Dungeon Crawling? Fuggedaboutit. I'm the master at dungeon crawling.
I be crawlin' through them dungeons like I've lost a contact lens. I once crawled through a dungeon so hard I progressed down through the levels by wearing holes in the floor with my knees. Heck, sometimes I crawl dungeons at such a rapid pace I get all upright and walk normally.
This one time my computer was in for repair, so I went questing in the crawl space under my basement just to get my fix.
When my cousin and I were growing up, we used to play Dungeon Master on the Amiga. Her Amiga, I should add; she was one of the cool kids who had a second disk drive and a joystick and everything. Back at my house there was only a lump of coal to play with.
Dungeon Master was a terrific game. It was a terrific game and I miss it dearly.
It was also very unforgiving - you constantly had to watch your back and choose your battles carefully. A lapse in critical thinking was often punished so severely you learned not to make the same mistake twice, generally 'coz you were dead.
A perfect game for Iron Man Mode, then. I actually wanted to play Dungeon Master on the site from the off, but when I looked into it... well, you try getting a 26-year old Amiga game to work on an iMac and let me know how you get on.
But all was not lost. I got a message over the FaceBooks last week from said cousin, suggesting I play a game called Legend of Grimrock in Iron Man Mode. I considered this but ultimately responded "Why would I want to play the Gay Tales of Gay Rock?", or something equally mature.
"It's exactly like Dungeon Master," she replied.
And she wasn't wrong:
In Dungeon Master, you traverse across a grotty 2D dungeon, avoiding traps and fighting monsters with your party of four and progressing down through increasingly difficult levels.
In The Legend of Grimrock, you traverse across a grotty 2D dungeon, avoiding traps and fighting monsters with your party of four and progressing down through increasingly difficult levels.
In fact, I'm not going to call this game Legend of Grimrock from this point on:
That's not to say it's a rip-off. Far from it; Grimrock is a love-letter to Dungeon Master, and a damn well-written one at that. They put kisses on the end and everything.
I start the game, and because I'm (overly) confident in my dungeon crawling and/or walking abilities, I set it to hard difficulty. As per house rules, if the party dies even once, that's the end of my time playing Basically Dungeon Master Just With Better Graphics. My save files shall be instantly deleted, and this blog-a-thon will come to an abrupt end.
An airship carries our four ill-fated adventurers to the top of Mount Grimrock, where they'll be cast into the dungeon pit as a punishment for crimes unspecified. If they manage to escape from the serpentine labyrinth, they'll have earned their freedom as well as a royal pardon.
As the airship reaches the summit - and the start of our quest - I'm certain this is going to be a fruitful and long-running series in Iron Man Mode, assuming I keep my wits about me, focus on my surroundings and don't get distra...
... ooh the graphics are nice, aren't they?
Stay tuned for the first proper instalment of what's sure to be a long-running series!
