DUNGEON, THE MAKING, THE STORY
BY ED T. TOTON III
1990

NOTE- TO PRINT THIS ON THE PRINTER (if you have one)
TYPE: "COPY DUNGEON.DOC PRN:"
(without the quotes)

Genesis

Welcome to dungeon. Dungeon started out being an attempt to create a
game following in the footsteps of Dungeons And Dragons. At the time, I
didn't know terribly much about programming. Dungeon was made origionally
in basic in December of 1988. I had been in a basic programming class for
several months at that point. One day I got my hands on Quickbasic 4.5.
With this I was able to turn it into executable format (.EXE suffix). I
had a duece of a time trying to make the thing save your game, which isn't
so hard anymore. The program code was 283 typed lines. At the time I wrote
this file, there were 3 more dungeon games in existance. At the time, their
code sizes were as follows:
Dungeon 283 lines
Dungeon2 1410 lines \
Dungeon3 1644 lines |- - - all of these were made with Quickbasic 4.5
Dungeon4 1545 lines /

In August of 1990, I got the idea to continue the dungeon saga and made
Dungeon2. Here I decided to make a 3-D layout (Dungeon-1 was linear). I would
have in Dungeon-1 except for the fact that I didn't know how. So here in
Dungeon2 I made a dungeon that would put a multiplyer on the monsters that
was equal to the floor number. Thus a level 10 monster had 10 times the
hit points and strength of a level 1 monster and so on. The dungeon was
infinitely deep, monsters being generated depending on how deep you were.
But the game had it's flaws. For one thing, it didn't matter where on a
floor you were, except in the case of sink-holes. Thus you could walk back
and forth between 2 rooms and find treasures and monsters through eternity.
The sink holes had a pattern to where they could be. And lastly, the stairs
were always in the center of the floor (at 5,5). This meant it was very easy
to get very bored with the game very quikly. So in Dungeon3, that changed.
I started Dungeon3 the day I finished Dungeon2. Here I got the idea of using
a 3-dimensional array to remember what was in each room. This allowed for
maps, consistancy, etc. It could also save all of the data when you saved
your game. The only drawback was that it could no-longer be infinitely deep.
So I made it 21 floors total (floor 0 plus 20 more). I then made Dungeon4
a day after I finished Dungeon3. It was basically the same except I went
back to the single character idea (which I will discuss later). After
that I wrote this. In a week and a half I basically completed all 3 new
Dungeon games where Dungeon-1 took weeks! The main reasons for the time
differential are that these were made in the summer, and that I didn't have
to do research on all the commands I needed.
Then of course there were the characters. In Dungeon-1, there was 1
character. There were 8 spells and 3 character classes. Also there were
less than a dozen monster types. When I made Dungeon2, I got the idea to
use more than 1 character. So I set it up to use 4. I thought it to be a
good round number. I also made 6 character classes and 10 spells or so plus
a total of about 40 monster types. When I made Dungeon3, I felt I had to
improve on the design thus adding a fifth character to the team. I also
increased the character class choices to 10 (plus 2 more that you might
get later in the game) and made a total of 18 spells with 50 monster types.
When I got to Dungeon4, I wanted to go back to the single character idea.
This would allow me to make the game more detailed by not being bogged down
by five guys. As you can see in my chart above, even with all I added,
Dungeon4 is still smaller than Dungeon3 in size. As I was saying with detail,
I was able to add constitution, 2 more character classes, race choices,
specific weapons, and so on. This allowed a very broad range of characters.
I wanted to keep the game as similar to Dungeon3 as possible so as to make
it believable that they happened in the same world, but I didn't let it
stop me from making improvements and adjustments. I did, however, end up
taking out 2 spells. Resurrection spells are rather useless when you are
all alone in the dungeon.

The Story

The story is fairly basic, when I made the first one, I figured I needed
some explanation for why you were there, so I said the demon was there and
you needed to get the idol back. Then it developed into this. So here's the
story....

Once, long long ago, the old world had undergone a great war of the gods.
Good fought evil, good fought the chaos realm, chaos and evil fought, the
Gods even fought the people of the old world. (gods are powerless without
followers) When this was over, The age of rebuilding began. The elves,
gnomes, and humans started helping one another, the other races unknown
to them. But finally all of the races converged and formed the northern
alliance. All the forces that worshipped the evil gods moved to the south.
But this was not to last, eventually all the old world broke down into war.
Each race blamed each other race for the war of the gods, as well as the war
they now faced. The good gods begged them to stop but they wouldn't listen.
Now weakened by the loss of good followers, the good gods were unable to keep
as close an eye on the world as before. Evil surrounded the land and many
demons were unleashed. With this, the good races put aside there differences
and banded together.
One Demon in particular stood out. His name, known only by few, was
Rk'forzthk. He led many of the lesser demons and ravaged the land. However,
the good gods were regaining their strength from the rebonding of the races
and thus banished most of the evil forces from the old world. But Rk'forzthk
went unnoticed. He stayed dormant until he was sure that he was forgotten,
saving and building up his powers as he waited.
He waited, and waited. He waited about 2 centuries before emerging. Then
finally he was free. One fateful night, he broke into the temple of the
gods and stole the sacred idol, which for years acted as a storehouse of
magical energy, to be used in time of need. But Rk'forzthk wanted it for
himself. He then retreated to a dungeon that he had created towards the end
of the war. He summoned minions to protect it and settled into the deepest
recess of the dungeon.
When the people of the old world realized this, they were infuriated! The
races once again officially named themselves the northern alliance and tried
to retrieve the sacred idol. But this was not an easy task, after all, where
was it?
Many years passed before it's location was discovered. Many brave souls
attempted to bring it back, all failed. Many had even been given potions,
the god-created elixir of life. But finally, one day, a brave young fool
entered the dungeon. By making use of the potions left behind by all the
other adventurers before him, he was able to make his way through the dungeon
and destroy the demon! But what no one realized is that demons cannot be
destroyed, only sent back to their origional plane of existance.
So with the idol returned, all was good and peace was restored. But the
demon sat waiting, growing stronger, growing angrier and angrier, waiting
for a day when he would be able to return.
And return he did. A little over a decade later, He came back.
Unfortunately for him, the idol was destroyed in a fire after it's power
was used to save a starving city from destruction. He then had to find
another way to get his revenge. He planned and schemed for a few days. Then
the answer was clear.
The sacred chalice! It was used to cure plague victims, blindness, cancer,
and other such annoying ailments. Without this, the old world would break
down into disease! This was the perfect revenge! And again, he returned to
the dungeon, but he improved the design a bit.
Soon, the people of the old world located the dungeon. They figured the
location of the old dungeon was a good place to start looking and the
demon was so blinded by vengeance that he didn't think to put it elsewhere.
Many brave souls again tried to retrieve the sacred item, however our hero
from the last one was now to old to try something like this again and expect
to survive. Since the first time, new spells had been discovered. And again,
the dungeon was scattered with items left behind by the adventurers as they
fell in combat.
Finally, one day, a domineering group of four young dudes entered the
dungeon. By making use of the central spiral stairs, they easily made it past
most of the demon's evil servants. They then emerged victoriously! The
sacred chalice was returned to it's proper location. But this only made the
demon more angry.
Again Rk'forzthk lay in wait. This time it took him half a century to
return, long after all the old heroes had passed on to the next world. The
demon was known only as a legend, a myth, a story with no proof. No one was
sure whether it happened or not. But now they had their proof. The demon
came and destroyed the capital city of the northern alliance and tortured
all of it's occupants to a slow and painful death. And to make matters worse,
he destroyed the temple that was in the city. But this time the good gods
were very powerful and were not pleased. They tracked the demon until he was
a good distance from civilization and then they created a volcano on the very
spot on which he stood.
Again he had to wait. This time he realized that if he were to succeed, he
must not do anything so profound and obvious, destroying cities was out of
the question. But what could he do? The chalice was sure to be protected now,
and the idol was destroyed. What's a demon to do? He decided to look around
a bit and decide then, when next he could return.
And again he did return. This time it took him just inside a decade. This
time he took to stealth. He took on the form of an elven monk. He made his
way through all the major towns and cities, including the capital. For a time
things looked grim, but then, one day, he came across the sacred scepter.
He secretly left with it. He slipped away into the night. This time he was
sure to make his dungeon in a different spot, and not to make a stairway
leading directly to his floor. In fact he would have done away with the
stairs all together except he needed a way for he and his minions to get
around.
But what he didn't count on was the sacred oracle. The oracle was a crystal
statue through which the gods would talk. it also could show events of
importance if it chose to do so. And it did. It showed the leaders of the
northern alliance what had happened. at once they tried to locate anyone
who would dare go on this fateful journey. Again many tried and failed, and
again, one group in particular, a group of five young men, a wizard, a
cleric, a knight, a warrior, and a paladin, entered the dungeon and kicked
butt. And again, as always, it was through the use of objects left by their
predecessors. And as always, the demon went into yet another waiting period.
But now, the lord of darkness, the prince of evil, Asmodeus, Lucifer, The
big cheese, The head honcho, Satan, Devlin, The devil, The big bad wolf, or
whatever you want to call him, was displeased with Rk'forzthk. After all
these years he has had nothing but failures. Due to this set back, it was
quite some time before he got a chance to come back.
During this time, The people of the old world were able to make some great
progress, expanding their realm. But war again broke out. With the apparent
final destruction of the demon, there wasn't as much of an incentive anymore
for the races of good to stick together. But this was not the end.
The war raged on for 5 years, then it stopped suddenly. Bands of monks
were able to preach the words of the gods and restore peace once again. But
the populations dwindled, the realm cut short to it's size when it first
became the northern alliance. The old world would have to rebuild. And that
it did. But not in time for the last coming of the demon.
Rk'forzthk was not pleased with the sacred oracle, he wanted it dstroyed.
First he sent his minions to do it, but when they could not, he went in and
took it himself. He again built a dungeon exactly like his previous one, but
in a different location. There he tried every known form of destruction to
obliterate the oracle. But nothing worked. With this, he decided to simply
remain in the dungeon with it and discover how it worked. Perhaps if he could
make an evil one or turn this one evil, the master might be pleased. So that
he did. He worked and worked.
As time went on, more and more adventurers came and fell. But wait! How did
they find the dungeon so quickly? Something's wrong! The demon went into a
panic. As he was cought off guard, a single brave person was able to defeat
him. How humiliating! That hadn't been done since he had first taken the
idol! But what had happened? He later discovered that the oracle acted as a
homing beacon and thus the monks were able to track down the location of the
dungeon rather quickly.
Now the master was infuriated! Rk'forzthk was not allowed to return. But
this may not necessarily stop him. Our story has now caught up with the
present time. The northern alliance has come back together, and the demon's
minions keep coming and causing trouble, but it's nothing the alliance can't
handle. So now, we can only hope and pray that the demon shall never return.
With this I leave you, to ponder and dream. Will he return? We shall see.
Yes, we shall see, indeed... we shall see.


DUNGEON, THE MAKING, THE STORY
BY ED T. TOTON III
AUG 1990