Dungeon Master cover art

Game entry

Dungeon Master

1987 · Action RPG · DOS, Super Nintendo, Atari ST, Amiga, Apple IIGS, Sharp X68000, FM Towns · Psygnosis

Dungeon Master is listed in the GameForever catalogue but not in the duel pool: this game is never offered for a vote, its 1,500 points are never at stake and it does not appear in the world ranking. Its entry and its debate stay open.

World rank

ELO score

1,500

Wins

Duels played

0

The duel pool gathers the best-known titles of the catalogue, cover included, so that every match-up stays meaningful. It is recalculated with every catalogue update: this game may join it later. How a game enters the duels →

About Dungeon Master

Dungeon Master established several new standards for role playing and computer games in general. Dungeon Master was a realtime game instead of the traditional turn-based approach that was prevalent until then. Instead of using text-based commands to interact with the environment, players directly manipulated objects and the environment by clicking the mouse in the enlarged first-person view.

Abstract Dungeons and Dragons style experience points and levels were eschewed in favor of a system where the characters' skills were improved directly via using them. It also introduced some novel control methods including the spell casting system, which involved learning sequences of runes which represented the form and function of a spell's effect. For example, a fireball spell was created by mixing the fire symbol with the wing symbol. This kind of attention to detail and focus on the user interface was typical of the game and helped create an often captivating sense of craft and ingenuity. Other factors in immersiveness were the then-revolutionary use of sound effects to indicate when a creature was nearby, and (primitive) dynamic lighting.

ELO progression

This game does not take part in duels: its score never moves, so there is no history to plot.

Head-to-head

As this game is never offered in duels, it has no match-up to its name.

In the same genre

All Action RPG games →
  1. 4 Fallout: New Vegas2010 · Action RPG 1,948
  2. 6 Bloodborne2015 · Action RPG 1,935
  3. 8 Mass Effect 22010 · Action RPG 1,930
  4. 16 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic2003 · Action RPG 1,921
  5. 23 Diablo II2000 · Action RPG 1,900

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