in unpredictable patterns. But after a few dozen hours of practice, I've gotten good at dodging and weaving around most enemies regardless of how they move. 

• I barely gained any levels this session. It takes a long time to go from "Expert" to "Master," and I'm not sure what if anything is beyond that. 

• I have way too many usable items--staffs, magic boxes, FUL bombs, and potions whose purpose I don't even know. Time to start consuming them. 

• I like having an economy in a Dungeon Master game, and I like the specific mechanics of the economy, but I think I'm done with it. I've bought everything I want to buy, and my characters are constantly at the cusp of over-encumbrance, so I'm not keeping extra stuff to sell. Pretty much all I buy these days is food, and I don't really need to buy that.

• The food and drink system has been a non-issue the entire game. The meters deplete slowly, and sources for both are plentiful.

       

Refreshing at one of many water fountains.

    

Now that the boiler is running--whatever that does for me--I'll be heading up to the next level. I honestly don't know if there are two more levels or twenty more. I'm hoping the game wraps up at about 40 hours, which will be a perfect length.

   

Time so far: 30 hours