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-
- DDST
- ====
-
- Specification: All ST's and STE's - High or Medium resolution
- Author: Bill Miller
- Software type: Shareware $10
-
- This little gem is a role playing adventure game for one player. You
- have been sumoned to the land of Eriador to gain experience and the
- necessary artifacts needed to defeat the Evil Black Lord Asmodeus.
-
- When the game is loaded, the first thing that you must do is to choose
- your character. If you opt to make a new one then you will be issued
- with a list of attributes which you can either accept or reject.
-
- Once you have decided on a satisfactory character you are presented
- with the Character Menu where the following options are available to
- you:
-
- 1. MAIN MENU - go to the main game menu.
-
- 2. YOUR PROFILE - This will tell you your name, title, level,
- armour class, gold peices, experience points, your attributes
- and a list of your skills. You will also be shown what armour
- and weapons you have plus any items and potions that you are
- carrying.
-
- 3. GAME INSTRUCTIONS - Gives you loads of information on how
- to play the game.
-
- 4. WHAT'S GOING ON - This gives you the background information
- to your quest.
-
- 5. DELETE CHARACTER - Delete a character from disk.
-
- Once you have read all the information that there is then you are
- ready to progress to the Main Menu which gives you the following
- options:
-
- 1. CHARACTER MENU
-
- 2. HALL OF CHAMPIONS - A list of the top few players.
-
- 3. LORDS KEEP - The great players who have suceeded in the
- quest.
-
- 4. SAVE GAME
-
- 5. RESTORE GAME
-
- 6. QUIT
-
- [RETURN] To Adventure
-
- Pressing Return for the first time will send you to the great Land of
- Eriador. All the graphics in the game are made up of keyboard symbols
- but it is actually quite easy to see. This is especially so in colour
- because you have blue sea, green forest, white mountains and so on and
- although the graphics are nothing to be gaped at, they are functional
- which is more than can be said for other role playing games such as
- Hack! The movement through the land is nice and easy - just use the
- cursor keys. In the map the most important thing first of all is the
- towns of which there are seven. At each towm you have the following
- options:
-
- 1. VISIT INN - Here you have a further three options:
-
- 1. EAT AND BED FOR THE NIGHT - restores you to full
- strength. Say no until he offers you a low price of
- just a few gold peices.
-
- 2. TAKE A JOB - this is a good way of making money to
- start with. The trick is to keep saying no until the
- bloke offers you 14-16 gold peices for a days work.
- Then you are offered to stay on - just hold down the
- 'y' key for a while as the money very quickly clock
- up!
-
- 3. CASINO - This is where the real money can be made -
- or lost! You have to gamble any amount and then a dice
- is rolled by your and the bloke in the casino - if you
- win then you get twice what you gambled and if you
- lose then you lose whatever you gambled. This is pure
- luck and there is no sure fire way to beat it.
-
- 2. BLACK SMITH - Here you may choose to buy weapons and
- armour. The more money that you have the better quality stuff
- that you can get. It is worth getting the best.
-
- 3. MARKET PLACE - It is here where you can buy and sell loads
- of objects. When you get into the game you will find various
- swords which you have sell for very high prices here.
-
- 4. BANK - Here you can deposit or withdraw money.
-
- 5. ORACLE - At each town the oracle will give you a scroll
- which is n a foreign language. Once you have received it then
- the option changes to SCROLL TRANSLATION and you must find a
- town which understands the language and will translate it for
- you - though this will cost money. There are seven scrolls to
- get and read them carefully because they will help you.
-
- 6. READ SCROLLS - Its advisable to read the translated ones
- and the others won't help you much.
-
- 7. MAIN MENU
-
- [RETURN] To Leave Town
-
- Okay, back to the game then - what else is out there? Well there are
- four ruins which you can explore and indeed must explore if you wish
- to suceed in the game. When you go to one you are asked if you wish to
- enter and if you do then you will be presented with a black screen
- with a tiny proportion of the dungeon visible where you are. As you
- move around the visible parts more of the dungeon will be uncovered.
- However, there are hidden traps which can harm you and there are also
- secret passageways which can only be found if you try to move onto
- them.
-
- Another nasty element of the dungeon is the hundreds of monsters
- lurking within - these are all over the land of Eriador but at least
- when outside of a dungeon you can go to a town and restore your
- strength after a fight which is something that you can't do in here.
- It's not all bad though. There is a lot of treasure to be found in the
- dungeons which conists of money, healing potions which will restore
- you to full strength and sometimes other objects including artifacts.
-
- There are two ways of getting involved in a fight with the monsters -
- the first and most common is when they spring on you by surprise. The
- second is if you hear them in the distance then you can choose to
- fight and you then have the advantage because you have the first
- hit.There can be several at a time but luckily you only have to fight
- one at a time. You have two options at each turn - to use your weapon
- and to run like hell. You can see both your hit points and your
- opponents. If you have ten and he has 50 then the latter option would
- be wiser, however, you don't always make it. It's for this reason that
- I would advise you to save the game regularly, particularly when in
- the dungeons.
-
- Assuming you manage to defeat the monsters, you will get gold peices,
- experience points and sometime other items. As your experience grows
- you will occasionally be promoted to a higher rank - you start of as a
- twit! When this happens your maximum strength goes up. You start off
- with a maximum strength of 19 and it can go way over 200 which can
- help you fight the more dangerous monsters because you can sustain
- more hits and so can fight for longer. The worse the monster the
- better the reward.
-
- If your hit points get low then hit 'P' for potion and your strength
- will be restored. If you find a better weapon than you already have
- then pressing 'I' will send you to the items menu where you can drop
- any item or change weapons or armour.
-
- Also, pressing 'M' will send you back to the main menu so you can save
- the game.
-
- Conclusion:
-
- This gave is quite involved as you can see by the length of this
- review but as you play it you will learn a lot more, for instance, the
- characteristics of various monsters - the ones that hit hard, the ones
- are little weeds and easy to beat, the ones that give you high rewards
- etc.
-
- DDST was supplied for review by New Age PDL, disc GAME 39. It comes
- with the Eamon Fantasy Role Playing kit and four other role playing
- adventures to enable you to write your own games with GFA Basic.
-
- KORNFLAKE
-
-