Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Dungeon Crawl Novelties

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is a great game, even if it were frozen in time, but development continues. Dungeon Crawl of 2010 is not the Dungeon Crawl of 2011. A player who bores of it in one year can resume playing with the latest version and discover new and interesting features, courtesy of the gifted, generous and devious dev team.

Such was the case for me, when I discovered a brand new path in the beta version .8 of DCSS, Zot Defense. Instead of attempting to capture the Orb of Zot, the player already has it and must defend it against hordes of invading reactionaries monsters, a scenario reminiscent of Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper*. I have not won yet, but am working on it. Beware the blitz!

At this stage of development, ZD appears hostile to my favorite race, vegetarian Spriggans. Therefore, my favorite race/class/religion for ZD at this time is a Naga Wizard (the extra MP, I find, are really needed) worshiping Nemelex Xobeh, a divine vacuum useful for tidying up a dungeon littered with detritus. His cards come in handy as cost-free alternatives to spellcasting. I have experimented with Naga Necromancers worshiping Kikubaaqudgha with some success as well. Large abominations make decent, permanent Orb guardians, although powerful monsters can gobble them up like popcorn. Care must be taken that undead servants don't trigger traps. Another combo I've found to be very successful is Deep Dwarf Artificer worshiping Nemelex Xobeh. (In my opinion, NX is the best choice for ZD, for aesthetic reasons alone.)

ZD has reinvigorated my interest in the game. I've even wrapped my regen.bat around it, because I play nothing but ZD nowadays. Until I win, that is. Then I may investigate the new branches in Sprint. Version .8 has five branches!

* Does anyone remember that fine game, beloved by critics, the third sequel of which was terminated by Electronic Arts? Dungeon Keeper 2 works with Windows 2000 and XP with some tinkering. It is a rewarding game for those willing to put up with several annoyance factors, such as copy protection and technical problems. A copy can be obtained for $5 or so via Ebay or Amazon, and upgrades and a copy protection removal program downloaded from various sites.
by igor 04:20 4 replies by igor 09:32 0 comments

2 comments:

Jason said...

I actually loved that game. I even went so far to purchase the knock offs on steam right now. Don't bother they don't even come close.

igor said...

I played DK 2 all night long many a night. It was one of my all-time favorites. Even now I am tempted to buy a copy off Amazon or Ebay and reinstall, but fear I'd run into incompatibility issues regarding the sound interface, an old problem with the game. It just seems like too much work to get the game functioning on a modern system, and I wouldn't know where to find a virus-free copy protection removal hack. One of the great tragedies of gaming is that Electronic Arts terminated the Dungeon Keeper franchise.

techlorebyigor is my personal journal for ideas & opinions