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[jwk5]

As you all know heaven is a monster-ridden dungeon maze filled with traps and treasure. Let us discuss the sacredness of the hallowed genre that is 1st person dungeon crawlers. What are your favorites? What are some interesting features that have been added or could be added? What features could you do with out? Do you enjoy the generally hardcore (and patience-rewarding) game play that most dungeon crawlers have? Do you like how Etrian Odyssey has you writing out your own maps in-game rather than on paper or auto-mapping (I personally love it)? What are some great indie 1st person dungeon crawlers (Cute Knight comes to mind)? What are some good ones in general?



Also, I just stumbled upon this information which clearly I am a little behind on but makes me cry tears of joy anyways.

Xseed is bringing Wizardry: Labyrinth of the Lost Souls overseas.
The ESRB leaked the news when they described the game’s wine collecting quest.

[jwk5]

For reference, nostalgia, etc.:





Noteworthy Games (off the top of my head): Might & Magic, Wizardry, Shin Megami Tensei, Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar, Arcana, Swords & Serpents, Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Dark Spire, Etrian Odyssey, Eye of the Beholder, Phantasy Star, Shining the Holy Ark, Shining in the Darkness, Class of Heroes

[DeadPixel]

Dungeon Hack is one of my favorites in this genre.  In a similar style is The Shadow of Yserbius and the Fates of Twinion though they were more of a graphical MUD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Hack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_Yserbius

[biomechanic]

I quite liked Stonekeep, despite all the game-breaking bugs.

[moi]

Dungeon Hack is one of my favorites in this genre.  In a similar style is The Shadow of Yserbius and the Fates of Twinion though they were more of a graphical MUD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Hack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_Yserbius

Yeah Dungeon Hack.
I don't actually like generated games, but I enjoyed this one

[s0]

My favorite 1st person dungeon crawlers are the King's Field series (particularly the 4th one). It's of a nontraditional entry in the genre, featuring a single character, freeform 3D movement (as opposed to grid-based) and real-time combat. It's pretty light on stats and inventory management too. The focus is on nonlinear exploration and dark, intense atmosphere.

[Tanner]

I like Ultima Underworld and Arx Fatalis. I want to try EO 3 sometime, but I have too many games to play as it is.

[Destral]

Ultima Underworld was amazing for its time. Eye of the Beholder was pretty good. Pool of Radiance was an interesting mix of first person exploration and tactical grid combat (which I wish someone would make a remake of), and probably had one of my favourite premises of any game from the days of yore. King's Field was also good, I remember my friend and I taking turns exploring that vast crazy world.

[XRA]

1st person dungeon crawlers have always been this kind of mysterious attraction all throughout gaming for me, they still are, yet I've never solidly gotten into them, maybe there is just never a point of clarity since you're crawling the dungeon.  But their draw for me is like passing by abandoned and off limit structures and stopping to stare at it, maybe venture in, wondering what you'll find, even though it is usually always empty. Or something like that. Also kind of like the first person space-tank games.

I guess I just want something more techy or modern.

are there any non-fantasy dungeon crawlers.  Does System Shock 1 kinda fall into that? I felt like Fragile on Wii was a bit of a dungeon crawler in some ways...

[bart_the_13th]

Ah, yes... Ultima Underworld. The first 3D FPS game I ever played in DOS age. Played both series(but cant finish the 2nd). It's amazing engine(is it polygon based or voxel based?)
The EoB series is quite good(The 2nd one is the best of the series) but I like Ishar2 better.

[PowRTocH]

This thread rules. 10/10, subscribed.

Anyway, I like IVAN 3D, Wizardry, SMT series, Dungeons of Daggorath, Akalabeth, Dungeons of the Unforgiven, Dungeon Master, Dungeon Hack, Dark Spire, EOB, Hired Guns, Bard's Tale (if that counts), and a few others. If you like Dungeon Hack you might like Dungeons of the Unforgiven if you like wackiness and horrible graphics. Sometimes I don't like these kinds of games just because it's SWIMMING THROUGH INTERFACES most of the time, or they force you to do stupid shit like the mapping in Etrian Odyssey (mapping for the first mission is just bad game design, fucking Atlus). In a lot of the older games it's more excusable, hence the love for Wizardry. But I mean there's a lot of variation on these things within the genre.

Anyone who's into the SSI games like Pool of Radiance etc. should check out Dungeon Craft, it's an engine/editor for making those kinds of games based on Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures. It's fun to play around with at least, it may not be full-featured enough to do anything good with.

I was working on a first person roguelike called Dungeon Bastard in GM, though I'm putting it on hold for now while I work on another project. As good as Dungeon Hack/Dungeons of the Unforgiven are, I didn't really fully see the potential of first person roguelikes until I started playing IVAN 3D, which is just IVAN in first person, meaning it has incredible depth and some surprisingly great visuals at times. And it's quite immersive: peering into shop windows to see what they contain, walking through a hallway that gets increasingly more bloody...


On another note, does anyone know of this one game... it's a first person dungeon crawler from the early 90s I think, but the cool feature was it had a splitscreen multiplayer mode. Other than that it was pretty generic. I saw a Youtube video a few months ago of some unofficial map pack made by a community member, but that's all I remember.


In general though I've had an infatuation with these types of games that developed alongside my love for old FPS games. I am most definitely going to make one of these before I die (providing that's around when I expect it to be), so if anyone gets a nice project going and needs an artist, let me know.

[s0]

are there any non-fantasy dungeon crawlers.  Does System Shock 1 kinda fall into that? I felt like Fragile on Wii was a bit of a dungeon crawler in some ways...

Megami Tensei (the main series, not the spinoffs).

[starsrift]

I still like Wizards & Warriors (the PC 1st person crawler one, not the SNES game), and Albion. Both are mildly obscure, I guess.

[JOBA]

I fail to see the appeal of the genre. Esp. in case of old-school ones.
Last game i tried was Etrian Odyssey and it was really, really bad, it has all traits of a typical JRPG - shallow combat, grinding, random encounters, minus the story.

You know, I'm usually baffled when i see people playing 40hrs+ JRPGs with tons and tons of repetitive, boring combat - going "how can you play this shit?", and they go on responding with something like "i play this for the story". But this stuff doesn't even have that! It offers absolutely no incentive or motivation to explore those generic looking dungeons.

I literally despise games with random encounters, it's probably the worst & most frustrating a gameplay mechanic from 80ties that has somehow survived to this day.

There is however, one notable exception:
Might and Magic 6/7/8 (7th being overall the most enjoyable, imo, probably my favorite RPG game of all)


1. There's a huge explorable world. There's nothing keeping you from exploring worlds & dungeons far, far away, where your entire party can be wiped out with single blow.
2. Game is hard, making treasure you find at the end feel much more revarding. Especially at the beginning of the game, when you're low on gold - it's fun to explore the world looking for chests & loot.
3. Combat can be switched from turnbased to realtime (can be played like semi-shooter) and is actually somewhat FUN.
4. Lots of various items / abilities
5. Although game looks like shit(it looked like outdated even when it came out), it is extremely immersive. 
While the dungeons are somewhat generic, they are varied enough and combined with various quest objectives are fun to explore and it doesn't feel like i'm pointlessly exploring some random dungeon (like in Etrian Odyssey and alike)

Unfortunately, there's probably not gonna be any more games like M&M 6/7/8. I really want to make a spiritual sequel to the game, it doesn't look like anyone's gonna do it :/.

[st33d]

Dungeon Master

[XRA]

oh! now that I think about it.. the most dungeon-crawler-like game I was really into was Terminator 2029.  It had the 4 direction movement limited to a grid, the combat was kind of real time but still felt more like strategy type stuff, so not exactly an FPS, more like an RPG.   
Pretty awesome game, vivid memories of intense moments.

[Phil A]

I'm also really enjoying this thread. I've been playing Dungeon Hack again recently and really enjoying it and it's inspired me to think about making something similar (my other projects are going nowhere).

I fail to see the appeal of the genre. Esp. in case of old-school ones.

I like RPGs where my own imagination fills in some of the details rather than having everything presented to me. This especially applies to dialogue. I don't get along with games where you seem to be repeatedly pressing 'A' for several minutes just to get through screens of boring text. But I guess others really enjoy that sort of thing.

Would anyone recommend Etrian Odyssey to someone who likes classic 1st person dungeon crawlers? I was wondering about picking it up as I'd like a portable game of this type; although I enjoy things like Mystery Dungeon, I'd prefer something in 1st person.

[s0]

Would anyone recommend Etrian Odyssey to someone who likes classic 1st person dungeon crawlers? I was wondering about picking it up as I'd like a portable game of this type; although I enjoy things like Mystery Dungeon, I'd prefer something in 1st person.

That or The Dark Spire if you're looking for something more faithful to the original Wizardry.

[moi]

Migh and magic 6 was just crazy huge and unfinisheable. MM7 was more reasonable, but lacked a bit the sense of epicness.

[JOBA]

Migh and magic 6 was just crazy huge and unfinisheable. MM7 was more reasonable, but lacked a bit the sense of epicness.

Agreed, some dungeons in might and magic 6 were waaay to big. Might and magic 7 mostly had reasonably sized dungeons.