Dungeon Lords Preview

The Game, Con't

Dungeon Lords is played from a third-person perspective, though you can rotate the camera around your character and look up and down by moving the mouse backward or forward. This helps quite a bit as it provides a larger field of view than most of the games that are played in first person. You'll need that extra vision to watch for enemies, trust me!

Combat

Combat is a very integral part of Dungeon Lords. It isn't called an "RPG-Fighter" for nothing! However, combat is handled a bit differently in Dungeon Lords than in your average fantasy RPG. There are several different types of swings you can make in Dungeon Lords, depending on which movement key you're holding down when you click the left mouse button. Thrusts, overhead swings, and sweeping swings from the right or the left are all available to you. You'll also need to make sure you swing where your enemies are standing in order to have a chance to do any damage to them. No standing still and clicking until the bad guys are dead here!

You can also cast spells in combat, if you have any ready. Because there are no character classes in Dungeon Lords, every character has the chance to learn how to do anything! This is both a blessing and a curse, because you won't master anything if you try to master everything. Some Skills are not available to learn until you've achieved a particular rank in a different Skill. For example; when I started the game I could only take the Light Weapons Skill. The Medium Weapons skill was not available to me until I had reached the third Rank in Light Weapons. The same held true for getting the chance to learn Heavy Weapons, I had the reach the third Rank in Medium Weapons first. It works this way for several other Skills, as well.

Adventuring

As you make your way through Dungeon Lords, you will have the chance to pick up all kinds of new items and cash. One of the things I have noticed is that, unlike any other game I've played before, Dungeon Lords will automatically toss an item for you if you already have one in your inventory. That means your inventory will not become clogged with 50 Rusted Daggers or anything like that. I've also noticed that Potions stack automatically, which is a big help! There are several different sections in your inventory and items you find or buy are automatically sorted into the correct section for you. There are several other games where this would have come in handy over the years and I'm glad someone has finally decided to implement it!

One of the coolest features I have run across is how trapped and locked chests have been handled. This is, without question, the best implementation of trap disarming and lock picking I have ever seen! Basically, the trap(s) and lock(s) are represented by a single bar with multiple icons in a kind progress bar arrangement. The parts that need disarming and picking are shown below this bar as individual icons. In order to successfully open the chest, you have to click on the individual icons in the order that they are covered by the progress bar as the progress bar is moving from left to right. Where your skill as a Thief comes into play is that the better you are, the slower the progress bar moves, giving you more time to sort out the order in which you need to click on the icons. I had a lot of traps blow up in my face before I figured this out, trust me!

Select a Page Page 1: Introduction Page 2: The Game, Con't Page 3: Conclusion