Dungeon Master (video game)

Dungeon Master is a 3D action CRPG published in 1987 by FTL Games for the Atari ST (and subsequently for a plethora of other platforms including MS-DOS and the Commodore Amiga).

There are a number of sequels:
 * Chaos Strikes Back, a Nintendo Hard sequel-expansion released in 1989.
 * Theron's Quest, released in 1992, which can be considered a "light" version of the original game.
 * Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep, released in 1995.
 * Dungeon Master Nexus, a Japan-only 1998 release.

Not to be confused for the common term for Game Master, or the film The Dungeonmaster.


 * Armor-Piercing Attack: Several monsters had armour-piercing attacks, and different armour had different resistance to being pierced.
 * Critical Existence Failure: Monsters fought at full effectiveness until they ran out of hit points, whereupon they vanished in a swirl of smoke proportionate to their size. Player characters, however, could take localized injuries that impaired their abilities (in addition to having an ordinary "hit point" meter).
 * Dungeon Crawling: A single 14-level dungeon. The first level contained the "Hall of Champions", where you selected four of the 24 pre-generated characters to use as your party for the entire game.
 * Faux First Person 3D
 * Fragile Speedster: Giant wasps.
 * Healing Potion: The second spell the game provided the recipe for filled an empty flask in the caster's hand with one of these.
 * Infinity Plus One Axe: Hardcleave.
 * Level Grinding: You didn't need any monsters around to do it. Swinging a melee weapon trained your Fighter level, throwing things trained your Ninja level, and casting spells trained your Wizard or Priest levels.
 * Lightning Bruiser: Giant scorpions.
 * MacGuffin: The Firestaff and the Power Gem.
 * Mighty Glacier: Stone golems.
 * Mini Boss: The red dragon edged into this territory.
 * Money for Nothing: Most of the gold and gems you find don't have any use.
 * Puzzle Boss: Lord Chaos could not be defeated in combat; you had to find the MacGuffin and the instructions on how to use it.
 * The Reveal: The various scrolls on Level 7.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: The aptly named Pain Rats.
 * Standard Status Effects: Poison. Not a major problem most of the time: the recipe for the Unven (cure poison) potion was provided on Level 2, before you even met anything that inflicted poisoning.
 * Stone Wall: Rockpiles: well armored, almost impervious to magic, very slow moving. Best fought by luring it under a closeable door.
 * Useless Useful Spell: The "Zo Ven" spell turned an empty flask into a poison gas bomb. Unfortunately, the supply of flasks was strictly finite and there was nothing hard enough to kill that destroying flasks felt worthwhile.
 * Wizard Needs Food Badly: There's an infinite supply of food (from the edible respawning monsters on Level 4) and water (the water fountains scattered through the dungeon never run dry) available, but you can't carry it all (there are only four water skins in the entire game, and you have more important things to do with flasks).

Chaos Strikes Back contains examples of:

 * Guide Dang It: Chaos Strikes Back was much less straightforward than the original game.
 * Old Save Bonus: You could import your party from the original game. Not as useful as it sounded, however, since you could quite readily complete the original game with a party that Chaos Strikes Back's monsters would just as easily wipe the floor with.

The Legend of Skullkeep contains examples of:

 * Human Popsicle: The Champions appear to be cryogenically frozen.
 * Magitek