Dungeon Hack: Summary and Rating

 

         

Dungeon Hack

United States

DreamForge Entertainment (developer); Strategic Simulations, Inc. (publisher)

Released 1993 for DOS, 1995 for PC-98

Date Started: 7 April 2024

Date Ended: 29 April 2024

Total Hours: 26 (multiple characters, three wins)

Difficulty: Completely customizable. I guess 3.0/5 for the average.

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

    

Summary:

 

An interesting attempt to blend the first-person, Dungeon Master-inspired interface of the Eye of the Beholder series (particularly III) with the randomization of NetHack. The result is a quick, fun, replayable game that offers whatever degree of challenge the player wants. As with the Beholder series, Dungeons & Dragons rules don't work wonderfully with this type of gameplay, and the developers could have tried harder to integrate some kind of story or role-playing, but otherwise if this was your only 1993 game, you'd get a lot of mileage out of it.

     

******

    

At this point, I've won three games of Dungeon Hack, penetrated to Level 5 with a fourth, finished the first or second level of another half dozen, and watched several people play it on YouTube. (In particular, I enjoyed a series by a delightful YouTuber named Kikoskia, who invents monologues and dialogues for his characters.) I think I have a handle on it. And yet part of me wants to keep trying different combinations. 

    

When I wrapped up last time, I had started a new game with a fighter/thief. He had a lot of fun killing most enemies with one shot from his bow, although not much fun picking up arrows afterwards. I forgot that I had enabled permadeath for his character, though, so I didn't take the care that I should have, and he died towards the end of Level 2.

   

My second win came with a pure fighter character. I wanted to see how quickly I could win if I set all the settings to easy, eliminated keys and secret doors, set the levels to minimum, and just blasted through them, always taking the stairway as soon as I found it. It took about two hours, and it was fun for its sheer momentum. I enjoyed some wall decorations that I didn't see the first time, some new enemies (particularly were-rats, otyughs, and chimeras), and a new final boss, whose name I don't know because you can't get into the list of slain creatures once you've killed the final boss.

       

Some kind of demon?

     

Even with things set to "easy," I had a tough time without cleric spells. I had to rest for literal weeks at a couple of points to restore health, and I made heavy use of those slot machines when I found them. On the other hand, I liked that the lack of spells meant I could always see the area automap (which gets taken over by the spellbook when you open it).

     

Where do you see the orb, exactly?

        

The only real trouble I had was on the last level. One of the enemies was "living mucks," horrible creatures that steal your weapons when you hit them. I had to reload a couple of times, but fortunately I was able to kill most of the mucks with a couple of wands and amulets I had found.

        

Now, only at the end, does the sword live up to its name.

     

My third win was with one of the default characters, Yahlir Smoothtongue, the bard, with all the settings on "moderate." This creates a dungeon of 18 levels, all the sliders in the middle, everything else turned on except for multi-leveled puzzles and permadeath. The character was challenging. Mage spells are a bit underpowered at the default setting, and there isn't enough for a thief or bard to do with thief skills to justify the character.

       

For my third outing, I went with a prepackaged character. I wanted to make sure there weren't any story or plot elements specific to him. There were not.

       

It took me longer to win this game than the one that occupied most of my entries (I wasted way too much time this past weekend), but having covered the mechanics and gameplay experience in those earlier entries, I didn't have a lot to say. Unlike my fighter win, I didn't go down immediately upon discovering a new level, but I also didn't insist on mapping the entirety of each level, nor did I return to earlier levels if I fell down a pit. I wrote a long summary of the experience and decided it was too long for this section, so I put it at the end of the entry.

     

Between the character classes and settings, the game supports an amazingly wide difficulty range. Any cleric, whether single-classed or multi-classed, has a much easier game than anybody else. The "Create Food and Water" spell eliminates even the most punishing settings for the food meters; "Water Breathing" obviates the water level; and healing spells mean that you don't have to rest for literal days to restore health.

      

That must have been boring.

      

In the end, while Dungeon Hack offers a fun experience, it's a little better in concept than in gameplay. I would have liked to see a few additional elements:

 

• Some kind of story woven into the randomization of the dungeon. I know it's hard, but the authors could have written a dozen or so narratives giving each dungeon a background, then delivered it a few paragraphs at a time as the player transitioned levels (or via scrolls). Or they could have offered a "campaign" with several dungeons strung together with a story.

• Non-combat encounters, including the occasional NPC, both of which could make use of the character alignment and "charisma" statistic.

• An economy and the occasional store. This could be done with a "top level" like Moria or Angband or a store embedded in the dungeon, like NetHack.

• Less predictable dungeon design, with levels varying in size and shape.

     

Was it necessary for every level to be the same size, and with twisty corridors? Why not some huge, open levels?

       

• More than two enemy types per level. 

• The ability to move on to a new dungeon with the same character.

• The ability to have more than one character. Even two would have been fine.

   

I suppose in other words, I would like to see a version of this game that better resembles the roguelike elements that the game tries to evoke with the Hack part of its name. Another way Dungeon Hack could have been a truly good game is if it had featured a campaign mode with custom-designed dungeons and a story in addition to the randomization options.

    

A cool picture of a chimera, even if its presence doesn't make a lot of sense ecologically.

        
The game raises a lot of questions about the role of randomization in our enjoyment of CRPGs. Normally, I think that modern commercial titles randomize too little. I feel that if they're going to make us wait 15 years between major releases in a series, developers should give us as much randomization as they can to enhance replayability. Certainly, some aspects of the plot have to occur in specific locations with specific NPCs and enemies and with specific objects. But a lot could be randomized without affecting the basic outline of most games, including (often) the starting location, which side quests are available, which NPCs give you various side quests, where NPCs can be found, what rewards you get for completing quests, what monsters you find in various locations, and the actual layout of those locations, to include what doors are locked, what floors are trapped, and where you find certain enemies and treasures.

   

This all sounds good to me, but then a game comes along like Starfield, which actually does much of this, and I complain that the randomized parts are flat and unrealistic. So maybe I don't know what I'm looking for. 

   

Finally, let me say that I never got sick of all the creative ways that the authors developed to represent the simple concept of keys in locks, nor the different types of visual imagery that you can click on to get your character's take. Even though the nature of the randomization means that there's no thematic consistency to these doors or visuals, there was still such a cool variety that I enjoyed them anyway. I also enjoyed the process of slamming keys into locks even though there was nothing remotely challenging about it.

   

Opening a door by putting a gem into a tiger's eye.

           

Or a jewel in a demon's forehead.

 

Or an agate weighing down a scale.

 

This is legitimately tragic.

        

Seriously: none of those keys work in this lock?

              

In contrast, the "hint" scrolls really did nothing for me, I suppose partly because they deal with the strengths and weaknesses that have already been part of the D&D bestiary for a few dozen games, and party because the game doesn't give you that many tactics for dealing with enemies resistant to certain types of attacks or spells.
       

This would be more useful if the game gave me more than one offensive spell per level.

    

Here's what I can offer for the GIMLET:

    

• 1 point for the game world. It has a skeleton of a framing story, but there's no thematic consistency to the dungeon nor any internal story. I was disappointed that the quest-giver didn't have any kind of twist.

• 4 points for character creation and development. It has the usual strengths and weaknesses of second-edition AD&D, the primary strengths being that different classes face very different games, and the primary weakness being that you don't get many options when leveling up. While (in this game) class makes a big difference for difficulty and combat reasons, it makes no difference for role-playing reasons. Neither do gender, race, or alignment.

       

698 options! I would have loved this as a kid.

      

• 0 points for no NPC interaction.

• 4 points for encounters and foes. The D&D bestiary is pretty good, but their strengths and weaknesses are not necessarily highlighted in a game with such limited mechanics. The non-combat encounters like doors and keys are about as good as we can expect from randomization.

        

Ghouls=paralysis is one of the first lessons a D&D player learns.

     

• 3 points for magic and combat. It definitely loses something without a party.

• 5 points for equipment. You can find, use, wield, and wear a decent selection of stuff, and it is randomized while still allowing for a set of artifact gear. Was that so hard? I wouldn't have minded other ways to identify the stuff.

• 1 point for the economy. Sure, I'll give it a point for the individual coins you find and use in the healing machines.

     

The extent of the "economy."

       

• 2 points for a randomly-generated main quest in which you never even see the quest object. There are no side-quests, choices, or role-playing options. 

• 6 points for graphics, sound, and interface. I thought the sound in Eye of the Beholder III was a "cacophonous horror show." I don't remember that at all. In Dungeon Hack, the sound, graphics, and controls are all "fine." There's nice keyboard/mouse redundancy, solid monster animations, and fun touches like decorations on the wall. The intro and outro are well-animated and the voice acting is okay. The automap is great. This is about the highest score that a tiled game composed of "textures" can get. Music fans will want to lop off points for the lack thereof.

        

You know graphics are evolving when dungeons start to have decorations.

     

• 7 points for gameplay. This is really where it shines. It's hard to complain about difficulty, length, or pacing when all of those settings are entirely customizable. 

   

That gives us a final score of 33. Ouch. It doesn't even make my "recommended" threshold. I can't think of a good reason to justify bonus points. I can reconcile the low score by saying that it's a fun game but not necessarily a good example of an RPG specifically.

        

The ad does a good job of highlighting the game's strengths.

       

That goddamned Spear of Destiny ad greets me again as I consult the February 1994 Computer Gaming World for Scorpia's take on Dungeon Hack. My heart is warmed from the opening paragraph:

      

Every once in a while, even the most dedicated role-players long for something simple. They long for a game that doesn't require months of playing time, reams of notes, pages of hand-drawn maps; a game where they can just go out and let loose with some primordial bloodlust hack-n-slash, never mind any convoluted plots or story lines.

    

Scorpia's writing doesn't always do it for me, but that perfectly encapsulates what Dungeon Hack is about, minus the extensive customization, but she gets to that, too. She praises how the found treasures are customized for each class, the auto-map, and the overall brisk pace. Her only major lament is that mages can't cast spells while wearing armor, which I agree is pretty annoying. The mage class is already less powerful here than in traditional D&D games. In the end: "Dungeon Hack delivers what it promises: the chance to create your own, specially-designed, hack-n-slash paradise." The magazine gave it an award later that year for "most replay value."

       

If you're going to base copy protection on keywords from the manual, this is the way to do it. Give the specific heading and help out with the first letter of the word. It's a nice contrast to the way Red Crystal does it.

       

Feeling good about Scorpia's review, I set about trying to find one that would annoy me, and I turned to Sandy Peterson's "Eye of the Monitor" coverage in the May 1994 Dragon. But alas, he offers a relatively fair three-star review. He understands the game's reference to roguelikes, which I don't think Scorpia had any experience with. He highlights most of the same strengths and weaknesses. He has a minor complaint about how basic the puzzles are, while acknowledging it's hard to randomize puzzles. Late in the review is a line I could have written: "I feared it would turn out to be a sad collection of barely-acceptable maps, and it turned out much better than my expectations." I also note that he advises players to just follow the right wall, which is exactly how I played it.

   

Well, despite not having an Amiga release, surely the Brits will give me the rage porn I'm looking for. I turn to the February 1994 PC Zone, where the anonymous reviewer gives a rating of 62% despite having played only one level of the game (specifically, he played the first level twice, one on easy difficulty, one on hard). It's fair to say that he misses the point of the game entirely, and he makes comments about mechanics that don't exist. For instance, he claims to have gotten back-stabbed and he suggests that you can stun-lock enemies during their attack animations. I promise you that is not the case. And then he insults me directly by saying that "only a sad, limited and unimaginative person" would enjoy the game. You're supposed to have another comma there, jackass. It's literally called the "Oxford comma." You think it was named after Oxford, Alabama?

    

Just a reminder that underwater levels are never not stupid.

     

Reviews got worse heading east. The German PC Player gave it 49% and the PC Joker gave it 29%. Modern reviews are similarly all over the place. In 2015, Paste contributor Ian Williams put it on his Top 10 list of D&D video games. Somewhere in the middle is Cory "Dingo" Brock's 2017 Hardcore Gaming 101 verdict: "Though not groundbreaking . . . a solid adaptation of the traditional roguelike." Digital Antiquarian Jimmy Maher, on the other hand, thought it "pointless" in a 2017 article. Maher also notes that it sold only 27,110 copies, only about half of the sales total of the dismal Eye of the Beholder III.

         

It seems to me that it makes a big difference if you rate it in isolation versus rating it as one of many games on your shelf. I'd be disappointed if it was the only game I bought in 1993, but it wasn't. Having already played Eye of the Beholder III, Lands of Lore, Abandoned Places 2, and Dungeon Master II in the same year, it's easier to be okay with a game that just lets you charge in and kill orcs.

      

This is a high kill count for 6 hours of gaming.

    

Dungeon Hack has an interesting developmental history. It follows the departure of Westwood Studios (Eye of the Beholder I and II) from cooperation with SSI and the D&D license. SSI had developed Eye of the Beholder III in-house, recreating the engine from the first two games, then gave the programming and assets over to DreamForge for Dungeon Hack. DreamForge, meanwhile, was the re-named Event Horizon Software. We saw their work on DarkSpyre (1990), Dusk of the Gods (1991), The Summoning (1992), and Veil of Darkness (1993), all of which used variants of the same engine, originally designed to replicate Dungeon Master gameplay from a top-down perspective. Now they were asked to develop a game that used a Dungeon Master-derived interface but without any of the puzzles that the team clearly prized. I wonder how they felt about that. 

    

Regardless of sales, SSI must have been happy with the team's work, as DreamForge went on to develop Menzoberranzan (1994), Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession (1994), and Ravenloft: Stone Prophet (1995) for the publisher, none of which I have any knowledge of. Westwood did some good work with the two Beholder games, but in my opinion, DreamForge has the more impressive pre-SSI résumé, so I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

****

My third winning game:

 

This was using the default bard, Yahlir Smoothtongue. I know I'm not consistent about tense in this narrative. I didn't feel like re-editing the whole thing when I was done.

 

Level 1: I started the game with a short sword, leather armor, boots, spellbook, and two rations. Yahlir was at Level 4. Enemies were hobgoblins and orcs, with a ghoul as a boss. I found Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength and a short sword +1.

   

The character at the outset of the adventure.

    

Level 2: Troglodytes and ghouls, with a carrion crawler boss. Got held a few times, but I found a Scroll of Protection from Petrification on the same level and used it instead of hoarding it. Went to bard Level 5. A magic book that I unwisely didn't identify caused me to lose an experience level. Found a Wand of Curing, a Sword of Slaying Shambling Mounds +1 (I didn't realize they got so specific!), a Dart +3, and a Ring of Regeneration, which was a godsend.

        

Level 3: Shadows and "sheet ghouls," which I've never heard of. Boss was a "shade wizard," which I've also never heard of. Got back to bard Level 5 early on, then Level 6. Found a pair of Drow Boots, Amulet of Magic Missiles (which I exhausted on this level), Ring of Might, Ring of Provocation (?), Libram of Gainful Conjuration (a book that causes instant death), short bow (but no arrows), holy symbol (why?), shield +1. The game really does a good job of giving help to weaker characters through magic items.

   

A pair of sheet ghouls comes round a bend.

        

Level 4: Gargoyles (who have a terrifying yowl) and wights, with a ghost warrior boss. Hit bard Level 7, then lost it again to a wight, then gained it back and another. Level featured a "slow zone" in which I moved sluggishly. That sucked. Found Bracers of Archery, Wand of Acid, Book of Vile Darkness, and Book of Exalted Deeds. You'd think the latter would do something positive, but it caused me to lose a level (I reloaded for this one). The game sure does want me to lose levels.

       

Not a good time to be slowing down.

     

Level 5: Minotaurs and nothing else. I don't know why they get their own level, but this is the second time. Got tricked by a spinner at one point; I didn't even know they existed in this game. Found a long sword +1. Not an exciting level. I should mention that I have a Level 3 spell slot by this point, but I have not found a Level 3 spell scroll. 

      

This is what I feel like when I'm chopping wood.

     

Level 6: Mummies and wyverns with an otyugh boss. A Potion of Confusion messed me up for a while. Leveled up twice to Bard 11. Absolutely absurd number of keys and secret doors. Found Amulet of Magic Resistance and a parchment that mapped the level.

    

I exhaust my spells on a wyvern.

     

Level 7: Sword wraiths--who move fast--and banshees. Lack of decent armor is starting to become a real problem. I find the stairs early on this one, take them, and never meet the boss.

     

I think this is a sword wraith. I'm losing the alignment between my images and my narrative.

     

Level 8: Medusas and shambling mounds in polished blue corridors. Yay, I think, I finally get to use my Sword of Slaying Shambling Mounds! Except it doesn't seem to perform any better than a regular sword. I find an Ioun Stone of Nourishment early on the level, which I suppose cuts back the rate of food consumption. This hasn't been much of a problem, and if you equip an Ioun stone, you have to watch the thing whiz by periodically like a gnat. I didn't keep it. Another slow zone doesn't help, but I persist and hit Bard 13. I finally find leather armor +1, which is better than nothing. It takes me forever to find the stairs behind a secret door. 

       

An ioun stone goes whizzing around my head.

     

Level 9: The stairs deposit me in a corridor with a death knight directly in front of me, who roasts me with a fireball. I get killed nearly instantly. After two reloads, I use a Scroll of Protection from Magic, which keeps me alive long enough to kill the death knight. The second enemy is spirit nagas. Lots of teleporters on this level. I find Bracers of Protection +3, and it's a tough call whether to equip them over the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength. Also a Ring of Free Action.

          

Level 10: Ettins and greater feyrs. The feyrs are particularly problematic because I have no way to see invisibility. I just have to fire spells and toss darts down the corridors and hope for the best. I hit Bard 15, which means I'm now losing out on 3 Level 3 spell slots and 2 Level 5s, as I've found no scrolls for those. For Level 4, I just have "Ice Storm." This level has dark areas where you have to feel your way and watch the automap for objects, doors, and switches. An undead beast blocks the way to the next level. I found a Robe of the Archmagi when he dies, which allows me to cast my spells and has a better AC than the leather +1. I like win-win scenarios. I also hit Bard 16 when he dies. Tabletop players would love this leveling pace.

       

These are probably the hardest enemies in the dungeon.

      

Level 11: Slithermorphs and more death knights with a chimera chaser. A "Cone of Cold" scroll finally gives me a Level 5 spell. Slithermorphs are all but impossible to hit with spells in their goo form. 

       

Maybe don't yell for the entire dungeon to hear while you're blind.

   

Level 12: Bone nagas and wyverns, with an ogre slug boss. Funny how I'm getting repeats. I find a Helm of Underwater Action, which alleviates my fears a bit about the upcoming water level. I hit Bard 17. Now I have no Level 6 spells, either.

        

Level 13: Spirit nagas and "watch ghosts," which is a new one. They can cast "Shocking Hands" and some other spells, I think. I find an Ioun Stone of +1 Saves, which I feel compelled to put on. I find the stairs before the boss. At long last, there's a bardic instrument by the stairs: a set of pipes. I identify them, and they're called Pipes of Feign Imagery. That doesn't sound good, so I discard them.

    

This guy's doing more than watching.

      

Level 14: Medusas are back, along with Tlincalis, which can poison, and I still don't have a way to cure that unless I'm near one of those healing vending machines. I find a Ring of Wizardry that doubles my Level 3 spells, which would be great if I had any. I run into a floor trap for the first time and hit Bard 19.

      

The first and only floor trap of the 18-level dungeon.

     

Level 15: Hags and more bone nagas. At the end of the level, I finally get "Haste," a Level 3 spell. I hit Bard 20, the highest level. I find an Ioun Stone of Air, which I suspect I'll need on the water level. It occurs to me I haven't noticed a boss enemy in a while. Maybe they stop generating at some point. I keep finding Scrolls of Protection from Dragon's Breath and thus expecting a dragon, but nothing so far.

      

Level 16: Still no water level, which surprises me. I meet grave mists and flesh golems in rough blue corridors. There are a lot of the bastards, and "Haste" is a real help in combat. One of the golems finally drops a single arrow, but I figure it's too late for me to pick up archery. 

      

Fighting a flesh golem just as I exit a "hunger" area.

      

Level 17: Finally, the water level. I wonder how people handle it if they're not clerics and haven't discovered the right magic objects. It looks like any other level, but with bubbles. Somehow, my spellbook, food, etc. are unaffected. Enemies are water elementals and water weirds. Elementals are hard to hit, but they die fast to "Magic Missile." It's like we're regressing in enemy power. I find a set of thieves' tools, but I guess bards can't use them. Wondering how the game is going to explain a dry level beneath a water level, I head down.

       

As a bard, aren't I supposed to be part thief?

     

Level 18: I arrive on the level and am immediately attacked by giant scorpions called "scaladars." They take virtually no damage from my weapons or cold-based spells, so I arm myself with an Amulet of Fireball and a Wand of Acid and hope they'll hold out. With them are plain old minotaurs; again, a weird regression. My hopes were in vain; there were a billion of the bastards on the level. I had to retreat to the healing machine about 20 times (fortunately, I had plenty of coins) and rest repeatedly to restore "Magic Missile," the only spell that seemed to hurt the scaladars.

   

The final enemy was a lich, I think. He killed me twice before I nailed him with enough spells around a corner to kill him. 

       

Fighting my third final boss.

     

I didn't like hitting max character level with so many dungeon levels to go.  You apparently need a multi-classed character for any dungeon layout with more than 14 levels. You'd have to play a triple-classed character to make a 25-level dungeon worth it.