DungeonLords
By Brian Bradley
ANALOG Computing, 67 (May 1988): 10-13,48-51. Print.


Your name is Jon Russel. You're a freelance soldier, not to mention a rogue and 
a scoundrel to boot. That's okay, though, your friends are the same way. So 
what are you doing here, sweat dripping from your brow, disrupter pistol at the 
ready? Well, it seems that during your travels through Space-time with your 
friends, you have discovered the world of the "DungeonLords." Furthermore, 
while you were hunting a Bantha for dinner, your friends were taken prisoner by 
the DungeonLords and locked away in the dungeons. So what does a true, blue-
blooded freelance rogue like yourself do? What else can do you? Traveling 
through Space-time by yourself can be lonely. So here you are and before you 
lie the dungeons: evil, dank and smelly. Do you have your pistol ready?


Typing It In

Listing 1 is the BASIC data used to create DungeonLords. You should refer to 
the M/L Editor article for typing instructions.


How To Play

In DungeonLords, each dungeon is created randomly so that you should never 
encounter the same dungeon twice. The object is to rescue as many of the 
prisoners as possible. Therefore you will want to get to the next level as 
quickly as possible. To do this, find all the keys around the maze and use them 
to unlock the doors guarding the exit. Remember, only one key can be carried at 
a time.

Every fourth level is the Prison level. To exit this level, you must first 
rescue the prisoner by touching him. When this feat is accomplished, the exit 
will appear at the other end of the maze.

There are three types of monsters: snakes, birds and horned demons. Killing any 
one of these will get you one point. Exiting a dungeon gives you 1,000 points, 
as does rescuing a prisoner. You may also collect 100 points for each treasure 
collected around the maze. Every 10,000 points gives you an extra life. The 
score is displayed at the bottom of the screen. To the right of the score is 
the level, and to the left are the remaining lives.

Monsters do not shoot, but are deadly to the touch. Each monster will enter the 
maze via a transporter. These are glowing doorways scattered around the maze. 
However, monsters will only appear in a transporter when it is glowing red. 
When it is pulsating blue, it is fairly safe to be around. Once the monsters 
enter the maze they will wander around the corridors in search of you. If one 
enters the same corridor you are in and he doesn't have his back to you, he 
will certainly spot you. If this happens, the monster that sees you will raise 
an inaudible alarm telling his comrades where you are. Then all of his friends 
will converge upon the spot you were seen last. Remember, it's not where you 
are, but where you were seen last! Use this to your advantage. If you wish to 
lure the monsters away from an area, allow one of them to see you and follow 
you away from that area; then kill all of the monsters that saw you and escape. 
The remaining monsters will rush to where they heard you were last. When they 
discover that you are no longer there, they will start searching for you 
starting from that point. Hopefully by that time, you will have made it to 
where you were going.

To control your on-screen character, use a joystick in Port 1. Simply push this 
joystick in the desired direction, and Jon Russel will move that way. He will 
continue moving in that direction until he runs into something, or you change 
direction. To shoot you have an option; you can use the same joystick for 
movement as for shooting. To do this, push the fire button down (keep it down), 
and push the joystick in the direction that you wish to fire. Remember, though, 
when the button is pressed the joystick controls the firing direction not the 
movement. The player will continue moving in the direction that he was moving 
in before the button was pressed. This allows you to move in one direction and 
fire in another. The alternative for firing is to use the joystick in Port 1 
for movement and the joystick in Port 2 for firing. If you do this, you do not 
need to push the fire button on the second joystick. Simply push it in whatever 
direction, and that will be the direction in which you are shooting. The pistol 
that you are using is a unifield disrupter pistol that works on the principle 
of a concentrated disruption in four-space. This means that you can only have 
one shot in the air at a time, which leaves you defenseless until the 
disruption hits something. Therefore, shorter corridors are safer than longer 
ones, because you can shoot faster.

To make play easier, you can have a friend join you. One person can handle 
movement on the first joystick, and the other can take control of firing on the 
second joystick.

Okay, are we all ready to enter the dungeons? Good! Just press Start, and we 
are off!	[Game LISTing on page 48]