Deathtrap Dungeon

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Deathtrap Dungeon (or Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon) is an action-adventure game released in 1998 for the PlayStation and Microsoft Windows. It is based on the adventure gamebook of the same name (the sixth in the Fighting Fantasy series) written by Ian Livingstone, and published by Puffin Books in 1984.

The game is a third-person adventure, with the player taking the role of an adventurer (either the Amazon "Red Lotus" or the Barbarian "Chaindog"), who at the invitation of a wizard explores a series of dungeons and must overcome both monsters and traps to find riches.

Tropes used in Deathtrap Dungeon include:
  • Adaptation Expansion: The overall theme of the original gamebook stays, altough the backstory changes a bit, several villains are added as boss characters, and Baron Sukumvit himself recieves a bit of an Adaptational Villainy.
  • Amazon Brigade: Agrash's Warrior Priestesses.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Pit Fiend, a Tyrannosaur-like monster.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Strongly averted. At low health, the heros' faces can appear absolutely shredded.
  • Big Red Devil: Agrash, The Necromantic Demon, one of the main villains of the game.
  • Breakable Weapons: ALL the magic weapons, even the ones that dont use ammo. This puts you in a precarious situation in the Quarry, where you simply dont have enough hits on the Magic Warhammer to take out all the Rockmen you encounter.
  • Breath Weapon: Used by several enemies. The dragons, obviously, can breathe fire, the Minor Automatons are essentially flamethrowers on legs, and the Giant Spiders can spit venom.
  • Circus of Fear: The Circus Of the Damned, a legion of hellish clowns and performers that serve Agrash and the other demon lords of Hell.
  • Cult: One of the main villain factions, The Cult Of the Necrodemon, a group of demon worshippers loyal to Agrash.
  • Dem Bones
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Bloodbeast, a massive, hideous creature with a face covered in eyeballs, one of which is its weakspot, that lives in a large pit full of its own slime. Along with the Pit Fiend, its one of the few carryovers from the original gamebook.
  • Evil Weapon: The Black Spirit Sword, a powerful weapon that does damage to the user as well as the target.
  • Giant Mook: The Orc Sergeants and Rat Ogres, larger, stronger versions of their lower ranked cousins.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: If you arent aware of the games connection to the original gamebook, The Pit Fiend and The Bloodbeast comes off as this, as they dont really fit in with any of the other villain groups, and kinda come out of left field.
  • Golems: The Rockmen, a race of golems created by an overambitious mage centuries ago. Theyre invulnerable to all weapons except the Magic Warhammer. Their leader Carborundum isnt even vulnerable to that.
  • Gorn
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Several. There's the Snake Girls, half breeds between human men and the Medusa, as well as the High Priestesses of Agrash, the daughters of human female cult members and the demon lord Agrash.
  • Horny Devils: Implied with Agrash and his tendency to crossbreed with his cultmembers.
  • Humanoid Abomination: The High Priestesses and Demonwitches of Agrash's cult. The High Priestesses, being half human, half demon hybrids, look disturbing enough, gangly alien-like women with green skin and pointy ears, but the Demonwitches are four armed monsters with hideous, snake like heads, and are the results of demonic spirits inhabiting the bodies of sacrificed cult members.
  • Intelligent Gerbil: The Ratmen, similar to the Skaven from Warhammer, are a species of anthropomorphic rat creatures that makes use of primitive steampunk weapons, and classic iron weaponry. They also have a ruling class of mutated Rat Ogres, including their king Skabulus.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: The Red Sword, a weapon specifically forged to combat fire-based creatures like Melkor or Agrash, as well as the Magic Warhammer, the only weapon that can harm the Rockmen.
  • The Juggernaut: The Knackerer automaton, a mindless machine resembling a medieval steamroller with spikes, is completely unstoppable and invulnerable, but only follows its preset route. There's also Carborundum, the Rockmens leader, who is completely invulnerable, and can only be defeated by luring him into a trap.
  • Mad Scientist: The hat of the Alchemists of Chaos.
  • Medusa: Three of them in the game, part of the Orc army. The oldest of the three have the Stone Gaze power.
  • Minotaur: Creations of the Alchemists of Chaos, and fittingly enough, are encountered in the Labyrinth level.
  • Monster Clown: The Hell Clowns, Death Jugglers and Hell Kings Jesters from The Circus of The Damned.
  • Our Dragons Are Different
  • Our Ghosts Are Different
  • Our Orcs Are Different
  • Our Zombies Are Different
  • Poisoned Weapon: The Venom Sword, one of the first magical weapons you will encounter.
  • Race Lift: Baron Sukumvit and the city of Fang overall. In the original book, the setting carries a distinct Pacific Island feel, and the illustration shows both Sukumvit and his subject as asian, while the game cutscenes portray Sukumvit as white, and Fang as a generic Sword and Sorcery township.
  • Rule of Three: Some of the leader villains come in groups of three. There's three Dragons, three Medusa and three Alchemists that lead their respective groups.
  • Sarcasm Mode: Once you're nearing the end of the game, it will tell you in a text log that (paraphrased): "All you have to do now is defeat a bloodbeast and three dragons. Easy-peasy, ain't it?"
  • Steampunk: The Automata enemies, steampunk automatons created by the Alchemists of Chaos, as well as some of the obtainable weapons of the game such as the Blunderbuss and the Flame Lance. There's also some of the technology used by the Ratmen.
  • Stock Scream: There are plenty of these (including the Howie Scream).
  • The Undead: A classic mix of Skeletons, Zombies and Ghosts. There's also the Black Dragon Chapter Knights, undead spirits inhabiting black armor.
  • The Unfought: Carborundum is never actually fought, due to him being invulnerable. Instead, you get past him by collapsing the floor he's standing on, plunging him into the abyss.
    • The Insect Queen can be this, if you fight her the way the game designers intended. You CAN fight her in combat, but due to her Damage Sponge nature, it's very difficult. Instead, you collapse the cave ceiling on top of her, impaling her on a cluster of stalactites.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: Ugluk Stormfart, the shaman who leads the orcs, is resistant to nearly all forms of magic. His weakness? Your weapon, the normal sword.