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                            PREVIEW - "DGEM vo.14"
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system ... high  end  machines, Falcon, TT, Milan  or something, offering  a min
           res. of 64o*4oo*16 and XBIOS sound, loads of RAM, RGB and VGA

size ..... 1,4 MB

genre .... its... DUNGEON MASTER!

status ... freeware/abandonware

creator .. Rajah Lone of Renaissance / France

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On the hunt for  more actual game releases  I stumbled over this project that is
still stuck  into very early  stages. The makers have one  thing in mind, making
the fabulous DUNGEON MASTER running in GEM environment. I really  have to say it
at first, I can't follow them in this point and you can read later here why...

You all know DUNGEON MASTER, the cool  role  playing game  by FTL, released back
in 1988 where it  brought a revolution  to role play gaming because of its great
grafix and 3D bitmap dungeons  that were miles ahead  from all other releases at
this time and that has  set new standards, also  because of it's realtime fights
in this 3D environment.

So DUNGEON MASTER has inspired a lot of other people and more or less it was the
game that  recreated the whole genre... and, after all, it was developped on the
ATARI ST. But what I have to say here, I think all people that started on the ST
were stumbled somewhen over that great  game and also I was  sitting many nights
in front of the screen  to crush monsters  and to search  for Lord Chaos down in
the deep dungeons, I liked the cute grafix and the cool atmosphere that the game
spread into the room, esp. if it's damn silent and dark :)

Anyway, DUNGEON MASTER 2 was never ported to the ST (at least I got it for my PC
niaarg, niaaarg) and in the meantime it lost its attraction, esp. since I played
ISHAR and so on on the Falcon. I have to admit that I never used to play big RPG
games on my PC. More or less my RPG fanatism ended up on the Falcon.

But as I  stumbled over this  snippets about "DGEM" the  old hack'n'slayer in me
came back to life again and I leeched the game to  check it out. After  I copied
all the stuff onto my Falcon, I already saw that this game isn't thought for the
ST, since  there  it only  would run from  harddisk and since it  is possible to
start it from ST LOW but appears as unplayable  in that resolution  as well as a
start in less than 16 colours is impossible, the game turned  out to be only for
machines that offer resolutions  of 64o * 4oo * 16, such  as Falcon, TT or maybe
an STe with grafix card.

How the whole thing would like on ST LOW resolution you can check below...



My next try to load  the game wasn't finished  with success as well  since short
before the long  loading time of  the grafix, the  machine was  crying  for more
memory (!), so 14 MB aren't  enough, even if I had  booted the machine  in plain
modus without any auto folder programs and  ACC's?! Naaa, not  at all, since the
FOLDER300.PRG was  able to solve the problem  and then it  even was  loadable in
full set environment with NVDI and so on.

After all and about the third or fourth  try the game was loaded, offering a GEM
environment and a small game window, showing the 3d perspective of  the game and
a small  other window, offering the  control buttons  for the  movement. Nothing
more... except some  pseudo styling on  the edges of  the screen. Naaah, not  so
stylish :)

Ok, I checked out very fast that the movement runs fine and slick and so you can
already wander around, go  up and downstairs, open  and close dors, use triggers
and teleporters... but nothing  more. The character selection screen isn't right
implemented so far as well as those grafix are missing. There are no baddies and
real gameplay implemented so far, just remember, it is a very early preview...

And since there is nothing more to do here, I played around a bit with the stuff
in the menues. There is already a save option implemented, but so far it is, arr
... let me say, a bit useless. There is  an online help  as well, but  therefore
you have must installed STguide first or you have to look into the empty oven...

Other options offering the possibility to  resize the game window in 3 steps, it
depends on the resolution you have chosen. As I had  it running in 64o*48o*16 it
offered also a doublesized window but then the game play is, err... knocked out.
The screenupdates are damn slow now, even with NVDI and so I don't wanted to try
out the other option then, argl... even if it is a  fine feature, only  with the
limitation that the  original 16 colour  grafix aren't  going to be  better in a
bigger and big pixeled game window...

What else? Yeps, before  I forget, the  sound is already  implemented and so you
can listen to the  original samples out of the game, such as open/closing doors,
the famous "ouch" while running against a wall and so on. :)

Is there more to add? No, and so I will write a short round up then...

"DGEM" is surely a nice try to  port DUNGEON MASTER into GEM environment and the
few GEM hardcore players it is maybe something to wait for... if... yes, if they
have a real  powerful machine. The  pure minimum  is a Falcon in  hires  with 16
colours at least and NVDI installed and, not  to forget with more than 4 MB RAM.
But here you get only the normal size windows to run in  a good speed, if you're
willing to get a doublesized gamingscreen you  will knock out your bird as well,
if you don't own some good acceleration  card... and so I have to say that I for
myself don't get the point right. Only for this I wont look out for the game, to
play a windowed DUNGEON MASTER without  any specials, then I can switch on my ST
and play the original game there.

Btw... the game is  announced to run under  multitasking environments like MAGIC
and MiNT but since I haven't installed  any of them I wasn't able to test it out
but remembering the memory and speed problem it can and surely will be that your
machine goes much more down into  the knees then, esp. since then  it is more or
less a need to use  and even better  resolution with 256 colours for example, or
your screencolours will be mixed up in a crude way.

So what? If  you're a DUNGEON MASTER -AND- GEM/Magic/MiNT fanatic, riding a high
end machine, you should watch out for this game. I will take a look from time to
time in this direction, too, but I have to admit that I don't wait for this game
port really as I'm no GEM fanatic and would play it on my old ST in original...

Last but not least I have some URL here, where you can find out more...

http://membres.lycos.fr/nef/

.tSCc.                                                         moondog . o5/2k2
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