Dungeons of the Unforgiven

• Main
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

This page needs visual enhancement. You can help All The Tropes by finding a high-quality image or video to illustrate the topic of this page.

Dungeons of the Unforgiven is a first-person, Turn Based Tactics game released in 1993 by Moraffware for MS-DOS. It is the third in a loose series of dungeon-crawlers by author Steve Moraff.

Dungeons is set in a large array of tunnels populated by fantasy monsters, with a safe town at the top level. It is noted for its very detailed graphics: although there's no animation, Moraff went to town on the artwork and even included a dozen user-selectable video modes, supporting some unusual hardware combinations that didn't work well with many games of the era.

The player starts by rolling or building a character, choosing from several races and classes, then sets off into the dungeons. The object of the game is simply to become powerful - there is no prescribed route or quest, but the character levels up by fighting increasingly powerful monsters, which are found by exploring increasingly deep tunnels.

The entire game appears to be underground, but the blurb states that some in-game scholars believe the tunnels are actually inside a Generation Ship en route to an unknown destination.

Dungeons of the Unforgiven was released as Shareware. The free module contains a large map with around twenty levels, and an optional boss every fifth level. When running around the game, it is easy to accidentally "try to open" a door to a paid-for section. Each time this happens, a pop-up encourages the user to 'phone Moraffware and buy the next module, making it feel like nagware to a careless player.

Tropes used in Dungeons of the Unforgiven include:

• Blade of Fearsome Size: The Great Sword. So cumbersome it can only be wielded by a fighter.
• Blessed with Suck: The player's character in "I can handle anything" mode.
• Funny Money: The main in-game currency is the ruble.
• Gradual Regeneration: By Rings of Regeneration.
• Immune to Bullets: Shadow creatures, which are the bosses, are immune to nuclear hand grenades.
• Level Grinding: Arguably the point of the game, since the only aim is to become powerful. Fighting shadow creatures helps but is not compulsory.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: The fighter class can use almost no magic, which becomes more of a problem as the player progresses. In-game help actually warns the player against using the class because of this limitation.
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: Defeated monsters frequently drop hundreds of "Greater American Dollars". Unfortunately the exchange rate is 100 dollars to the ruble, and the game makes frequent comments about the amount of debt run up by the government.
• Save Scumming: Possible, maybe even advisable. Only one saved game is allowed at a time for each character, so be careful where you use it.
• Smart Bomb: A nuclear hand grenade can do serious damage to an enemy, but doesn't affect whoever threw it. Just as well as the game mechanic is melée only - all weapons, including grenades, can only be used at close quarters.
• Squishy Wizard: Monks know all the spells in the game from the start, but have poor fighting skills and start with few spell points, making them very vulnerable.
• Tactical Withdrawal: Can be done using a stone of teleportation, or by simply running from a slow enemy. The first few Shadow creatures, at least, won't try to follow a retreating player or regenerate their own hit points.
• Teleporters and Transporters: Stones of Teleportation beam the user straight up to the town.