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Happy Solstice to all!

No, but the original run was individually numbered. Glad to see time has mellowed attitudes. This came out at the height of the anti-bB hysteria, and got somewhat of a mixed reception at the time.

Thanks guys! Great show as always. The faerie is probably the easiest character for me to consistently win with. Familiarity with the game and tactics I guess.. There's also an unlockable 4th character. I was glad everybody got to see an example of a dark faerie stealing the mistletoe back from you. Winning without the owl is possible, but he is a big help. One thing I noticed, even though you were using him to kill the dark faeries, you'd still fight a monster you'd already hit instead of finishing it off with the owl. Hint for everybody - weigh the costs/risks of actions and what is an automatic hit and what isn't (several stats in the manual worth taking in).

New version in the first post. Right difficulty set to A has the potential to change up the enemy movement pattern, making it harder.

No. That sort of thing gives them no reason to fix the issues in their product. From what I understand regarding things like HMOVE behavior, it would take a massive rewrite on my part to get it to work with their crap emulator. Which they could potentially change from release to release. There's no point. It works fine on hardware and things that emulate the hardware correctly.

Thanks! Glad you like it. I've been around for a while, but I still feel like a newbie myself. No matter when you hop on the AA train, there are always others who got on earlier who were doing cool stuff before you. It's just nice to be part of it all. BTW - I don't keep up with the bB scene as much as I used to, but I had a look at Space Game the other day. Great job! I hope you keep making games.

Played this for the first time in years today. Noticed it was doing crazy stuff in Stella when I had it set to start up in a random state, so I have fixed that. New version in first post. For those who have never played, the speech sample is saying 'Prepare for battle' and yes, I know the scanline count jumps during the speech. It doesn't matter. There's nothing on the screen at the time. I may make a few more tweaks at some point.

Say I've played it 5 or 6 times already. Do I still need to reference the rule book and if so why? If it is to consult charts, then maybe they should be broken out into their own thing for easier access, or put on the back cover. I would try to keep it from being overly complex if possible. There are way more people who like the idea of AD&D type games than people who actually play them. Going hardcore limits your overall potential audience. Are there any tactical bits that could maybe be dumbed down for a 'Basic' & 'Advanced' game? Ideally, you'd want it to be playable by a 10-13 year old.

Again, Hasbro.... http://atariage.com/forums/topic/186219-dark-tower/?p=2347330

Hasbro still makes it and is known to be Cease & Desist happy. You would probably want to retheme it.

Many, many, many moons ago, AA offered colored shells for 2600 games. Clear, red, and I think blue. But Al only had a limited supply and when they were gone, they were gone.

Thanks! DaveD, as always, did an amazing job on the artwork. For those who attend Portland, be sure to check out the Dungeon II banner hanging at the AA booth. It features even more of Dave's mind blowing art!

Think of the world as a gigantic grid. You are at the center of a subsection of the grid, moving around on it in regular increments. This is the style of most of the oldest dungeon crawl type games. Modern RPG games are quite different and younger folks who didn't grow up with this sort of thing may not get it. This is an old school, turn based, RTFM game. Action RPG's such as Zelda, etc. are a completely different thing.

I really think you should reconsider the length of the contest. One month is not a lot, and you're going to wind up with a handful of very simple titles. To give you an idea, the only Atari project I've been involved in that sort of had a deadline was Stella's Stocking. I think we started on it in Sept and tried to have it ready to go by X-mas. It wound up drifting into Jan. And the bulk of the games on it were written in bB. Real life gets in the way. I would make it run to the end of the year if you can. Not fond of the fake label requirement. I'd rather see what creative thing they can come up with on their own. Anyway, I have no plans to participate in the contest, so take what I say with a grain of salt. I do hope your contest encourages new people to try writing their first game.

Soon.....

"Best label art" would also be a good category.

Correct. Except that isn't a dark faerie.

You sure that's not the regular faerie? Blonde?

Yes. It didn't go through the portal with you. It would have been found by the dark faeries and returned to the temple. Sometimes a door can swing both ways. Perhaps a different character might change your perspective.

Indeed. You misused a mystical item you don't fully understand and opened a portal to somewhere you shouldn't be and paid the price for it. However, something else quite significant happened when you opened the gateway. It carries over to future games (at least until you power off).

Yes. Based on the screenshot you died and started a new game. The key & owl are randomly placed every time. Maybe in the forest. Maybe in the cave. For the temple, try to conserve as many spell points (if a spell user) as possible before entering the temple. Fight instead of cast. The monsters in the forest do less damage if they hit you. Use the owl on dark faeries. Cast on the crow if you can. If they don't die, finish them off with the owl. Casting and the owl are automatic hits. Fighting is riskier. Do not try to run in the temple, that works best on the weaker monsters. Healing wastes SP, so don't do it unless you absolutely have to. IMO, the game is easiest to win with the faerie. The wizard may be the hardest. And if you get good at it, there is some extra content that can be unlocked.

No. The nature of this one is somewhat different than the first. The game is finished, so no more changes unless someone finds a bug. Just waiting for the release.

1 - 3. Thanks! 4. Yeah, it is quite hard. One or two wins out of five is not unusual for me. Unless the random placement of the walls and mistletoe goes in your favor, it is really hard to win if you don't have and utilize the owl. I do not suggest running from a Crow. 5. I don't have enough ROM for that, but in the end it really isn't needed. If you look at the stats in the manual you can do the mental math. If you've already hit or fire-balled an enemy and they aren't dead, any other hit should finish them off. That's where the owl come in handy.

I still play TSR's Dungeon! with my son on a regular basis. Would love to see something new along those lines. I wish you luck! I haven't used these guys, so I can't say what kind of work they do, but I did look into what it would cost to create boardgame components at one time. The nice thing about this site is they list prices : https://www.boardgamesmaker.com/low-price-for-bulk.aspx

There are some real life things delaying a physical release at the moment, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's been one thing bothering me about things as they were, but I just couldn't scrounge up enough free space to change it. Stepping away for a bit, I was able to look at it with fresh eyes and free up a few more bytes. So there's been a tweak to the "extra content" that makes it harder and make more logical sense within the overall narrative. Also, one very minor color tweak to the PAL60 version. Release candidate 9 in the first post.