Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Holiday Delays and Other Creatures

Wow. The holidays really got me caught behind in game playing and recording. I like to record during the day, when the kids are at school. I like to be about two weeks ahead, in case of flu, toothache, or traitorous headset microphones. I was in good shape around the Thanksgiving holiday, but I fell somewhat behind in December. First, I was sick, then one of my kids were home sick. The fight with Dran Draggore in Eye of the Beholder II didn't help either. It took me almost all day to kill that suminumbatch. Anyway, I could record at night when everyone goes to sleep, but I find that I'm not as into the game when I do that. I always have this feeling in the back of my head that someone is listening to me, or someone's going to ask me to get a drink for them while I'm trying to kill some boss character. My Let's Plays seem a bit more bland to me when it's a night recording.


So I'm taking a week off. I hope that it will only be a week, but that should be sufficient. I don't like fly-by-LPs, where I record, edit, and upload all in one day. With the editing and the YouTube viewing afterwards (for glitch spotting and annotating when necessary), I just wasn't getting ahead at all.

Speaking of Eye of the Beholder, I had a great time playing those two games, but I'm also thrilled to be done with them, and get on to Dungeon Master. I won't be playing the third Eye of the Beholder game anytime soon. There isn't a remake of this game, which means no automap. Doing a Let's Play while mapping on graph paper is... ummm, stupid. I've played Dungeon Master before, and I remember most of it. It's a lot easier to lay waste to Lord Chaos than Dran Draggore.  ;)


As a new Let's Player, I'm trying to get a bunch of games under my belt. Adventure games are good for this, since they usually take under 10 hours to finish, even while playing blind. RPGs, however, tend to be a bit longer. Okay, a whole lot longer! If I was to start playing Baldur's Gate I and II now, I wouldn't be done for over a year and a half. Having three RPGs done (and twice that many adventure games)... well, it brings some satisfaction to me. It can also result in more subscribers. The more games you play, the more searches will come to your videos.

That said, to be a Let's Player, you really have to do it for your own reasons, and have fun with it. There's plenty who have done it for some kind of fame or something. Many of them quit doing LPs. As for me, the fringe benefits of comments and subscriptions are really nice, but they're just the icing on the cake. I'm playing games, gabbing while playing games, editing me gabbing while playing games, uploading my edits of me gabbing while playing games... and I'm having a blast. `Nuff said.


Friday, January 6, 2012

Let's Play Dungeon Master

Platform: Amiga
Released: 1987
Genre: RPG
Setting: Fantasy/Dungeon Crawler
Developer: FTL Games
Publisher: FTL Games
Version: 3.6

 Playlist:


First Video in the Series:

This is the grandaddy of them all! Dungeon Master is the first real-time 3D RPG. It became the highest-selling game for the Atari ST, and was rapidly ported to many other systems soon after. I'm playing the Amiga version, which I greatly prefer. This game scared the hell out of me when I was little. After being battle-hardened (horror-hardened?) by games like Silent Hill and Undying, I was able to handle the shrieking mummies a bit better. I later finished the game, ergo this is not a blind run like many of my other Let's Plays. I'll try to be informative and such, but there's no way I can fly around the dungeons like Elanarae can. ;)

[Total Game Time - 13:20:03]

Selected Comments From YouTube:

Yay! Finally an interesting LP of this game! :D
Keep up the good work!

karate trousers!! this game was so weird in some ways for a fantasy game. but the wizardry and M&M games were very strange at times too i reckon. o.0

it's amazing after all these years DM still has great gameplay mechanics - better than most of its rivals in a lot of ways. its only true gameplay weakness is the lack of a map IMO. =)

don't you know it's against dungeon regulations to go around dropping doors on peoples' heads willy-nilly. management will have to be informed! 

I'm so glad I found Your channel. I was watching Your playthrough of Dungeon Master for 2 days straight now... Thank You for bringing tears of nostalgia to my eyes. I remember I used to play this game when I was like 10. Only I had Amiga 1200 so my friends used to come to my home and try to figure out the riddles and puzzles with me. So much fun... And it scared the shit out of us too! 

I saw your name. I checked your channel. I picked a possibly interesting LP. And I was not disappointed. You have gained a new subscriber this day!

DM Is still good game. Played it fully with that Java remake, and i'm on my way in Chaos Strikes back.. now that's a challenge, And i like the idea of no map, you can teach your memory a lot that way :) On Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness on the other hand, now that needs some mapping at some places. I really like the old RPG games. 

You have a good taste in games...this is my favourite game of all time...I'll be watching this...


Links of Interest:

Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia (A Massive Website With Info on All Dungeon Master Games!)

Download the Amiga Version From Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia

Download the PC Version From Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia

Video Retrospective by Matt Barton on Matt Chat (This is an MP4. Right-Click to Save)

Review by Matt Barton on Armchair Arcade  

Dungeon Master on The CRPG Addict's Blog:  Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5   Part 6   Part 7   Part 8   Part 9   Part 10

Review in Dragon Magazine # 136 (August 1988) (Pages 76 - 79) Large File!

Review in Computer Gaming World, By Scorpia # 100 (Nov 1992) (Pages 94 - 96)

Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes Back Review in Amiga Action # 38 (Nov 1992)

Super Nintendo Dungeon Master Intro (none of the other versions had an intro)

Hilarious Video Review by In Retro  

Dungeon Master on Wikipedia

Dungeon Master on MobyGames